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On Wednesday, Maine marketers from across the state gathered for the Maine CU Marketing Council's Annual Summer Workshop at the Old Town Hall at the Hilton Garden Inn in Freeport to "Experience Marketing '17: Drivers, Data & Disruptors," a day-long workshop that provided credit unions with effective techniques on how to improve member experiences through marketing, how to engage staff from all departments in sharing innovative ideas, information about industry disruptors, and ways to incorporate products in ways that are most useful to members.
Cindy Morgan, Senior Marketing Executive for New England FCU, based in Williston, VT, opened the day with her session, "The 5 Ps: Price, Promotion, Product, Place and People." New England FCU is a $1.2 billion dollar credit union with over 90,000 members. She has over 35 years of experience in the financial sector and has received awards that include CUNA's Marketing Professional of the Year, multiple Diamond Awards, and CUES Golden Mirror Awards. She is a charter member of the CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council and served on its executive committee for three years. Her engaging presentation urged attendees to "think outside the box" and to draw innovative ideas from all departments of the credit union.
"Innovation: Something new, something useful, and something valued," stated Morgan.
Morgan provided inspiration kits to all attendees that included prompts, tips, and ideas that could be implemented immediately in marketing departments at credit unions. In describing how to approach how to sell credit union products and services, she provided the analogy that "Apple didn't come up with the phone, they came up with a different way to use the phone." Just like today's credit unions did not invent the checking account, marketers can change how people use products and services. After sharing resources, brainstorming tricks, and campaigns that worked in her credit union (ranging from community involvement to financial literacy to refinancing offers), she closed her session urging attendees to "make things memorable for people."
The afternoon's sessions were led by Anne Legg, Vice President of Engagement Strategies for CUNA Mutual AdvantEDGE Analytics and founder of THRIVE Strategic Services. She is a recognized credit union industry expert, veteran, and thought leader who has served on various credit union boards, including CUNA's Marketing and Business Development Executive Council, MAC, and the California and Nevada Credit Union League Public Advocacy Committee. She has instructed at the CUNA Marketing School, is the subject matter expert for their marketing curriculum, and has been a contributing author to CUNA's Environmental Scan. Legg also has received numerous awards including CUNA's Marketing Professional of the Year, Credit Union Executive Society Rising 100, CO-OP ThinkPrize semi-finalist, and has been named "A Woman to Watch" by the Credit Union Times.
She opened her first session, "Creating Value in a Disruptive Environment" by highlighting that, external to credit unions, Uber and AirBnB are well known examples of disruptors that have no inventory – they exemplify the sharing economy we are moving into. She then cited parallel examples in today's FinTech ecosystem that are disruptors for credit unions, with over 6,000 financial technology start-up companies actively targeting small pieces of profitable credit unions' business in spaces such as payments, lending, and financial management. Block chain will shake things up in the future as the sharing economy becomes more embedded in every part of the financial system. A forecasted example was the funding of a mortgage. Today, this process typically takes 30 days or less. With fingerprint authentication linked through block chain, the blending of tech and currency could streamline this process. Value, trust, data, and thinking like a FinTech were points that Legg urged marketers to consider when promoting products and services to members.
"We have more data than we know what to do with, in our core, in our loan origination," stated Legg. In marketing, it's combining this with the trust of members and creating member-centric designed products, and anticipating members' needs before they need it. "Data is all around us. Our members are using it to make their lives better. How can we use it to make their lives better?" asked Legg. "Figure out what it is that your members need, what value it can create, and start doing it. Because somebody else already is." She closed her first session by urging credit union marketers to think like a FinTech and focus on messaging that drives home the value for members. "Messaging is huge," stressed Legg. "Always think about how you can show them the value. Prove it."
Anne's second session, "From Product to Platform: How Credit Unions Can Change Their Landscape," explored how credit unions can reinvent themselves based on the insights they can harness from big data, addressing the transition from product to platform, and considerations and opportunities available to credit unions. Elaborating on using data, she stressed how mining ACH data is a great way to get to know members more and allows credit unions to provide a personalized experience to their members. To accomplish this, marketers can build the business case, examine what the challenges are and what insights can be gained from a targeted audience, and to start small with an AGILE team.
Attendees of the workshop provided feedback with rave reviews about the presenters. "Both presenters were very approachable with fantastic innovative ideas. They had a very fresh approach and were receptive to what our needs are," shared a Maine CU Marketing Council member. Another stated, "The insights about disruption and data use were most valuable to me in my position and because it dovetails with what I'm trying to push/implement at my credit union."
Looking ahead, the Marketing Council is seeking volunteers to help plan 2018 programming and will have a conference call in October. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Sarah Farwell, Product Marketing Writer/Coordinator.