Credit Union Marketing Trends

Credit union marketing strategies have always depended on traditional communication. Despite the success of new marketing channels and automated solutions, credit unions have not modernized their marketing strategies.

However, the speed of digital transformation is changing every aspect of our business and personal lives. Hence it is fast becoming necessary for credit unions to jump in the wagon.

If credit unions wish to survive the fast-changing world, they need to keep up with the latest marketing trends. But, what are these credit union marketing trends? If you don’t know the answer to this question, this article is for you.

Below we discuss some of the most promising credit union industry trends you need to know about in 2024. The article also explains why these credit union marketing trends are so crucial for your business and suggests viable solutions for implementing them.

Community outreach is an integral part of its marketing operations for credit unions. The significance of community outreach for credit unions is now more relevant than ever. Some of the ways you can use these programs can help your credit union are as follows: 

Solidify Bonds Through Community Outreach 

One of the most significant advantages of community outreach is that it enables credit unions to solidify their binds with existing and potential customers. It even helps you connect with even the younger audience and demographics. 

Connect With Younger Audience

Community outreach is perhaps among the few ways you can build ties with young people even without a significant digital presence. Hence, community outreach programs are definitely among the top credit union marketing trends you should consider.

For example, you can try conducting financial seminars on saving money for college at schools. That way, you get to introduce your credit union to students and its service. You can even try introducing finance services relevant to the financial workshop you are conducting for the student.

With so many financial service options available today, the customer can quickly shift from one bank to another within a matter of minutes. The customer realizes this power they have, and hence they demand the best service from their banks.

There is one way you can ensure the continued business of your existing customers and get new ones. All you have to do is provide a consistent and personalized customer experience to everyone your business interacts with. 

Some of the valuable methods you can use to achieve this goal include the following:

• Algorithm-Based Pre Approval Of Loans/Mortgages: Getting a loan or mortgage from a financial institution is never easy. But, with the help of an algorithm-based program, you can process and approve loan/mortgage requests well ahead of time. Such a process is ideal for attracting new customers to your credit union.
• Assigning A Personal Customer Service Representative: Although this may not sound like much, setting a single or personal customer service representative to a customer can significantly improve the customer experience. If possible, you should ensure that a single customer service representative serves the same customer for their whole lifecycle.
• Use Big Data For Personalization: Using big data for personalization will provide a more consistent customer experience. Furthermore, you can analyze big data for getting valuable insights that you can use to enhance your business’s customer experience.
• Rewards For Continued Patronage: A good reward program is all you need to maintain a long-lasting customer relationship. However, reward programs for credit unions are unlike other businesses. Hence, you should make sure that you do your research before implementing one for your credit union.

One of the credit union industry trends that should be of concern is the growing share of big banks. Today, more and more people choose large banks as their primary financial service providers. The main reason for this shift is the various services and conveniences such banks offer.

Big banks in Canada have access to the latest, most advanced tech and software solutions. They use it to make banking easily accessible to all their customers. It is high time community banks and credit unions wake up to this reality and act now.

The only way to reverse this trend is to make your prospect realize that you can offer the same convenience as the big banks. Furthermore, it would be best to highlight that you can provide the customers with a much more personalized service than big banks. 

Another major credit union marketing trend is that the customers are quicker in buying decisions. Thanks to all the online resources, most customers make up their decision even before consulting for services.

Under these circumstances, it is not enough that you provide excellent financial services that offer a lot of benefits to your customers. It is about getting that information safely across to the target audience before finding an alternative.

Content Marketing

The best way to make your brand’s voice heard in the digital world is through content marketing. Content can be anything, including blogs, videos, social media posts, and so on. Finance is not something the regular public is well-versed in. Hence, you can quickly gain their trust by being the source of reliable information.

However, to effectively use content marketing, you first need to understand the customer journey and their pain points. Only then can you offer an effective solution that can legitimately help them. The key to an effective content marketing strategy is to help the customer first and foremost.

If you start pitching your services from the get-go, the audience will likely lose faith in your content and, effectively, your brand.

Marketing your credit union business is no longer about how much money you are willing to spend on it. In today’s landscape, credit union marketing is about how you will spend your money on marketing rather than how much.

Digital Over Traditional Marketing

Despite the digital transformation in the banking sector, credit unions are still lagging in innovative marketing. Digital credit union marketing campaigns are always more measurable than traditional ones.

Furthermore, digital credit union marketing is automated for the most part, and hence there is no chance for manual errors. On the other hand, traditional marketing is prone to error, which can further affect your marketing budget.

Time Is Money

One thing that credit unions often fail to consider when it comes to marketing is their time for it. Traditional credit union marketing methods such as direct marketing usually take a lot of time and effort to execute.

Even something as simple as personalization would take hours and even days, depending on the quantity of mail. Whereas digital alternatives merely take seconds to personalize and deliver the marketing material.

However, today, we have software solutions like PostGrid that enable you to automate even traditional marketing such as direct mail. It helps you save time and minimize errors, just like you can in digital marketing.

Test Your Credit Union Marketing Campaigns

Testing your marketing campaigns is the only way to determine whether your marketing strategies work or not. One of the best ways to measure your marketing campaigns is to use an AB test. You can target two groups of your customers with two different types of marketing materials.

After pitching the marketing material, you can measure its response and determine which material resonates better with your target audience. Similarly, you can also try making minor changes to the successful marketing materials, such as trying out different colour combinations. 

You can use this method to optimize all your marketing campaigns, whether it is a digital one or a traditional one. 

Credit unions have always depended on traditional marketing channels like direct mail to reach their target audience. Although direct mail has a significantly high open and response rate, it is challenging to implement, especially in high volume.

Now, thanks to tools like PostGrid, credit unions have the option to automate the entire direct mail process. It includes personalization, printing, and delivery of credit union marketing mail. However, what’s interesting is that PostGrid’s system also enables you to combine your digital marketing channels with direct mail.

Multi-Channel Or Omnichannel Marketing

With the help of an automation tool like PostGrid, you can implement a multichannel or omnichannel marketing campaign with relative ease. For example, you can use direct mail’s high open rate as the initial point of the campaign.

Then, once the customer opens the mailer, you can pitch them with an attractive and relevant offer. By providing a QR Code in the mailer, you can lead the customer to your business’s website or landing page, where they fill out a form and buy a service.