Cats and Dogs Unite!

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, according to the Banking and Credit Union industries...

by Ron Daly 

While sipping my morning cup of joe and watching the news, I came across this commerical (embedded below, or watch on YouTube here.): 

Two things that struck me about this: 

1. Are moms that unpack groceries the only people affected by anything anymore? I've seen a dozen commercials with that main character.
   
   Now, here's the other, more important thing...
   
   
2. Did you catch who was sponsoring that commercial? 

That's right, it was the ABA, CUNA, and NAFCU all working together to...

Wait, ABA and CUNA and NAFCU?!? Working TOGETHER?

Yes, it seems these bitter rivals are putting aside their differences to attack changes to debit card laws and interchange. They know that banks and credit unions alike will be harmed by changes to interchange, as evidenced by this NAFCU story: 

The survey, for the February issue of NAFCU’s Economic & CU Issues Monitor (formerly the Flash Report), showed that debit interchange fees made up one-fifth of respondent credit unions’ non-interest income last year. The Dodd-Frank Act provision calls on the Federal Reserve to set a “reasonable, proportional” fee on debit transactions. The Fed has a proposal out that would place this fee from 7 cents to 12 cents, which would cut credit unions’ interchange fee income by as much as 80 percent.

Despite the law’s small-issuer exemption, there is nothing to prevent card networks from applying this low fee to all issuers regardless of asset size. Of NAFCU’s survey respondents, 75.4 percent said they have reviewed or will review their business plans for other ways to pay for fraud, data security and other costs associated with providing debit card services.

As much as 80% of income cut? That's rough. No wonder NAFCU and CUNA have put down the cudgels and started shaking hands. What's the old proverb?

"Me against my brother.
Me and my brother against my cousin.
Me, my brother and my cousin agains the outsider."

Or something to that effect. And if NAFCU and CUNA teaming up doesn't surprise and stun you, certainly their pairing with ABA should. And the whole group of them have joined with Visa and MasterCard and countless other groups and businesses to get the word out about interchange and how, eventually, it will do more harm to consumers. 

Next thing you know, my dogs and my neighbors cat will join forces and start demanding more treats. 

Is this video (or any of the other resources available on the Electronic Payments Coalition website) something you want to put in front of members via your website? Feel free to pay them a visit and see if there's something there you want to use to spread the word.

[Special thanks to Keith Leggett's blog for embedding the commercial we were searching for this morning.]

What do you MEAN, all your marketing's spent on calendars?!?

by Ron Daly

Came across this article on the brand new CU Water Cooler blog. It's called "Top Five Myths You Hear Credit Unions Say" by Mark Arnold. It's worth the read, and it made me want to speak out on two of the five "myths". 

(2) We can’t afford to do __________________

Insert your own project, new product, technology, marketing idea or anything else that gets pinched in a tight budget. Let’s be honest: the truth is you probably can afford to do the initiative, you are just choosing not to do it. So don’t blame money: blame your priorities. If you really want to accomplish your goal then you might have to tweak other areas.

I tend to agree with this. True, many CUs have been dealing with diminished budgets and a smaller staff, but that might just be the right time to bring in a creative solution. Such was the case recently with Northwest FCU's member relations department and their collection email series (click here to read about this). DigitalMailer gave a hand, saved them some money and continues to streamline collections calls.

(4) We have to reduce the training and marketing expenses because of the budget 

 Every year is a tough year on the budget. But if you continually cut the training and marketing budgets in the short term, you only harm your organization in the long run. Stephen Covey said it best, “If you have to cut things out you just cut people; you cut training and development; kill the goose that lay the golden egg; for a short term period of time you improve your profits. But then you’ve liquidated the human resources…in the long run you have to live with the consequences of a dead goose.” The truth is you don’t have to cut training and marketing; now is the time to invest in these key areas.

When it comes to marketing, cutting back is always a heartbreak for the folks that make it happen. 

Denise Wymore has been writing about the death of "traditional advertising" on her blog for the past week or so (click here to read her "RIP" series). Lots of folks have had to readjust, pushing and pulling from print, billboard, and even phone book (that post is a funny one) to get into email marketing and other forms of electronic marketing. Creative marketers find ways to MAKE their budgets work - even in a recession. 

One thing that was (and is) a pet peeve of mine is branded calendars. Calendars are expensive to print, exhaustive to get rid of and are useless to most working professionals. When your phone can plug into your computer and share a common calendar that sends you little messages when your to-dos are coming up, a little pocket calendar doesn't mean much to you. There are whole stores that just sell calendars with whatever you want as the month-to-month theme, why bother shoving stock-photos of mountains and grass at people? Giving away calendars is a money dump for your marketing budget - period. Let's put that money to better use. 

Come on, I KNOW you people have your pet peeves about what your marketing budget "has to have" every year. Tell us all about it, and what you'd do with that money if you could spend it how you wanted.