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Why Credit Unions Must Embrace Marketing Automation

Today’s marketing is dominated by creating more personal experiences. So, how can financial institutions like credit unions compete with those larger banks? This is where marketing automation comes in.

For a larger share of wallet, it is important to keep your members loyal to you, and to do this, your credit union must show how much you appreciate them. Your members already benefit from its size and the “people helping people” philosophy, but it also has everything you need, regardless of budget; a wealth of personal information so you can connect your marketing and reach your members both online and offline.

How marketing automation helps credit unions

Marketing automation is essential in the digital age to succeed with cross-selling. You can use it to automatically suggest new and complementary products, and it ensures that each member receives relevant and customized offers.

Additionally, you can utilize a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and segmentation criteria to initiate the next effective marketing activity for each member of your audience. Amazon saw a 35% boost in sales after implementing cross-selling in 2006 (i.e., “customers who bought this item also bought…”). Even though you’re not as huge as Amazon, you know a lot more about your members. How about using automation to increase your results? If you bought a new home, you may also like insurance or a home equity or personal loan to help with the perfect living space.

Don’t miss out on opportunities to connect with your members and decrease the number of offers or products that they choose to dismiss. By keeping an eye on the data, you can make sure you are presenting relevant offers to both current and potential consumers.

Where to start with marketing automation

You’ll be surprised at how much time you’ve been wasting when your credit union jumps on the marketing automation bandwagon. Without the need to hire extra IT professionals, marketing and sales could handle campaign coordination on their own and be able to evaluate client member behavior in real time. This enables you to quickly adjust your promotions and special offers for better outcomes and respond to actual member feedback.

Marketing automation platforms for credit unions

The learning curve has also been greatly reduced by the kind of user-friendly and straightforward marketing automation tools that are currently available. Here’s a list of popular platforms being used by credit unions.

Marquis

This CRM system tailored to credit unions can be integrated with Marquis‘ marketing automation package. This eliminates the need to employ several tools from various vendors by allowing a client to gather, analyze, and act on opportunities within the same analytical platform. Marquis is the only automation vendor to have a professional services team (OnTrax) as a dedicated resource for credit union marketing teams.

Digital Onboarding

Digital Onboarding gives you tools that will help your business grow. Credit unions can use a library of digital features that were made with CU’s in mind. Create emails and SMS messages that stand out. Personalized Microsites will let you guide members through complicated tasks and give them educational content by sharing videos, pictures, documents, and more.

Hubspot

With tools that speed up development, maintain uniform formatting, and make it simple to optimize for search, HubSpot enables you to create pertinent, interesting, and conversion-optimized content.

You can use it to run A/B testing on your email campaign to see which options get better feedback so will be able to plan out your upcoming campaigns.

You can also build on your CU’s social media presence by planning and publishing posts at the appropriate times, depending on who views your platform.

Prisma

Smart, simple, and tailored omnichannel cross-selling assistance is provided by Prisma Campaigns. It offers a smooth sailing experience, from effective and quick consumer onboarding to personalized and customized marketing through automated marketing solutions.

Act ON

You can point, click, drag, and drop your way to creating the marketing campaign of your choice with the help of the marketing automation SaaS platform Act-On. You can also segment lists, score and distribute leads, create lead nurturing programs, and activate offers in response to certain actions.

Act-On gives you the tools you need to build up marketing campaigns that are carried out automatically in accordance with your pre-programmed guidelines. You can utilize conditional “if-then” logic to trigger a campaign’s next steps.

Eloqua

Eloqua, a marketing automation platform owned by Oracle, operates on a variety of platforms, including email, display search, the web, video, and mobile.

This program offers tools for segmenting audiences and delivering the most pertinent content to them. Eloqua comes with an emailer that contacts members and prospects and a website monitoring system that keeps tabs on their activities on websites under your control.

Pardot

You can integrate your marketing and sales efforts with Pardot, a marketing automation platform from Salesforce. By developing, deploying, and administering your online campaigns from a single central platform, it enables you to manage all of your potential interactions.

Populate your contact list with the best and most relevant leads by utilizing features like email marketing, personalized landing sites, clever lead collection forms, and a single marketing dashboard.

By sending members customized communications that are based on engagement, you will create individualized and relevant offers for your leads.

Marketo

Marketo is a platform for marketing automation that offers a variety of marketing options, including social media, mobile, digital ads, web administration, and analytics.

Through features like engaging ads, individualized content, and a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool that sends quality traffic to your credit union website, it assists in helping you find and interact with the relevant audience and target the right people.

Building a long-lasting relationship with your members is essential once you get their attention. Marketo helps by maintaining consumer engagement with automated email marketing campaigns

Marketing automation is no longer just a choice for credit unions to consider. In fact, it has been a must-have for a while. If you need help getting started with marketing automation, look no further than Vibrant Marketing. Contact us today to get started!

Meet the author:

Glen Stacey

Glen Stacey is a content creator and a leader in real-time marketing. He creatively and strategically creates entertaining, informative content and develops marketing strategies, to help credit unions grow their business and stand out.

Stacey has presented nationally, including at the CUNA Marketing and Business Development Conference, and locally to assist area businesses and non-profits accelerate the impact of their content marketing efforts.

Stacey, a two-time Credit Union National Association (CUNA) Diamond Award winner, was also recognized as a Credit Union Rock Star from CUNA. Credit Union Rock Stars are “professionals in credit union organizations who leverage their exceptional creativity, innovation, and passion to advance their credit union’s mission and elevate their community.