Buy the Cow, OR Just the Milk!

by Ron Daly 

Let's pretend for just a moment that you run a credit union (and you might). Your credit union can offer checking and savings and loans, but has no online banking, no student lending program, and a weak collection strategy. "Just doing" these programs isn't in the cards, given your membership size and available capital, but doing without them will surely cost you future members and won't let you compete with the mega-bank down the street. What do you do? 

If "use a CUSO" didn't cross your mind, you're sadly not alone. 

In a recent article from CU Journal, Tom Davis, CEO of the National Association of CUSOs (NACUSO), expressed his frustration with credit unions' unwillingness to invest in CUSOs. 

From the article: 

"Why think about joining a multi-owned CUSO in the first place?" Davis asked rhetorically. "Because it will help sustain the credit union. It will drive value to the credit union's members. It spreads risk among multiple credit unions. It adds expertise. We need to point out the advantages, specifically driving value back to the members, which is why we are here. Putting my NACUSO hat on, that is what we are all about...we provide applied learning experiences on the value of collaboration."

Tom has some great reasons for investing in a CUSO and collaboration. The article is worth the read. But here's a question that hasn't been asked yet, and I'm going to be bold and put this out there: 

Why not just BUY from a CUSO? 

I can appreciate why a credit union would buy into a CUSO so they'd have a stake in its success, add value to the CU, and obtain owner pricing. But if what you need is a service and what that CUSO is providing is the exact service you need, just buy the product from the CUSO! You don't always need to invest in the CUSO to become a part of it, you just need to use their products and services. 

I put my CUSO (DigitalMailer) out there as an example. We're the 2nd largest eStatement provider in the industry, our email engine is designed to help you maximize your online marketing ROI, and we're used by 180 credit unions nationwide. When it's down to two, if you have the choice between an industry outsider or someone with ten years experience in financial services, why choose the former? 

 Put simply: When it comes to CUSOs, you can buy the cow and get the milk or you can just buy the milk. All things being equal, when considering a vendor, we encourage you to buy CUSO. 

As always, your comments are appreciated. 

HAMP Hampered

by Ron Daly 

The successes of President Obama's financial programs have been debated by pundits for the past year or so. Some say that progress is naturally slow in recovery and that the seeds of these initiatives will bear fruit for years to come. Others say that the programs have not helped enough in the short term to warrant their continued support. 

One program being debated currently is the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, or HAMP. A recent story from ABC News talks about the program - its proponents, its opponents, and its short-term success. 

Watch the video below. [EMAIL READERS - please visit the website to view the video. Flash player required.]

According to the online version of the story, only 116,000 homeowners have taken advantage of the $75 Billion program thusfar. Only 116,000 on a program designed to help 2 million? Why? Because bankers won't help customers and would rather foreclose. This has led some lawmakers to call the program a "failure" and has prompted the Treasury to suggest a stronger hand. If the Treasury and the Obama Administration had their druthers, banks would be required to see if homeowners qualified for HAMP help prior to foreclosure. Banks would only be allowed to begin the foreclosure process after a borrower had been officially unqualified. 

Telling Potential Members to "Move It!"

by Ron Daly 

A new force is emerging in the battle for new members at CUs...from the pages of the Huffington Post comes the "Move Your Money" campaign. The goal: convince people across the country to move their money from any of the big banks to a community bank or credit union. 

moveyourmoney.info

When we first mentioned this, it was in passing, but we thought it was worth a whole post because of the traction it's been getting. We were interested to see our friends over at American Debt Relief Challenge wrote an article for Huffington Post about their good work getting folks to move their credit card balances to a CU. To date, almost $20 million has been saved thanks to balance transfers to a CU. 

Got Snow?: What our company (and our clients) learned from The Blizzard of 2010

by Ron Daly

This story originally ran on the DigitalMailer Blog. 

Call me an optimist, but I'm going to call this storm "THE blizzard of 2010", in the hopes that it's not just "A blizzard of 2010". 

It's been an interesting week here at DigitalMailer. In case you missed any news outlet of the past week, the DC/Metro area got almost THREE FEET of snow dropped on us in the span of a week. Many of our account managers, operations staff and marketing department had to work from home for the entire week - and one of our staff members won't be dug out until days from now. Hang in there, Steve! 

CUNA to Administration: Where Do CUs Fit In?

by Ron Daly 

For the past few weeks, CUNA has been striking out at the Obama Administration's new Small Business Lending Fund plan. The plan, which would distribute $30 billion in unused TARP funds to 8,000 community banks, doesn't mention credit unions as a potential business lender or alternative to community banks. 

From the above Fox News story:

Senior administration officials say the Treasury Department, SBA (Small Business Administration) and other White House officials and community bank groups worked on this legislation together and will affect banks that have between one billion and 10 billion dollars in assets.

CUNA, upon hearing the details of the President's plan, registered its outrage in a series of posts and stories on its website and in the CU Times. CUNA President and CEO Dan Mica registered his disappointment with further bank investments and is asking for face time with President Obama to speak on behalf of CUs across the country.

From CUNA News Now: 

"Credit unions have been making loans over the past year and can make even more if legislation expanding their capacity to make small business loans is enacted. I hear credit unions say: 'Don't just subsidize the banks; let us help this country get back on its feet--without using taxpayers' money,'" [Mica] added.

Business lending caps have been a hot topic for credit unions in the past year. A recent Washington Post article about CU business lending has this quote from a Treasury rep about bringing CUs into the fold: 

"We work very closely with credit unions and we have put forward a number of initiatives to help small businesses, but we are always willing to explore new ideas," Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Monday.

We're eager to hear your opinion about the Small Business Lending Fund. If the business cap needs to be lifted, or increased, are the ramifications going to be so dire for banks? And what if the cap ISN'T lifted? Credit Unions nationwide have been doing more to lend to businesses with their own money. Do we really want to get in on the bonanza of $30 billion in TARP leftovers, or just keep up our "thanks but no thanks" attitude and lend to businesses as much as we possibly can without the cap disappearing?

Tell us your thoughts in the comment section.

Follow-And-Friend Freeze Out

by Ron Daly

Have YOU been subject to it yet?

If you're a marketing person at a credit union, you've probably entered the world of social networking. Whether you're just dipping in your toe with a Twitter account (follow us, by the way) or you've moved into your own Drupal backboned-supersite complete with blogs and Facebook links (like our dear friends at CU Rising), social media and social networking can be fun...and it can be daunting. 

Right now, our Twitter's holding at ~260 followers/friends. If someone wants to chat or feedback with us, we're available - really, feel free! Our site now boasts its own "Chat Now!" button so that you can reach us personally or leave us a message. 

Where things start to break down for most business-minded folks on Twitter is in dealing with a large follow count. Friend of the blog Jeffry Pilcher (@FinancialBrand) has almost 2,000 followers and is following almost 1,500 people and banks/CUs/businesses. Pilcher's follow count is pretty high, but he puts a great deal of time into his social media plan - following movers and shakers in finance marketing and making sure his posts, tweets and emails get read. Two-thousand followers is a lot, but it's still considered a "group" in terms of social media - not just an audience.

And then, there's Oprah.

A Second Opinion

by Ron Daly

Monday's article about CUs picking up steam was full of examples of credit unions making the news for their exceptional service and their remarkable best practices. Some folks don't think we've come quite far enough in the past year, and that we still have further to go. 

When you learn about business and marketing, you're always told to think about what's next as opposed to what's now. What's NOW is that CUs are getting a little extra attention because we're the "good guys". What's NEXT is up to the industry.

Take the Skeptic for example. Not just any skeptic, mind you - the CU Skeptic and a guest post by Bill Grizack of BrightLeaf Financial Network. Grizack started off by declaring himself an "outsider", someone who works around and with credit unions but has never worked for one. His article points out which credit unions were making it into the top ten in overall satisfaction (by region) on the JD Power and Associates study in retail banking - zero. From there, Grizack shows credit unions not ranking on bankrate.com and the 2008 Forrester consumer ranking of FIs (NOTE: Monday's data shows Forrester Research results for customer experience - it is not reflective of financial matters so much as how people felt when using a CU). 

NARFE Premier says "Get on board!"

by Ron Daly 

[Read all about this story on CUTimes.com or at CUNAMarketingCouncil.org] 

NARFE Premier FCU in Alexandria, VA started using the Automatic Relationship Builder last summer to bring new services and products to members' attention. 

Wanting to branch out into the world of email marketing, NARFE Premier marketing director Jessie Dederer turned to the team at DigitalMailer. Our recommendation? An on-boarding program aimed at new members who may not have been aware of everything NARFE Premier had to offer. 

On-boarding campaigns are aimed at members that have just joined a credit union. The Automatic Relationship Builder takes in new member lists and sets up a series of emails to be sent to those members across a few weeks. A simple welcome email is followed by information about loans, mortgages, HELOCs, credit cards, checking accounts, money market accounts - anything the credit union thinks would be of interest to new members. 

NARFE Premier's own campaign proved to be a great success. Deposit accounts increased 24%, while loan accounts increased 190%. From the CU Times article on NARFE Premier's on-boarding campaign:

"This helped trim our marketing budget by 40%, and we are looking at finishing the year spending 50% less," said Dederer. "It's a win-win for everyone. We save money and are still able to deliver the same message with better results while reaching our members the way they want."

Want to get started with your own, customized on-boarding program? Click here to contact us.

Your chance to join the NACUSO Technology Advisory Board

From the CU Soapbox and Robbie Wright of the Life and Times of a CU Employee comes an exciting new contest - read more below!

Most everyone in the credit union industry has heard of NACUSO.  The National Association of Credit Union Service Organizations is the trade association for CUSO’s across the nation and has been doing great work in encouraging collaboration between credit unions.  NACUSO has a number of advisory boards and I happen to sit on their Technology board.  As is the norm with advisory boards, our membership is fairly fluid and we are always looking for new talent and news ways of using technology to further credit unions.

We currently have an opening on the Technology Advisory board and will be looking to fill that position by the end of January.  In the same vein as Young and Free and Forum Solutions‘ search for a speaker for their symposium, we will be hosting an online video contest for our vacant spot.

If you think you have what it takes to encourage credit unions to collaborate,  adopt new technologies, and want to be on the bleeding edge of financial services technologies, bust out that video camera.  The submission deadline is January 15th and we’ll announce the new member on January 29th, 2010.

To submit your video, upload it to a video sharing site such as Vimeo, Viddler, or YouTube (anyone with robust sharing capabilities) and shoot an email with the information .  I’ll post your submission to the NACUSO website.  We’ll throw a poll up on the website beginning in January to let everyone start voting and give us some insight before we make a final decision.  Feel free to leave a comment with any questions or shoot me an email.

Oh, by the way, you might want to know what you are getting yourself into.  At this point, we have a monthly conference call that lasts less than an hour and tend to trade emails back and forth throughout the month.  This may change slightly in the future as new projects come along, but that’s about it.  Ideally, one should be able to attend the NACUSO Annual Convention each year, but it is not mandatory.

We’re looking forward to everyone’s submissions!

CBS touts Credit Unions. Why wouldn't we?

by Ron Daly

You've probably been laboring over your budgets here recently, getting ready for 2010. You've probably been wondering, "What's the best way to express the credit union difference to the unbanked or those unhappy with their bank?" 

Well, the people at CBS are doing a little of your heavy lifting for you. 

This piece, called "Credit Unions Better Than Banks for You?", ran earlier this week on the CBS Early Show. Their financial correspondent, Vera Gibbons, talks about what CUs have to offer (mostly in terms of loan rates) that banks just can't - or won't. 

The story also focuses on misconceptions about CUs. Apparently, there are still people in this country that think CUs only cater to niche groups. The reporters do a good job of dispelling that rumor and letting people know there's a credit union out there for them.

If you read the whole article linked above (or watch the video below  - email readers, use this link to CBS news video site - and sorry about the commercial, CBS has to make their money somehow), you'll get a sense of what your average joe knows about credit union membership. The answer? Not much. What are you doing to let members know they can join a credit union, or more specifically, YOUR credit union? Do they know their deposits are insured? Do they know you offer competitive rates and better service? 

Is this story and video on your website or blog? If I were you, I'd start linking to this.

I tell you what, I'll do you one better. 

I had my creative media director whip up this button this morning. It's a nice, bright blue, should fit comfortably on any homepage or blog. It's in two sizes, one 250 pixels wide, one 150 pixels wide. 

 Small One

 Big One
 

Make it a button on your homepage or blog that links to the video we're talking about here today. Simply download these button images and use them where you please to promote this story.

Here's the link again: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5989790n

Make sure it opens in a new window so your potential members can keep browsing around. 

THERE. You don't have to bother marketing, just get your web manager to throw that where you want it to go. You don't need your own home-grown YouTube video. You just need to point them to this CBS story.

We're doing the work for you here. Tell potential members what you have to offer over the banks today! I'm certain someone will say that's not a good idea, but why? Just do it. Don't waste this opportunity to get people interested in joining YOUR credit union.

(PS - If you're worried about rights issues/creative commons/whatever, don't. This image is a total freebie. Scratch that - this whole STORY is a freebie. Reblog it, repurpose it, reTumbl it, Retweet it, etc. I'll keep an eye on our analytics to see how far our story/images go. Just make people pay attention to this endorsement of CUs.)

CHALLENGE: Put this on your website, and challenge five others to do the same. Maybe we can get some people to pay attention. 

Watch CBS News Videos Online