Overcome being the “best kept secret” with

by. James Robert Lay

I recently participated as a panelist in the “Not for CEOs” panel discussion at this year’s CU Water Cooler Symposium. One of the questions asked was about how many credit unions pride, and even position, themselves as their community’s best kept secret.

Ron Shevlin notes in the video below that this is just an excuse of why credit union marketing is failing. I agree with Ron, but I also believe that a position built on being a “best kept secret” is a position for future failure.

Why? Secrets are known to only a few people and are mostly kept from others. Furthermore, secrets die with those who know them and the average credit union member age is not getting any younger.

So how can credit unions overcome the “best kept secret” dogma?

Through our perspective of the continued exploration of how people, product and process are positioned around a credit union’s purpose, one clear way is for a credit union to use digital member referrals. Digital member referrals take the Net Promoter Score (NPS) measurement that many credit unions actively use and build upon this process.

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