Remember, it’s not about you—it’s about them.
By Denise Wymore
It’s not about me? This was perhaps the most difficult lesson I learned as VP/marketing of First Technology Credit Union—it wasn’t about our cool online banking products, or our rates-as-low-as-barely-nothing-point-nothing-percent or our Totally Free (no really, ours was the freest) checking account. It was about the people we served. The members—the founders of the credit union.
That’s brand folks—and most of us do not get it. We don’t get it because in the beginning we didn’t have to. Literally every credit union was a brand extension of the post office, the railroad, the high school and the mill. The credit union was an employee benefit “marketed” by the human resources department. The branch was the “break room” for the company.
There was no real need to market because the audience was so captive. Word of mouth was and will continue to be the best marketing tool—ever. Talk about buzz—can you imagine walking down the hallway of the phone company in, say,1945 and have a co-worker tell you that they were having a meeting that night with seven other folks to start their own financial institution?
Volunteering to build a financial co-op for your co-workers in your spare time—that’s good stuff. Can’t get better buzz than that. It was all about them. The credit union’s brand was as strong as the company or group they served.
And that’s where our brands started to erode. Legitimately some credit unions had to merge to survive because their sponsors went away. The mill closed, the company’s headquarters moved overseas, the company merged, got “bought out” by another huge company that already had a credit union. There were lots of reasons our brands got diluted.
But in response to this, we pushed for looser restrictions on growth. We redefined the term “common bond” to allow for pseudo community charters. And in doing so, we began the bastardization of our brands. How do you know if you are bastardizing your credit union’s brand? Follow the steps below.
Step One: Change Your Name
Perhaps the biggest distraction to credit union business today is that of the name change. I don’t know the exact number but I would be willing to bet that at least half of the credit unions in America have changed their names in the last five years.
What in the world is going on? As I understand it—when a credit union expands its field of membership from, say, the phone company to anyone who lives, works or worships in the state (for example), the first thing they must do is change its name.
So let’s change the name from (insert state name here) Telco Credit Union to Generico Credit Union. Let’s spend about a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars on the new “identity” consulting, and re-brand everything from our ATM receipts to our big backlit sign on the buildings. Whew.
This does not tell people they can join—you still have to tell them. And even more importantly you now have to tell them “why” they should join and you have to explain what happened to the Telco Credit Union that’s been around since 1937. If you have a great reputation in your community—if you have created positive word of mouth among your original sponsor group—you should have no problem just telling people in your new territory that they now have the privilege of joining.
Better yet, ask your loyal members to tell people. If you haven’t done a good job of making your name mean something, shame on you. If your current name is hurting you—because the brand of the sponsor is now tarnished (see Enron)—go ahead and dump it. But make it mean something to your target audience.
Tell Your Story
The best name change in my opinion: HP Credit Union. During the HP and Compaq merger, the credit union decided to change its name—but the leadership wanted to preserve the CU’s history. After all, it was founded by HP employees and is still serving this group. Enter Addison Avenue Credit Union. To the lay person it’s just a nice name … but to HP folk it is the name of the street where Hewlett and Packard built their first computer. Brilliant. It pays homage to their past and works well for their future. Your name should tell your story.
Step Two: Get a Snappy Tagline
A tagline is your brand’s promise. If you promise it, you’d better be able to deliver it. If you can’t, it will be used against you. Prior to 9/11 consumer groups were attacking the airlines for their horrible service and many dropped their taglines as a result. Thank heavens. Can you imagine if they still used these lines on 9/11?
Fly the Friendly Skies—United
Delta, we’re ready when you are.
What we fly is you—America West (not your luggage)
I was a member of a credit union that spent tons of money with an ad agency to spank up their image and emerged with this gem of a tag line: “Serves You Right.” Oh, help.
Step Three: Your Field of Membership is Your Target Audience
When you were the phone company credit union—or the teachers, or the post office—this was true. You knew this group intimately and worked with their HR departments to deliver the unique products and services they needed. No one else was doing this for them.
When you give up that brand you have to create your own. Who should you serve? You cannot serve everyone who lives, works or worships in a region. You simply cannot. And I’d be willing to bet that the last thing your area needs is another financial institution.
So who do you serve? Remember, you had a brand—you’re doing something right and 20 percent of your members can tell you what that is. These are the members who, on average, give you 80 percent of your business.
So how do you find out what that is? Simple. Ask them. I am violently opposed to surveys for this. Surveys never tell you anything that you don’t really already know. If you want to confirm something with data, do a survey. If you want to find out something new, do a focus group.
Good Focus Group, Bad Focus Group
Good focus groups use a research company to recruit (anonymously). They talk to two groups that are very loyal and compare with two groups that are not loyal. They ask good open-ended questions about their issues of trust. Brand is an emotional connection and money is an emotional topic. (For more information on focus groups, visit my Web site.
Bad focus groups, on the other hand, invite members to your credit union. They feed them in the boardroom, load them up with leftover marketing trinkets from the last annual meeting and ask them what they think of you.
I have always found out something unique when I’ve done “good” focus groups. The most loyal groups will reveal to you what makes you special. Why they aren’t rate shoppers, cherry pickers. Why they tell their friends to join. And the members who aren’t loyal will usually confirm that you’re glad they aren’t.
The two most valuable things to learn from this are: 1) how you can get more loyal members and 2) how you can keep the ones you’ve got.
Step Four: Bigger is Better
Now anyone can join! You can’t swing a dead cat in Seattle without seeing credit union advertisements that scream this. Be careful what you wish for. Bigger is not better. Better is better.
I still think there is a place in this world for a small credit union. Let’s face it, that’s why we recruited SEGs the way we did. The model worked so well. Get HR to promote you to new employees as a benefit—get positive word of mouth among co-workers and try to differentiate yourselves from the other guys by listening to their unique needs.
Peter Drucker asks, “What is the purpose of business in society?” Profit making is not only incorrect, it is irrelevant. The only purpose of business in society is to create and keep a customer.
Denise Wymore is a firebrand, marketing consultant and credit union lifer. She can be contacted via her Web site or e-mail.
For another view on name changes, read "A Credit Union Guide to the Name Change Decision," by Mark Weber, in Credit Union Management magazine's free White Paper Library.
