Marketing resources to help you win back strategic planning time

When unexpected events or disruptions occur, it’s easy to get bogged down by execution of urgent member communications. Creating a strategy to combat this drain on precious time is crucial. There are thousands of tools and resources available to help your credit union free up time to re-focus on marketing strategy, including social media and promotional calendars, content management systems and monthly brainstorming sessions. Consider these tools and approaches to ensure smooth transitions back to “business as usual” at your credit union.

Social media and promotional calendars

Using social media or promotional calendars can help you develop and manage your marketing strategy to ensure you’re engaging with your target audience regularly. You’ll also develop the habit of being proactive instead of reactive, especially on social media. Rather than searching for last-minute trends to create buzz for your credit union, you can plan content in advance, including more involved campaigns for holidays or special offerings. It’s not uncommon to use marketing calendars to plan a year ahead while still staying organized because you can easily track scheduled content. You’ll also be able to more easily refine your marketing strategy because you’ll be able to quickly confirm if you have enough content or whether your campaign, from graphics to messaging, is consistent across marketing channels.

Content Management Systems

There are many benefits to using content management systems (CMS) and the options are varied, but the basic function of these platforms is to help simplify publishing and editing web content; think WordPress and Joomla. Using a CMS reduces the need for extensive HTML or other programming expertise because of their WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) user-friendly interface. You can easily write, create, schedule or publish content across multiple marketing channels using CMS tools. As an added bonus, you’ll win back valuable strategic planning time with pre-publishing options. Moreover, CMS can promote more efficient team collaboration because it offers a shared working space where teammates can easily make edits to each other’s content, suggest new content and adjust content schedules.

Monthly Brainstorming

Deadlines come fast. Setting aside monthly brainstorming sessions can provide a pipeline of ideas that you can use to amplify your content calendar. Having ideas ahead of time can help you get a head start on your promotional process — starting with developing and refining your strategy.

Staying up to date on the latest digital marketing trends is challenging when the industry and the overall economic environment are evolving so quickly. It seems like every day there are new resources to help you learn how to master a new skill and leverage the latest trends. Freeing up time spent executing campaigns can open doors for your organization to pick up on emerging trends and strategic decisions. Lean on tools like CUNA Creative Hub to free up some of that time.

Get a sneak peek at how CUNA Creative Hub can expedite your marketing promotions and free up time to focus on strategy – unlock access to an informational video by filling out our online form at cuna.org/creativehub.