In our last Credit Union Integrated Marketing blog, we discussed the 4 steps to effective data modeling, the first part of the process in an Integrated Marketing Strategy.

Now, we will discuss the next step, contact approach and content development, developing a strategy around the science of analytics, the financial impact of a product, and the art of creating an emotional response.

 1. Know your personas

By analyzing behavioral data, psychographic profiles and demographics, your data can be segmented into buyer personas. Buyer personas can help credit unions understand who their buyers are, the products they will buy, and which messages and channels they will respond to. With this information, credit unions can then create targeted marketing campaigns to optimize member acquisition.

Read: “Predictive Analytics in Action: Implementing Strategies for Dramatic Sales Lift”

2. Develop personalized messaging

After applying data and determining your personas, messaging can be created. Your members and potential members want to be messaged to in a way that best speaks to them. For example, a group segmented as “young and tech savvy” may be at different stages in their lives – some buying their first home, others having their first child.  Those looking for a their first home would be targeting with messaging and images referring to home buying whereas those having their first child, would feature images of babies.

Considerations for the messaging may include:

• The emotional triggers for acceptance – What’s in it for me?
• Benefit – How does the financial product help the member fulfill a financial goal?
• The call to action – Why must I do this now?

You need to create tailored images, incentives, narrative and product positioning by channel for each member persona in order to receive a response.

3. Optimize your campaign

Lastly in your content development process, the campaign needs to be continually  optimized for the best results. While analytics and modeling can increase the probability you get it right, technology provides a way to manage and learn from what is providing desired results and what isn’t.  The intent is to maximize your effort and resources to best predict a positive response.  Campaign attribute decision making continuously improves the outcomes of your marketing initiatives.

Ways to optimize campaigns:

• Leverage the use of A/B testing to systematically adjust campaign attributes to continually improve and understand the results, such as identifying the frequency, pattern and timing required to stay in front of the member or prospective member.
• Attribution by understanding the impact the message has on one channel compared to another channel and which campaign (and respective cost) is influencing the end outcome.
• Visualization of the results is not just viewing KPIs, but defining how the outputs at each critical stage should be used to improve the next campaign.

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Integrated Marketing Credit Union Case Study Part 2 (Read Part 1 here)

The following case study is from a credit union in a suburban, major metro area, under 400 million in assets, fewer than 30,000 active members, 8 branches and membership from residents in 14 counties and an employer base.

The Challenge

• Little to no growth
• Acquisition and retention struggles
• Competitive product and service pressure in a saturated banking market
• Stale brand with inconsistent exposure

Campaign Goal: The purpose of this ongoing campaign is twofold, brand awareness and nurturing to encourage membership and financial product use.

Solution

Using Dialog Direct’s in-house new mover database and other data such as age and income, an average of 10,000 new movers monthly were identified into the Credit Union’s geographical footprint.

Since these new movers are new to the area, the first contact made is by direct mail welcoming them to the area. The initial offer is to download an eBook, which can be accessed through a landing page on the credit union’s website.  To manage cost, the number of direct mail pieces decreases in proportion to email addresses, as they become available.  The amount of email addresses continues to increase in number, along with mobile numbers for text and Facebook accounts due to opt-in preference changes.

As contact continues and data is collected, we built a mosaic group profile and present each with an increasingly personalized offer of a loan product, deposit product and/or benefits of membership.

In our next integrated marketing blog we will manage the campaign strategy and tactics for optimization of effort to hit your stated goal.