Traditional and digital marketing truly comes down to understanding member behavior. Alan Bergstrom, chief marketing officer for the Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Community Choice Credit Union, during an interview with CU Times, discussed what’s ahead for credit union marketing executives in 2017. For Bergstrom, he believes 2017 will be a bigger leap into the digital space.“People will continue to spend more time online, whether it’s on their smartphone or on their tablets,” Bergstrom said. “And we need to be where they are. So, we’ve got to be more digital.”
Looking back on 2016, Bergstrom noted that his credit union made a specific choice to combine the traditional marketing spaces, such as newspapers, and the digital spaces, such as social media. “We learned pretty quickly that, as a credit union, you can’t have the same marketing messages for both because the audiences are different.”
He added that this is where studying member behavior and patterns comes in useful for creating a successful marketing strategy. “We have to be pretty adept at having a variety of different messages and communications that are going to get their attention.”
Bergstrom continued, “It’s about what are people going to click on? How much time do they have? What’s going to catch their attention as they are perusing and navigating the internet these days? So it’s even more important to have a message that’s a targeted message that’s focused and is going to cut through the clutter.”
According to “The CMO Survey,” released in August of this year, “marketing budgets are expected to increase by 7.2% in the next year.” The survey indicated that spending increases will focus on content marketing creation. While not getting into specific budget numbers, Bergstrom said his credit union’s marketing strategy will focus on three areas:
- Difference between banks and credit unions – While the message isn’t new for credit union executives, this is still an important part of credit union marketing. “We’ve been focusing on the advantages and real differences that are meaningful to members about credit unions versus banks for the past two years. We need to find a more effective way to get that message out,” Bergstrom said.
- Finding the audience – Bergstrom suggested using a digital agency to help with audience and digital research, because the digital landscape shifts constantly. “I think for most credit unions, they are going to have to look outside and they’ll have to look at a digital agency to help them with that. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” He continued, “But it’s important that they do that because that’s where members are and we can’t use and dominate traditional media when our members are moving into the digital space.”
- Understanding millennials – This is where Bergstrom believes credit unions can thrive if they can understand what millennials want. “For us, focusing more on millennials and understanding how we can message and market to them in a way that gets their attention, even if it’s a fleeting moment and gets them to think about ‘Hey, maybe there is something that’s out there for me!’”
In 2017, Bergstrom said Community Choice CU will try new traditional marketing spaces such as movie theater advertising. “You’ve got a captive audience and obviously if the message is right, based on what they’re there to view, I think there’s a very inexpensive opportunity there for credit unions.” On the digital side, Bergstrom noted that his credit union will venture deeper into the chatbot pool in 2017 after a successful launch of the credit union’s chatbot feature on it’s website this year. “Having the ability to connect instantly with somebody from the credit union is important. Using chatbots, I think, is a way to get into that space to connect with members in real time.”
Bergstrom advised credit union marketers to be nimble with the messages they create. “Different generations are using non-traditional media to either entertain themselves or inform themselves – and credit unions need to be there.”
