Supercharge your marketing campaigns with audience insights
Your members had dozens, possibly even hundreds, of choices for where they chose to bank.
So why did they choose you?
Was it your product and service offering? Possibly, but we know that product differentiation is fleeting in the financial sector.
Did they choose you for convenience? Likely not, knowing what we know about the expansive reach of big banks compared to credit unions. Maybe they wanted to bank with a local partner they could trust, but certainly, you aren’t the only trustworthy institution in your community, are you? There’s something special about your credit union—something that first attracted your members to your institution and fostered their loyalty all these years.
We call this special something your brand, and we help credit unions like you uncover this powerful story and turn it into marketing magic for your members.
Everything we do is about addressing your members’ unique needs, desires, and pain points in an authentic way true to your credit union brand. By layering on a compelling creative campaign to these audience insights, you will hit a strategic sweet spot that will convince new members to take their financial journeys with you, over and over again.
Once You Know Them, They’ll Know You
The first step in unlocking convincing campaigns is understanding who your members are and what motivates their financial decisions. Dive deep into demographic data, conduct member surveys, and explore market research to understand their needs, preferences, and behaviors. The more you know about your members, the better you’ll be able to create campaigns that resonate with them. At COHN, we say, “When you know them, they’ll know you.”
When researching credit union demographic data, include standard qualifiers such as age, gender, income level, and occupation—but look for deeper details like life stage, family status, and even hobbies or interests. Understanding these details not only helps paint a more complete picture of your members but also provides insights that can help tailor your campaigns for greater impact.
Become Insatiably Curious About Your Members
Conducting member surveys can help in identifying new marketing strategies for enhancing credit union member engagement. Interviews and surveys offer a direct line to your members’ thoughts and feelings, revealing financial and life goals, member satisfaction levels, and, ultimately, what makes them tick. Of course, you will also learn their feelings and perceptions of your credit union, allowing you to align your campaign messaging accordingly.
Finally, combining your demographic data and survey results with broader market research can give you even more insights into credit union marketing strategies. Exploring industry trends, looking at competitor strategies, and keeping an eye on macroeconomic factors can all feed into your understanding of what your members might want or need from your credit union.
The more thoroughly you know your credit union members, the better you’ll be able to create campaigns that resonate with them. This knowledge allows you to speak directly to your members’ needs and desires, making sure that your marketing messages are not just seen or heard but truly felt. It’s this deep connection that leads to high engagement and conversion rates and, ultimately, the success of your creative campaigns.
Turn Strategic Insights into a Creative Campaign
Once you have a deeper understanding of your members, leverage these insights to guide your creative process. Look for common themes in your data.
Do your members value saving up for vacations or college funds?
Are they focused on financial security for their families?
What financial issues keep them up at night?
When do they feel most at ease, financially?
By looking for these patterns, you can tailor your campaign to address the issues that matter most to your members. The campaign’s tone, messaging, imagery, and even the channels you use to share your message can all be created to align with the issues that are closest to your members’ goals.
You’ll use the research to design creatives that speak directly to your members’ needs. For example, if your members value financial security, your creatives might depict scenarios where your credit union’s services help achieve that security.
When COHN created the Credit Union of Colorado’s Lifetopia campaign, we knew that strictly selling their product wouldn’t set their credit union apart, so instead, we created a campaign that showed how their services would meet their members’ life goals, such as going on a dream vacation, improving cash flow, making a car payment work within their budget, etc. We wanted people to see that a dream doesn’t have to feel out of reach.
The idea is to make your credit union’s offerings not just a financial service but also an answer to your audience’s needs and how you can help get them there.
By understanding your members and using strategic insights to influence your creatives, you can create a marketing campaign that makes you stand out from the crowd. This is where the power of a branding and marketing agency comes into play.
COHN can not only conduct your audience research, but we also have an experienced creative team to plan and design a campaign that is both strategically backed and also made to be memorable—or rather, member-able—to your audience.
Give us a call, so we can get started and leverage our marketing expertise to supercharge your credit union’s campaigns.
