Getting it Right: Catholic Federal Credit Union

Name: Catholic Federal Credit Union
Assets: $309,275,805
Members:  26,631
Website: www.cathfcu.com
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With Google and a new microsite on their side, Catholic Federal Credit Union’s latest inspiring campaign is helping them grow wallet share. CU Love Thy Neighbor is using a microsite to ask people how they’d help their neighbors with $5 from Catholic Federal. Everyone who participated was entered into a $1,000 drawing. In the first three weeks more than one hundred participants submitted stories, videos or photographs in response.

Successfully working in tandem with this campaign is a Google AdWords program that CU Solutions Group is heading. It targets people searching for checking accounts and directs them to the campaign’s microsite. The leads generated from this campaign are growing daily and the AdWords cost per conversion rate is lowering each day as well.

Catholic Federal factored in current member and potential member behavior when creating their campaign – the fact that more and more people hit the Web first to check rates and apply for membership or loans. They have also worked with CU Solutions Group to review their website’s SEO and usability. The credit union is using all of these online tools and information to tweak their marketing and website as they go. As far as future plans, they’re going to continue monitoring and adjusting their efforts to garner the best results.

If You Build It: Why Your Credit Union Should Go Social with Online Advertising

If you build it, they will come. While that mantra may have worked for Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams,” it doesn’t necessarily work for credit union websites. It would be great if the popularity of your credit union and its products and services were enough to draw the traffic you need, but it’s not likely. The real traffic will come from well-crafted website copy and carefully placed online advertising.

Online Attraction
Statistics show 84% of new car buyers do extensive online research before applying for a new car loan, traditional or online. Being where consumers are when they are shopping is the best way to capture their loan.  You can do this by practicing search engine optimization on your Web pages and through pay-per-click advertising. 

Over the past several years, traditional advertising has started taking a backseat to the fast-growing trend of online advertising. This growth is the result of more dollars spent per business versus more businesses jumping on the online advertising bandwagon. These numbers are growing because companies are quickly learning that the Internet, specifically social media networks, is where the consumers are, in particular the sought after younger generation. A study called Social Habit 2011 from Edison Research has found that one in four social media users knowingly follow brands. 24 percent of them name Facebook as the most influential to their purchasing decisions.

Getting Social
By now your credit union more than likely not only has a website but a Facebook page and Twitter account. And for those of you that are even more forward thinking, you may even have a Google+ page, LinkedIn and Pinterest account. Whichever social media platforms you’re participating in, they may also be well-deserving investments of your online advertising dollar. We’ll focus on the two largest social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook
Facebook has 156.8 million users in the U.S. who can be reached through FB advertising. With a site like Facebook, you have the advantage because the consumer is coming to you!  A study from GroupM and comScore shows that 40 percent of consumers who search for companies online look at social media as being the next step to finalizing their purchasing decision. And 80 percent of Facebook users follow a brand.

What does this mean for your credit union? The Facebook Ads trend is more than growing, it’s booming – and the perfect opportunity to reach consumers at the perfect time. Facebook offers several ways to advertise:

• Facebook Ads – These work like Google AdWords where you can pay per click or per impression. You can set the maximum amount you want to pay per day or pay a bid price. It’s in your best interest to monitor and revise your ads throughout the campaign so you can get the best results for your advertising dollar.

• Sponsored Stories –Use organic interactions between your credit union and its fans with various “story” types including Like Stories, Page Post Stories, Check-in Stories and others.

Another benefit to Facebook advertising is it enables you to focus your reach. You can target your ads by your credit union’s surround zip codes, the age and gender of your targeted audience and even if they’re married or single.

Twitter
In 2011, Twitter averaged 500,000 new accounts created daily and 80 percent of their advertisers renewing their campaigns. An ExactTaget survey has uncovered that Twitter users are the most influential online consumers with 72 percent of them publishing blog posts monthly or more, blog comments come from 70 percent of them and 61 percent write at least one product review per month. Twitter offers two forms of online advertising:

•  Promoted Tweets – Advertisers can pay for a Promoted Tweet in search and a Promoted Tweet in timelines enabling you to target followers or users like your followers. You can narrow your efforts on a local or national level. Promoted Tweets are priced per engagement, so you only pay when someone retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites your Promoted Tweet.

• Promoted Accounts – This form of advertising is great if your credit union is looking to either expand its online presence or is about to launch a new product, service or campaign. A Promoted Account is featured in Twitter search results and in the Who to Follow section.

The Future is Online
A recent study by Filene Research Institute entitled Credit Union Digital Branding had a significant main takeaway. “It is not enough to turn traditional collateral and messaging into digital collateral and messaging. Instead, credit unions need to capitalize on the deeper trend of social connections to make sure their marketing reaches the right audience in the first place and has its intended effect when it arrives.”

Industry projections all point to online advertising with estimates forecasting one-quarter of all local ad spending will go online by 2014, according to eMarketer. Whichever online advertising platform your credit union utilizes, be it Google or any of the aforementioned social media channels, make the most of your online advertising dollars and efforts to drive prospective members to your credit union’s website. And before you know it, they will come.

And if all of these options seem a bit overwhelming, CU Solutions Group has online advertising and social media experts to help you through the process.

Related products: Social Media, SEO, Marketing Campaigns, Online Advertising

Getting the Most Out of Google AdWords for Credit Unions

Google AdWords. We’ve all heard of them. They’re those “sponsored links” you find on the top or side of your Google search results page. They just happen to correspond with whatever term you were searching. If you’re like most surfers you’ve probably even clicked on one of those links once in a while. That’s just what Google and the company advertising were hoping.

If you’ve ever been on the other end of Google AdWords, then you’ve discovered how much science is actually behind the process – and math. Results are broken up into impressions, clicks, clickthrough rates, cost-per-clicks and many more.

Trial and Error
When managed properly, Google AdWords can be a very powerful marketing tool to help your credit union grow its membership. But it does take the perfect mix of keywords and phrases to get beneficial results. Working with Google Analytics and through trial and error, you can juggle key terms to uncover which are most effective for your credit union.

According to Google, the more specific you can be in your keywords, the better off you will be. Plus, it never hurts to think like your potential members instead of a credit union. What terms would they be using when they’re searching for mortgages? Tailor the keywords to what your credit union specifically offers or is promoting when it comes to mortgages. Instead of just using the term “mortgage,” you’re better off using “low rate mortgage.” Google AdWords gives you the ability to tweak your keywords to find what works best for you.

Another great tip to remember is to stay away from plurals if at all possible. Using the word “mortgage” versus “mortgages” will enable you to capture people searching for both terms, while using the plural would exclude anyone searching using the singular term.

The Google AdWords Advantage
So, we’ve covered the nuts and bolts of Google AdWords – which might be leaving you wondering why use Google AdWords at all? If your credit union has some marketing dollars to spend, Google AdWords will give you the most targeted and affordable campaign results out there. You can advertise nationally or locally, depending on your needs. Going with Google AdWords enables your credit union to target online customers within a 20 mile radius if you’d like, or by a specific city, region or country. Basically, you’re reaching new customers at the precise moment they’re searching for products and services like those at your credit union.

Another strong selling point to Google AdWords is the cost. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. And you can control how much you spend per click, your daily budget and where your ads appear. To get the most bang for your AdWords buck, just make sure you understand the overall ROI and then bid on the appropriate keywords accordingly.

Results
A major perk of Google AdWords is the backend data you receive on your campaign. You get graphs, statistics and performance data to help you track how your ads did – which makes it easier to make informed decisions on any editing that might be necessary.

Case Study: Facebook Advertising

Google isn’t the only online entity that offers pay-per-click advertising – Facebook is also making some impressive headway in their online advertising options.

Bellwether Community Credit Union had been experiencing a slow but steady growth of "likes" on its Facebook page and had reached just over 200 in a six-month time period. Impressive growth, but the credit union was looking to boost those numbers even more.

Once it started using Facebook ads, with a dedicated tab on the page itself, Bellwether’s "likes” have grown to over 500 in just three months. Madeline Anderson, marketing manager for the credit union explains, “We were running promotions and contests to get members to post on our Facebook page, but that didn't seem to have as much impact as the ads themselves.”

Getting Started
To get the best results from Google AdWords, it may be worthwhile to work with someone with AdWords expertise. Someone who is trained on the latest AdWords tools and best practice techniques to help you effectively manage your credit unions’ campaigns. If you’re interested in working with an expert, CU Solutions Group has trained staff to help.

Related Services:  Custom Website Content, Website Design and Development