Marketing is ever-changing and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all the changes. To make sure your efforts are a success in the coming year, you should make sure you know what to focus on and how it will help our organisation in the short and long term. We’ve taken a look at what marketers across different industries are focusing on in 2020 and why you should think about doing the same for your credit union.
Talk about you
We quite often get to so busy talking about our products and services that we forget to talk about ourselves. This is something to think about this year. Share more about you and your mission as well as what values you stand for. As a credit union this is part of your unique selling point and something that upcoming generations are considering more and more important. You should also consider what new members will want. Millennials now make up the majority of the workforce and have a huge focus on ethical consumption.This generation more than any before are considering the consequences of the products and services they use.
“They constantly look for brands that have a purpose that resonates with them”
(yougov.co.uk)
so as a credit union, you have a huge opportunity with this group.
Focus on your member experience
As marketers, we’re now moving away from just trying to convince people to use our products and services and focusing on building a positive member experience both online and offline. This means that a lot of your marketing will take care of itself. Word of mouth can be your biggest marketing asset if you get the member experience right and offering a great experience within your community will help to spread the word about this. Word of mouth can be spread online and offline so there’s lots that can be done for your digital and in branch services.
Use more video
Video is becoming more and more important in marketing. Whether it be pre-recorded or live, think about including more video content in your marketing plan. More than ever, consumers are looking closer at the organisations they’re interacting with and a big way they want to do this is through visuals. Share more about your credit union with your members and even give them a look into your day to day life, have an advisor talk about your products and service and even try and get some members to give you video testimonials. Giving a little more of a personal touch through the use of video should be a new focus for 2020.
Don’t forget the importance of your website
Your website can be a very powerful online tool. Try and use it to showcase your credit union as well as your brand personality. A good way to connect with your audience through your website is to post interesting and useful articles that they will want to read each month. Post about things that are happening in your credit union to keep new and potential members up to date on what’s happening. This will allow people to know that you are present and still active! There is often nothing more damaging than an out of date website that members can't navigate easily.
Make content constant
It might be a new decade, but content is still king and it isn’t going anywhere soon. Content drives traffic to your website and social media pages and producing engaging content is useful for building your brand awareness. Remember to use what you know to your advantage and produce content that is relevant and interesting to your audience. Why not create some blogs on money management or some good tactics for saving? You might be surprised about how much your members will be interested in this type of content every month.
Conversational marketing
Out of everything that we do to try and increase our customer retention and loyalty, conversational marketing is probably one of the best ways to achieve this. We’re entering an era where people have hectic lives and don’t always have the time to stop and pay attention to every piece of marketing they see. This is where conversational marketing comes in. Live support, email marketing and chat bots all use conversational marketing and these types of methods allow you to keep that personal approach that is so important to credit unions while still having your brand shine through.
So, these are some of the main way’s marketers are making their mark this year and we hope this information will help you refine and expand your marketing efforts for 2020. It’s an important year for marketing in every industry and we think that credit unions could really take advantage of the current and upcoming trends.
Soar is also on hand to help you plan your marketing strategies, social media and content. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you transform your marketing this year.
