Expand Marketing's Impact

By Mary Auestad Arnold

When you hear the words "marketing impact," does your mind summon Super Bowl ads, award-winning campaigns and media blitzes? Or do you think of "marketing impact" in terms of building a successful brand, developing innovative products, even driving a company's priorities?

Credit union marketing has come a long way in the past two decades. Yet, too often, I still see credit unions selling marketing short, thinking of it only in the first, very tactical, sense, when they should be thinking of it in the second, more strategic, way to truly yield long-term impact.

What kind of marketing organization is your credit union running? Check out the MarketingProfiler survey from the Association of National Advertisers, Inc., which was highlighted recently on Ron Shevlin's thought-provoking Marketing ROI blog. The survey should provide a lot of food for thought on the organizational impact marketing can have--whether you submit the form or not.

If Ron's name sounds familiar, it's probably because in his past position at Forrester Research, he was a frequent speaker at CUES events. He tackles lots of high-level topics on Marketing ROI and it definitely deserves to be added to every marketer's RSS feeds.

Getting back to the MarketingProfiler site, be sure to visit the "Readings" area and its sections on the role of chief marketing officers, innovation/differentiation, the marketing/operations relationship, ROI and results.

Finally, if you are looking for a conference experience to help build your organization's marketing capacity, think CUES Nexus Conference. With Jeanne Bliss--author of the chief customer officer book highlighted In the "Good Reading" section on the left side of this page--kicking off the conference and Joseph Jaffe--who pens the popular Jaffe Juice blog on new marketing, advertising and creativity--closing the conference, it's sure to be worth your while. Not to mention that, in between, we have OpenSource CU's Trey Reeme and Brent Dixon on using the social Web in marketing.

With financial services competition at an all-time high, member growth stagnant and ROA tight, credit unions need all the impact they can get from their marketing departments.

Mary Auestad Arnold is VP/publications for CUES and editor of Credit Union Management magazine.