What Credit Union Marketing Automation Is, and Why It Matters

Believe me, we get it: marketing efforts can lead to headaches. Nobody likes getting cold calls, most people mute (or skip) commercials, and I still get nightmares about pop-up ads. However, credit union marketing automation is far more sophisticated—and less intrusive—than those marketing strategies.

Not all marketing strategies result in headaches, though. Modern credit union marketing automation techniques are very different from the awful ones listed above.

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What Can Automated Marketing Do that I Can’t?

The less-effective forms of marketing above give sales and marketing a bad name, and it’s easy to see why. Cold calls, commercials, and pop-ups are rarely relevant to the people who see them.

On the other hand, credit union marketing automation platforms are much smarter about advertisements. They track your members—current and prospective—to monitor their activity and interaction with your credit union. With automated marketing software, you’ll gain insight about how your members interact with you across multiple areas:

• Social media
• Email
• Your website
• Other websites or web activity

After collecting enough data about your members’ habits, needs, and wants, you can gain a clearer picture of what makes them tick. It’s much easier to identify which of your products and services are relevant to them.

Who Really Benefits Here

After you understand more about your members’ digital engagement habits and preferences, you can direct marketing to them on their terms, on their preferred platforms. Plus, with lead scoring capabilities, you’ll be able to increase or decrease your efforts as necessary.

Oh, and the best part? That’s all done automatically. Lower effort, higher reward. Credit union marketing automation software streamlines and optimizes the relationship between credit union and member.

1. How members benefit from marketing automation

Nobody wants to ask their doctor if—I don’t know… Drifexia?—is right for them. It’s probably not. Similarly, your college student members don’t care about your credit union’s mortgage rates. Members looking to finance a new car don’t care about your great boat loans.

Marketing automation allows your credit union to provide value by staying in front of them with relevant offers and services. If they’re demonstrably not interested, the automation software understands that and backs off.

2. How credit unions benefit from marketing automation

Marketing isn’t always easy. Sometimes credit unions (and other businesses) feel that they are simply throwing money into a void and hoping for the best. Other times, credit unions have to take wild guesses, which feels like taking aim and pulling the trigger without a target.

Marketing automation software paints the target for you, and then it tells you when to fire.

Ultimately, the benefit to the credit union is that they gain a better understanding of what to advertise, who to advertise to, and when to do it.

Is Marketing Automation Right for Your Credit Union?

Bringing automation into your marketing practice represents a major shift in marketing approach. You have to be ready for it, both technologically and culturally. However, for a little more work up front, you can drastically increase efficiency and efficacy down the line.

Relying on traditional marketing strategies can certainly work. After all, it’s gotten us this far. Still, a robust marketing automation suite can drastically reduce:

• Wasted time
• Inefficient marketing strategy
• Lack of valuable member insight

Marketing automation software is the best way to begin understanding not just the needs of member segments, but of individual members. It also takes a lot of the work out of the whole thing. Instead of manually configuring and starting workflows, the software can do it instead.

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Credit Union 2.0 began as an innovative digital strategy playbook, Credit Union 2.0, written by Kirk Drake and has evolved into a full service digital credit union consultancy that specializes in developing meaningful digital brands. We don’t just come up with what’s cool. We give credit unions the tools, playbook, and strategies they need to make a real impact and engage their members.

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