Digital Growth Institute, a leading digital marketing advisory firm for banks and credit unions, is currently guiding Tropical Financial through a Digital Growth Blueprint checkup that will empower the credit union to continue to stay ahead of the ever-changing digital marketing strategy curve.
This 12-month engagement began with a six-week digital marketing assessment to help objectively identify new challenges, opportunities, and strengths for Tropical Financial to continue to build upon since guiding the credit union through its first Digital Growth Blueprint over 18 months ago.
“A lot has changed in the digital space since our last Digital Growth Blueprint and we want to continue to stay ahead of the curve,” says Tropical Financial Vice President of Marketing Amy McGraw. “I have found that we are already so far ahead of others in this space, but we must continue to optimize what we are doing to further grow and be more effective, as well as efficient.”
According to McGraw, Tropical Financial is growing – just completing a merger, serving five new counties and operating branches in different states, as a result. She adds that there’s no way to tackle all that area with traditional media. “We don’t have the dollars, so we must be as strategic as possible in utilizing the dollars we have,” she says. “Over the last 18 months we have seen how effective the digital space is and we need to continue to stay on top of trends and changes so we can continue to be effective with budget we have.”
In the last Digital Growth Blueprint strategy engagement Tropical Financial underwent with Digital Growth Institute, it restructured the marketing department to be in line with the main goal of helping first and selling second. The new employees (a Content Strategist and Inbound Marketing Specialist) have backgrounds in digital marketing but not in the specifics of financial services in the credit union market.
“Part of the goal is to get these two new employees up to speed on the digital blueprint as well as reinforce the foundation of the digital principles that came out of the original blueprint,” McGraw says. “Putting in updated tactics and updated personas to keep us moving forward.”
“We enjoy continuing to guide credit unions like Tropical Financial because they are open to gaining new insights that guide them further along their digital marketing journeys,” says Digital Growth Institute Founder and CEO James Robert Lay. “Tropical Financial is assuredly hitting it out of the park with their efforts in this area. They understand they have to keep evolving how they market and engage with their members because their members are continuing to evolve digitally. Maintaining or even exceeding that pace is essential for continued success – and that’s what the Digital Growth Blueprint Checkup is all about. It keeps us all on course and provides clarity and confidence in a very chaotic sea of change.”
Amy McGraw
James Robert Lay