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Improving Credit Union Member Communication

Effective communication is the key to success in credit union membership relations. However many credit unions seem to forget that there are two parts to it. Organizations today often master the art of getting information to their members, but are extremely weak in the area of listening their member’s responses to the marketing messages they are sending. There are a few primary tools that your institution can use to effectively listen to your audience.

Keeping pace with the communication tools

Consumers in any market can be drawn from one business to another simply by the newest trend or software in their environment. Credit union members are no different. One of the newer ways to communicate with your members is “Activity-Based Marketing” as Ron Shevlin of Snarketing 2.0 coined it. This is not “up-selling” at the counter, but instead is communicating to prospective members by using precisely placed ads on mobile apps or some other activity-based software to deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience.

Turning transactions into learning opportunities

Most of your transactions occur in your branches; are you really making the most out of these opportunities? The best time to listen and learn from your members is when they are in your branch already doing business. Instead of your tellers thinking of only the business transaction at hand, work on a training exercise with your tellers to create opportunities with members to learn more about them. Turning your credit union’s transactions into relationship building conversations is the key to showing your members you want to serve them better.

Creating social media strategies that emphasize listening

A LinkedIn study found that 63% of affluent consumers research financial services and products on social media before making financial decisions.

In one way or another social media is a part of everyone’s life, whether we like it or not. One of the benefits of everyone being apart of social media is that you can receive a multiplicity of responses from both your current clientele and prospective members. This gives you a broad spectrum of information about your members’ or target audiences’ preferences, behaviors and how they feel about your organization.

Monitoring keywords through Hootsuite and popular trends on Facebook and Twitter can help you stay relevant by joining the conversations that are most important to your target audience.

Overall, mastering communication to efficiently market your credit union begins with listening to your members.

 Let’s discuss your favorite listening tools in the comments.