One quick and easy way to boost your credit union’s broadcast marketing results

Wait.

You’re probably thinking, “There’s no way you can be writing about the ways credit unions can boost their broadcast marketing efforts.”

Believe it.

“But, don’t you only focus on digital marketing?”

Yes. That is true.

And we will continue to focus our efforts at CU Grow on helping credit unions use digital marketing to tell stories that sell because digital is such a rapidly changing
environment that it requires a deep level of expertise.

Here’s another way to think about it.

General marketing firms, also known as full service or branding firms, are more like generalist doctors. They may know a little about a lot but they lack deep expertise in critical areas. For example, your General Practitioner would refer you to a cardiologist if he found a potential issue with your heart.

We believe the same kind of expertise model is needed for credit union marketing.

Specifically for credit union digital marketing.

Through our digital marketing assessments, we are finding that credit unions and full service marketing firms could use some guidance in a humanized digital economy.

Let me be clear here.

There is no one to blame for this and I am not pointing fingers at anyone. Even as an expert and teacher, I will always be the student in certain situations.

Today, I only want to provide a recommendation that could benefit both credit unions and full service marketing firms alike.

And if you are a general, full service marketing firm, this one idea could make your firm look like a rock star to the credit unions you work with.

The Number One Flaw of Broadcast Marketing

I have written about the challenges confronting credit unions as they have built business models around branches and broadcast marketing. From my perspective, it does not look like either will be going away by the end of the year.

A common pattern we are discovering in our digital marketing assessments of credit unions is that the calls to action (CTA) found in broadcast channels, such as direct mail, TV and radio spots, are wrong.

The problem from our perspective is that these CTAs direct consumers to a credit union’s home page. This is a major friction point for credit unions looking to increase conversions for loans and new accounts.

CTAs should NOT direct consumers to your credit union’s home page. Because to be blunt, your homepage has not been optimized for conversions.

Here’s a Real World Exercise to Try

Let’s assume your credit union is running a summer home equity loan promotion. You are running TV, radio, direct mail and even email messages in your market. Currently, all of these channels have CTAs directing a consumer to “visit yourlocalcu.com to apply.”

Now take a moment and put yourself into the shoes of a consumer. In this role, ask yourself the following questions:

What does this journey look like?
How many clicks must I take to get to where I need to go next?
Would I even apply for a loan on the first visit?
What other pieces of information would be helpful in making a decision
to apply?
How long does this entire process take?
If I’m not ready to apply, how would I be reminded down the road?

Most likely, you just tried walking through these steps on your desktop computer.

Now do the same exercise but this time, make sure you use your mobile device. What does the journey look like now? Is your mobile site optimized for a current member or a prospective consumer looking to convert?

Once you have completed this exercise, get your peers at your credit union to do the same thing and compare notes. Maybe even bring in a few members and consumers from your community and have them go through the steps above.

The goal is to find out where the friction is in the consumer journey and figure out ways to eliminate it.

Make Journey Mapping a Part of Every Marketing Campaign

One way to eliminate consumer journey friction is to simply make journey mapping a part of every marketing campaign. To get you started, here are seven key steps that make up the digital journey.

I can share that from our findings and recommendations, we have saved credit unions hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted media buys along with boosting conversions for loans and new account.

All by making consumer journey mapping a part of the process.

Many of the credit unions we consult with also work with generalist or full service marketing firms who are assisting with the execution of the these marketing campaigns.

Instead of making the call to action “visit yourlocalcu.com to apply”, we recommend you try one of the following:

1. A direct URL to a specific page like “visit yourlocalcu.com/heloc to apply.”

2. A campaign specific URL like “visit summerheloc.com to apply.” This campaign URL could be setup to point to a subpage on your website.

However, there is a better solution than that.

Love Your Landing Pages and They Will Love You

Instead of directing consumers to a subpage on your website, consider driving traffic to landing pages that can be optimized for conversions. Landing pages can be enhanced further with ongoing A/B testing.

While not wanting to get too technical, there are ways to get even more insight into your marketing campaign’s success as you begin to tie revenue attribution back to various broadcast marketing channels by using URLs like:

Visit summerheloc.com/TV
Visit summerheloc.com/radio
Visit summerheloc.com/DM

Please note that not all consumers will use the full path as noted above when typing in a URL. At a minimum, this should at least give you some idea of the traffic each one of these broadcast channels is driving.

Assuming you are using a landing page, you could even see which third party sites, like your corporate website or other online property you may be advertising on, are driving traffic and conversion.

Finally, at an advanced level, you can begin to understand how much revenue, based upon conversions, these broadcast channels are generating.

When putting these recommendations into practice, your credit union or full service marketing agency can use this data to plan media buys for future campaigns while increasing conversions and overall marketing success.

And that’s something we would all like to do.

James Robert Lay

James Robert Lay

JAMES ROBERT LAY is one of the world’s leading digital marketing authors, speakers, and advisors for financial brands. As the founder and CEO of the Digital Growth Institute, he ... Web: https://www.digitalgrowth.com Details