By Theresa Witham
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about American Express’s program to connect small business card holders to other AE business card holders in the marketing field for a branding overhaul. I thought CUs should steal the idea and do something similar to promote their business services.
Here’s another idea worth stealing.
Earlier this year, Chase and LivingSocial sponsored Mission: Small Business, a campaign where small businesses competed for 12, $250,000 grants. There was a public voting period, where business needed to get a minimum number of votes to continue to the next stage. They got nearly 70,000 small business applications before a panel reviewed and selected the 12 grant recipients.
The site links to Chase’s small business services and products and I would be very surprised if Chase is not communicating with the thousands of businesses that entered.
I found out about the contest from several knitting-related small businesses. They were super excited about the program. They all shared the link with their customers and fans on social media. To vote, you had to enter, at the very least, an email address and possibly more information. So now Chase also has all that contact info.
It was a great way to get the Chase name out as a viable solution for business services. And it created a ton of goodwill amongst business owners and their customers.
As I did with the American Express campaign, I think credit unions should steal this idea and replicate in your markets. $250,000 is a bit spendy, but $5,000 or $10,000 could make a difference for many small businesses.
And in fact, $2.3 billion/169,000-member Michigan State University Federal Credit Union, East Lansing, Mich., ran a similar contest starting in August. Its startUP Challenge offered entrepreneurs a chance to win $25,000 to jump start their business.
Participants were asked to submit an application, business plan, and video pitch to enter. The first round of the contest ran until Oct. 5. The top five entries moved on to the second round by presenting their business ideas to the startUP Challenge committee, composed of local experts, on Nov. 5.
Thirty-five local entrepreneurs applied, with the prize going to Phil Threadgould and Andy Bentz, founders of CrowdLanding, an information site and aggregating web application for the equity crowdfunding industry.
At the same time, the CU introduced its startUP Loan Fund. Entrepreneurs can apply for loans up to $15,000 to help develop their businesses. Similar to the startUP Challenge, businesses need to submit a loan application and business plan. The fund has $250,000 to lend to local entrepreneurs.
Read more about Michigan State University FCU’s startUP Challenge in a future issue of Credit Union Management.
And let me know if you plan to steal this idea!
Theresa Witham is a CUES editor.
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