The Thread: By CU*SWAG

UniWyo FCU Generates $7 Million in Loans and Exceeds Goal by 28%

Are your customers tuning out your efforts with the marketing messages? Is it getting harder and harder to grab potential customers’ attention and converting that into sales? Well then read on because we might just have the answer.

While grabbing a consumer’s eye is a key to success, you also need to make sure that it can hold their attention and engage them.

UniWyo Federal Credit Union (FCU) wanted to break away from the advertising clutter and wanted to drive more auto loans through a distinct and catchy campaign concept.

The idea originated from the “stripping” concept. We encouraged consumers to strip their auto loan rate down. The imagery was catchy and allowed people to rip off a piece of poster to view what was underneath and ultimately “strip” their rate. This concept definitely made the campaign unexpected, share worthy and memorable.

Marketers avoid taking the “edgy” route because they think they will tick people off and repel them from buying what we are selling. They don’t realize that today’s audience is harder to offend because of all the content they are served with every day. Plus, causing extreme reactions and allowing people to break away from routine makes the campaign a talking point.

Mindy Uitterdyk, Marketing Specialist at UniWyo, mentions that campaigns like these “get us out of our comfort zone as far as the messaging and how we present the messages.”

This campaign, when presented to the executive team at UniWyo FCU, raised eyebrows and emerged questions. Once they found out the whole concept, it made them smile and left an everlasting impact. The results made them smile even more!

The employees played an important role with the campaign to engage members by implementing some viral marketing ideas that are included with the campaign. The voices of employees were recorded and used for the radio commercials as well.

While the product offering by UniWyo was attractive, pairing it up with the Strip Your Rate (SYR) campaign sparked conversations and allowed people to share the message. The campaign collateral (with URL to the microsite) and strategy kept the viewers attention and persuaded them to sign up for the auto loan.

As people signed up for the campaign through the microsite, everything was easily tracked. The short lead form collected the customer’s interest in auto loan, their information and how they discovered the campaign. This data was used by the loan officers to follow up with individuals.

Once the form for the auto loan application was submitted the form was set up to send an automatic follow up. The microsite also had a contest tied into it which allowed collecting leads and driving them to the auto loan offer as well.

UniWyo also paired a good cause with the campaign as part of the process. They had bins set up for people to donate gently used clothes. People stripped away their wardrobe to help the needy. A good cause associated with the campaign drove content for their social media page as well as loyalty towards the credit union.

The results were amazing for this campaign. The credit unions exceeded their loan goal by 28.46%. They drove a total of 7 million in loans in just a six week long campaign. This was also 12.38% over their 2011 auto loans promotion during the same time.

How have you recently destroyed the box and done some edgy marketing? Share your story below!

Bossier Rocking their Annual Meetings

Annual meetings can become routine and boring over the course of years. Check out how Bossier Federal Credit Union used the theme of “Taking Flight in 2011” and converted their annual meeting room into airline seating with employees, acting as flight attendants, served the members. There were airport signs placed around the event room representing checkin, baggage and food areas. In addition, giveaways were also stuffed in luggage to surprise members. Their custom CU*SWAG and a video annual report was just the icing on the cake. Bossier Federal employees took ownership of the idea and members enjoyed the experience. Watch the video below for the Annual Meeting Report that won them a CUNA Diamond Award in 2012.

 

In 2012, Bossier Federal took engagement to a whole new level with a futuristic character called ‘B’ to share how they are living their brand: Beyond banking, this is personal. Bossier even beat Apple to market with this interactive presentation style. For this annual meeting, they had custom CU*SWAG for all employees to wear at the day of the event and engaged the members through fun, interactive technology. To go beyond, once again as part of their living brand, they incorporated a referral program to allow members to refer their friends and family on-site and enter to win huge prizes. With a well thought out strategic engagement event, Bossier FCU enjoyed having the biggest attendance for an annual meeting to date. Check out the video for their 2012 Annual Meeting below:

 

Comment below and share how you have destroyed the box and done something different to engage with your employees and members for your annual meetings. Also, if you already have a theme for this year’s annual meeting don’t forget to pair custom CU*SWAG with it!

What’s Up with the Mustache?

Does your credit union marketing start conversations? Do you incorporate strategic buzz into your marketing? At CU*SWAG we challenge your credit union to complement traditional marketing efforts with word of mouth (WOM) as the spoken human word can be the most powerful and trusted form of marketing.

Buzz is a type of WOM marketing which strengthens your marketing message and entertains the targeted audience. It becomes what a large number of people can’t stop talking about. Here is how we created some buzz for Members’ Choice Federal Credit Union (FCU), and the story behind how the "Stash Yo Cash” CU*SWAG design was first born in November of 2011.

Goal
The goal was to raise awareness for Members’ Choice FCU’s new branch opening. We wanted to reach this goal by taking a strategic approach that was unexpected, interactive and included the buzz factor. Because of limited resources for the credit union, we concentrated on creating internal hype for employees, community partnerships and an SMS engagement strategy to be incorporated with the branch awareness for the credit union.

Strategy
We designed an advertising plan for the credit union for two weeks leading up to the day of the grand opening. This was done with a community scavenger hunt by partnering with five local businesses, each having a puzzle piece for the participants to win the grand prize of $500 in their credit union checking account.

Dashy Stash, a character with large mustache, became the face of the campaign. The CFO himself also grew a mustache to be the “Dashy Stash” who went around the community to raise awareness.

Not only did Dashy Stash appear on the campaign promotional items but also inspired the twist to this game. Every participant got a list of locations, Grouch-O glasses and Stash Yo Cash CU*SWAG that they had to wear as they went around different locations and collected clues.

We tied in the digital aspect to the campaign by having all the individuals text in a code to get their first clue, which also allowed the credit union to track all of the participants. From there they went to different locations and finally came to the grand opening for the credit union to see if they won the grand prize of $500 in their checking accounts.

Results
The great thing about buzz marketing and events like these is that people don’t want to play scavenger hunts alone so they gather their family and friends to join them (which was great for the campaign because crowds definitely create a bigger impact). Watching a group of people walk in with Grouch-O glasses will definitely lead people to ask questions. This lead to a viral turnout for the game and great awareness results for the partnering businesses and the credit union.

 - Blog and Infographic by Wardah Ajaz

Ohio Healthcare FCU Rocking the CU Revolution

Marketing campaigns come in all shapes and sizes, but a successful campaign is one that strategically approaches the target audience, has a strong call to action and generates trackable results. One of our successful Off the Rack Campaign’s is the Credit Union Revolution campaign.

From the day we came up with the concept, we developed a unique strategy that not only excited the members and employees, but also encouraged potential members to leave their banks and join a credit union.

This campaign has left an everlasting impression with results and by doing so was awarded 2012 CUNA Diamond Award.

The campaign continues to generate results and spread the love as it hit the market again this year on January 1, 2013.

“We’ve seen a 69% increase in Visa apps this month [January 2013], over what we see on a non-promotional month,” says Jaime Crooks, Marketing Director at Ohio Healthcare Federal Credit Union (FCU).

The campaign has just started and “the overall balances are about 57% higher on new cards,” she continued, “[and the] people [love] the balance transfer offer.”

Mark Arnold, President of On the Mark Strategies, recently wrote an article about the “Seven deadly Sins of Credit Union Marketing”. In the article he mentions “[you] can put out the greatest marketing campaign in the history of credit unions only to see it fall flat and fail if your staff doesn’t buy into it.”

That is why all Off the Rack Campaigns (including the CU Revolution campaign) come with employee engagement strategy, guerrilla marketing ideas, and lead generating microsite that all creative pieces direct to.

With the strategy we encourage credit unions to engage their employees and spread the word about the campaign, because we believe and agree with Mark Arnold that “everyone at your credit union is part of the marketing staff.”

Crooks sees the value of staff members and she has been encouraging them to take in balance transfer forms by engaging them in fun competitions. “Last week we had a race for $10 Kroger gift cards,” she said, “the first three employees to turn in forms got gift cards.”

She is also using the collateral and online media to connect with the target audience.

“We are promoting to current members through all electronic means, plus we have lobby signage, our staff is wearing their [CU*SWAG] t-shirts, and we’ve used statement stuffers,” she continued, “we are promoting to potential members at site visits and through partner relationships.”

As the campaign still continues for Ohio Healthcare FCU we will share their final campaign results once it ends.

As for you, it is not too late to join the Credit Union revolution so, sign up today and continue to spread the LOVE! Don’t forget to order the matching CU*SWAG.

Leave your comments below or start a conversation with us @CUSWAG and tell us how you plan to start a revolution at your credit union with #CUREV.

- Blog by Wardah Ajaz