Credit unions pouring more money into marketing budgets
For many credit unions the need to keep growing demands a serious investment in marketing. Facing increasing competition, federal records show many institutions stoking their growth engines.
Credit unions are growing more aggressive with their marketing. A cross section of the industry studied by The Financial Brand found that many institutions upped their investment in the period between 2015 and 2018.
As more and more credit unions pursue broader markets, they inevitably bump up against greater competition. So it isn’t surprising that they find it useful to allocate more to marketing to make their presence felt not only versus traditional banks and other credit unions, but against the growing encroachment of fintech competitors.
Consider Jovia Financial Credit Union. Originally serving a tight member group — teachers of a single school district — the institution now serves consumers in the New York City suburb of Long Island, one of the most competitive markets for financial services in the country.
In our study of credit union marketing spending, we found that Jovia’s marketing budget saw annual year-over-year growth of 20.1% and that, at the end of 2018, it was spending 0.22% of assets on marketing, almost twice the average for credit unions in its size range. (The average for the entire sample was 0.12%.) And that is during a time when, over the three-year study period, Jovia’s assets grew 32.6%.
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