Relationship-Marketing Through Bundles – Introducing a Tool to Help Credit Unions

by. Sean McDonald

A few weeks back, I wrote a couple of posts that focused on the importance of getting your credit union’s members to make your CU their Primary Financial Institution (PFI.)  Of course, in order to do that, they have to have their checking account at the credit union.

At the end of those posts, I also hinted that a big announcement would be coming soon.  While it has taken me longer than I planned to tell you what was happening, today I am very pleased to introduce a new relationship-marketing for credit unions – Sure 4 Bundles.

A little background – late last year I was contacted by Dave Bocks, the President of Dave Bocks & Associates out of Denver, CO.  I spoke with Dave and his partner, Tom O’Rourke about an exciting program that Tom had created when he was an executive at Wells Fargo (save the boos please and keep reading…..)  Dave and Tom wanted to bring the program to credit unions and were looking for a partner to help them do so.  When I asked them how successful the program was at Wells Fargo, I was told that the program increased cross-sell conversions and bundles adoption from a paltry 12% to an astounding 86%.  I was hooked.  Of course I wanted to be part of this.  By the way, those results are public and can be found by going to the top of page 10 of Wells Fargo’s Q4 2011 earnings report.

The program helps credit unions create and maintain loyal members by successfully “bundling” their checking accounts with other services that are the most likely to result in increased member retention through stronger relationships.  So essentially, credit unions would open the traditional savings accounts (as required) and then would discuss the bundles right at the start of the member-credit union relationship!

continue reading »