Is social media your ticket to a raise?

Gather a dozen or so marketers together and invariably the talk moves to someone asking, “What are you doing with Social Media?” Such are the times we live in.

I have to ask one simple question: Is this the area in marketing where raises come from? As a marketer, you must do what is best for your institution, of course. Yet even with wild success in Social Media, the ROI is barely there. Management is loath to reward success with such meager return on precious marketing investments. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a Social Media program – you must! But this area of marketing cannot be where you spend your time or treasure, not if you want a promotion and a raise. And who doesn’t want those?

If you could start your marketing efforts from scratch, would you still do all of the stuff you had on your “to-do” list? I’ll bet not. Then why are you still plugging away on some of those items? As you look forward to your 2016 budget, keep this in mind…

Every Credit Union obviously wants to improve member loyalty and build deeper relationship through cross-sales. I am sure yours does, too. Yet huge, monumental success in both of these endeavors comes from being bold – not from doing the same thing again and again and expecting better results.

There are plenty of marketing tactics you can employ that return a positive ROI. Do those. From on-boarding to loan recapture programs – need I say more – you have read about these countless times and seen presentations at conferences espousing there benefits. You and your institution must move away from the tired old “have to do’s” and get into the “must do’s.”

But what does huge success look like? Imagine getting a return that is 4-5 times your investment. To put this in context, this is the same as spending a nickel and getting a quarter in profits back. Do you have any programs like this now? You can. If you want to get the attention of your management, this is the kind of bold you need to be. And you must be able to prove your results.

There is a program called the Member Value Statement that delivers this kind of return. In fact, all but one Credit Union that tried the program generated greater than 5 times their investment. The one that didn’t get the 5X result got just 4 times the return. Who wouldn’t want that kind of return?

Getting 4-5 times profit on an investment is very cool. Getting a raise is even better! Will you get that raise with Social Media? Doubtful.

The Member Value Statement is your institution’s ticket to improved member loyalty, deeper relationships and a big fat hairy raise. And Members love it! You need to evaluate this program and see why it makes sense for you in 2016. If you don’t try it, ask yourself “What am I missing out on? And why?”