Making technology part of your marketing budget

In our recent survey of credit union marketers, a constantly repeated theme was that a lack of IT resources is preventing marketing teams across the country from fully implementing their digital marketing strategies. Close to two-thirds of respondents indicated that internal IT challenges were a barrier to achieving some of their marketing goals.

The takeaway here is that IT is viewed by many as Mordac: the preventer of information services. Is this fair? And more importantly why, in this day and age, does any department view IT as a barrier?

To be fair, when asked why they weren’t using a marketing automation system, for example, only 15% cited IT as the primary barrier, with most ranking time, budget and marketing reasons as more serious obstacles. Still, the fact that IT is viewed as a barrier at all, rather than an asset, brings me to the logical conclusion that it’s time for these team to make technology a part of their credit union marketing budget.

Any self-respecting credit union CIO would agree that employing the right marketing technology will improve marketing teams’ ability to efficiently attract new customers, and increase the credit union’s visibility. It’s widely accepted that the most successful marketers leverage technology to get a higher ROI, reduce staffing costs and just generally improve results.

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