One word is the key to your successful marketing message
by Bo McDonald
I recently had the pleasure of walking a management team through a planning session before preparing their 2014 marketing plan. The theme was apparent: “We need to do things differently.” Not just for the sake of change, but because there was a realization that Bob Dylan was right: “The times, they are a changin’.”
By the end of the planning session, we realized that the brand had become very distant from its humble beginnings. What started as a financial institution founded to serve the underserved, had turned into a commodity peddling loans and checking accounts with no understanding of why or who they served.
Word of Mouth Marketing expert Geno Church recently said in an article on adnews.com “It’s amazing how many brands and companies forget their founding story. There’s no people, no passion and no soul – that’s the problem.” That is the problem exactly. We create sales goals for our organization, and forget that there’s another part of the equation. People.
If you’re not factoring your member or customer into the equation, you’re failing miserably. People are looking for brands that answer the question “what’s in it for me?” and deliver on that promise. That’s what we determined at the planning session I mentioned earlier in this post. It was the turning point in the conversation.
A new mission statement was drafted and unanimously approved by the board that evening, but that’s just the beginning. Right now it is just words on a piece of paper. By this time next year it will be the reason of existence for this credit union.
For the staff it will be a passionate reason to look for ways to help every member instead of hawking another loan to reach a monthly goal. Members will get a reason to believe that they don’t need to look elsewhere for financial products and services because the staff will be their closest ally when it comes to what’s best for their finances. And best of all, the community at large will see something special happening to their friends and family that are members of this particular credit union. They’ll keep hearing about how and why this credit union is the best place to bank in the community.
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