By Bryan Clagett
There’s a conversation you could be having with your members about their future financial goals and the financial services they need to achieve those goals. For many of you, you’re having these conversations in the branch, the call center or the loan center. Is that enough?
These days, the majority of financial transactions are conducted online. Add to that the fact that the majority (more than 92%) of your members immediately click the “online banking” or “log in” link when they visit the credit union’s homepage. That tells us that members are bypassing the messages on your website and you’re missing an opportunity to market to them. Besides, do you want to market to your members? Or would you rather engage them via relevant, meaningful interaction? As financial advocates, I think we all know the answer.
Odds are very good that your credit union already offers members online banking (please don’t prove me wrong!). But many of you may be unaware that there is a new set of powerful tools that can help your members take better control of their finances, while allowing you (yes, you) to learn more about members needs, goals and ambitions. Best of all, this tool is available online, within the online banking experience, where all the action is.
This is where personal financial management (PFM) comes in. PFM lets your online members establish and track goals. It helps members create and manage a budget and even provides them with a vivid cash flow calendar. Plus, PFM can aggregate financial information from nearly 14,000 financial institutions worldwide, so now a member can monitor their net worth through your credit union. And let’s be honest, they don’t just “bank” with you; they have a “share of wallet” with you.
Now take a moment to think about the challenges you face. From a member perspective, banking is a chore. We also know banking is more or less a commodity in the mind of the consumer. We realize we need to differentiate our brand and build meaningful member experiences online, as well as offline. And finally, we know as an industry, we must demonstrate advocacy. PFM helps you address these challenges affordably and logically.
Let’s pop open the hood for a moment. PFM offers incredible marketing potential. When we view PFM as a platform, and not simply as a product, we realize there is rich data that can be culled. And it is this data that you can leverage to support the needs of your members. Simply put, you have a means to present online offers that are relevant to members and in sync with their goals. While you are analyzing much of this data online, it can be used through most delivery channels. The ROI potential is staggering, when you consider for most credit unions, PFM costs less than what they spend annually on inserts or a newsletter.
I have been in this industry a long time and have heard the phrases “high-tech, high touch” and “people helping people” more than I wish to recall. Finally, technology and the consumer appetite for it is giving this industry a chance to compete like never before. We can engage members in more meaningful and relevant ways and we can take advocacy to a new level. But we need to do it online and offline, and PFM can help us get there.
Bryan Clagett is CMO of Geezeo.
Learn more about how CUES Personal Financial Management, Powered by Geezeo, can help you today.
