Getting Your Credit Union’s CMO and CFO on the Same Page

We all know about right brain versus left brain people and the money people versus the creative people. These age-old battles can even be found at credit unions like yours. But believe it or not, a recent study from Market Measurement for Active International discovered that CFOs and CMOs tend to agree more than they disagree.

According to the study, 80% of CFOs say they often or always agree with CMOs when it comes to making major business decisions. 74% of CMOs say the same thing about CFOs. The area where disagreements arise? Marketing priorities. When agreeing on marketing plans and priorities, only 8% of CMOs and 5% of CFOs feel they’re aligned. 

Does your credit union’s marketing and finance departments play nicely together? While no working relationship is ideal, it might benefit your credit union to see if there’s anything it can do to help this one goes smoothly. But it’s not easy to find a melding of the minds with the quantitative nature of a CFO and the more creative disposition of a CMO. But what’s a credit union to do?

Fortunately, the credit union CMO/CFO relationship is constantly changing – and for the most part the change is for the better. Thanks to quality and plentiful information gained through big data creators like websites and social media, marketers have an easier time proving their efforts have a healthy ROI. While changes like this are in your credit union’s favor, there are still some things you can do to keep a positive CMO/CFO relationship chugging along. And if you don’t have actual CMOs or CFOs at your credit union, these tips could help you marketing and finance teams get along better too.

• Informal meetings – It’s hard to blindly classify someone as an adversary if you know about your kids’ name or what their favorite sports teams are. Get together after work or for lunch once a month to touch base, get to know each other and see each other in a different light.
• One side – No matter how you feel about each other, just remember you’re all on the same side – that of the credit union’s. Everything you all do should be to benefit the credit union as a whole. Once everyone remembers that finance and marketing both want to work for a successful credit union, it can help bring things into focus.
• Metrics – The best way to ensure both sides are on the same page is to work off of the same set of metrics. Make sure you’re both measuring your ROI consistently.
• Third party – Sometimes you need a neutral territory – kind of like Switzerland for your credit union. If your areas are at odds, sometimes bringing in a consultant can help. Whether it’s a marketing consultant or an overall strategic consultant, having an expert come in can shine a new light on your credit union’s concerns and issues. The key element is to make sure everyone is on board to listen to the consultant’s recommendations and working to have everyone agree to implement what the expert suggests. 

Like with a good friendship or marriage, it takes a lot of hard work to bring the best out of each other for the overall benefit of your credit union. If your credit union could use a little outside expertise to help get its strategy back on track, CU Solutions Group has marketing and strategy consultants to help get you there. We also have website and social media analytics to make sure everyone is on the same page to get you there even faster.

Shifting Your Strategy as the Result of a Credit Union Merger

For the past couple of decades, mergers have been occurring in many industries, and have possibly been more prevalent in credit unions. While CEOs diligently review the financial part of the merger, another critical part of the merger involves the people side of the equation. Human resources’ role can be one of the most important, aside from the financial review. 

There are two major pieces that HR handles during the merger: the strategy side – policies, practices and benefits, and the people side – emotions and culture.

The Strategy Side

The acquirer’s HR strategy can vary greatly from that of the company being merged. Some questions that should be addressed:

• Do you lead or lag the market in terms of compensation and benefits?
• What are your workplace policies?
• What are your pay policies, i.e., overtime, incentive plans and bonuses?
• What benefit plans do you offer?
• Is there a match on the 401(k) plan?

It’s important to create a spreadsheet to compare the two companies with reference to the above questions so any gaps can be identified. Typically, the acquiring company’s strategy will overrule but there can be some integration of the two, especially where there may be significant differences between the two companies.

When acquisitions occur, there are usually layoffs due to a duplication of manpower. This reality means coordinating separation and severance pay issues. Laws and regulations to be considered through this process include, but are not limited to, Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) of 1988. Additionally, with increased combined headcount sometimes comes increased legal compliance. Many federal and state laws are based on headcount, such as the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Federal and state law requirements need to be identified and brought forward to senior management to anticipate any additional costs and/or policy changes that may be implemented as a result.

The People Side
Mergers also bring about an array of emotions. Employees on both sides of the merger are most likely experiencing some of the following:

• Anxiety – Will I still have a job? What will the new compensation structure be like?
• Resistance – I’m happy where I am and with what I’m doing.
• Fear – What if I don’t like the new culture?
• Trust – How do I know I can believe what they tell us?

Effective Methods to Address Emotional Concerns
First and foremost, HR needs to ensure communication occurs frequently throughout the merger process. It’s a good idea to use multiple avenues of communication to ensure you reach everyone such as a company intranet, FAQs and all-hands meetings. Also, arming managers with information they can share with their staff is very helpful, along with question and answer sessions. Keeping the transaction as transparent as possible, with an appropriate level of disclosure, will ease the anxiety employees are experiencing. Failure to do so could allow the rumor mill to drive the communication process.

It’s important to know where each organization is emotionally before entering the merger. Conducting an employee opinion survey may be an effective method to give insight to the workplace climate and uncover any hurdles. In addition to the survey, developing a presence through on-site visits and interactions with employees may help create trust and reduce resistance.

Fortunately, mergers usually don’t occur overnight. HR should be involved in the process from the very beginning so they can complete their due diligence as thoroughly as the financial side of the transaction.

Related Services: HR Consulting Services, Strategic Planning Resources

Working with a Credit Union Strategy Partner

As you may know, Membership Enhancement Solutions provides a value driven membership enhancement program called Invest in America (IIA). Participating credit unions are able to develop their membership enhancement strategies and align them to IIA’s strategy, which can present a real opportunity for auto loan, non-interest income and debit/credit card transaction growth. To assist in these efforts, Invest in America posts its marketing calendar online so you can plan your marketing activities accordingly.

IIA is in the early stages of a four-month long Web banner ad and online search media campaign that integrates seven key themes that focus on the program’s key partners. Monthly IIA marketing calendars, available in the LoveMyCreditUnion.org Partner Center, provide significant dates and recommended actions so your credit union can take full advantage of IIA’s major year-end campaign. For example, this month's calendar has the dates and suggested locations to post DIRECTV, GM and home improvement banners on your website which tie into the campaign. These banners can also be found in the Partner Center and can easily be placed in the appropriate areas of your website.

Ongoing Invest in America marketing efforts include weekly emails, blogs and social media posts whose subject matter is listed in the calendar. As part of this initiative, IIA sends weekly emails to those members who have opted in for additional program information. IIA also sends credit unions weekly emails that they can send to their members. Participating credit unions have come to rely on the marketing calendar to plan their marketing strategy, ensuring it aligns with the weekly IIA emails.

Membership Enhancement Solutions strives to provide you with valuable turnkey tools that enable you to align your marketing strategy with Invest in America’s. This alignment in turn optimizes your member enhancement efforts and ties them to your core services.

Related Services:  Invest in America, Credit Union Member Discount from GM, DIRECTV

A Plan of Action

It’s that time of year when marketers everywhere are sitting down to build next year’s marketing plan. They’re pulling out their strategic plans and identifying the goals they’re going to tackle for 2012. And they’re asking these questions: What is it that our members want and need from us? What can we do to get them to use our products and services more? We understand that you know your members intimately, but if you’re anecdotally defining their needs, it may be time to verify your beliefs through marketing research.

You can use marketing research to assist you in accomplishing your most challenging goals, including:

• New membership growth
• Increasing wallet share and retention
• Improving member service
• Assessing member loyalty
• Measuring member overall satisfaction
• Identifying new products or services

You have the ability to reach your goals by finding out what your members are thinking and doing through the use of member surveys, focus groups, member analytics and website analytics.

• Member surveys are a great tool to provide insight into member loyalty and to help improve member satisfaction. Member surveys can be done via mail, telephone or online. Although online surveys are growing, mail surveys still tend to have the highest return rate.
  
  
• Focus groups allow you to dig deeper into your members’ thoughts and desires about their banking needs and your credit union. Credit unions typically utilize focus groups when they are exploring a big change like introducing a new name or brand. This type of research can be expensive, but the insights you gain are well worth the effort.
   
• Member analytics are a wonderful tool that provides an in-depth analysis of your current membership. The reports provide a thorough understanding of your membership, which in turn gives you insight into wallet share growth, retention strategies and member loyalty. When developing marketing strategies, a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of your membership is a valuable tool. This is also a great place to start when you build a member loyalty program or a rewards program.
   
• SEO and website analytics are tools used to effectively drive traffic to your website and to help you evaluate the behavior of website visitors. By tracking visitor behavior with website analytics, you can put more emphasis on the keywords and sources that bring the visitors you want to your website.

According to CUNA, one in three credit unions conduct member surveys in-house, especially those with assets of $50 million or below. For the credit unions that have the staff time, expertise and software available, this can be a very cost-effective way to manage your research.

For those that don't, most marketing research providers can customize their services to match most budgets and they have the tools and resources to accurately and informatively analyze the data. They also can provide your credit union benchmark data from other credit unions to compare to your results. If you decide to outsource, Marketing Solutions has marketing research experts that can work with your credit union on all or just a portion of your research endeavors.

Before you venture down this road of marketing research, keep in mind that you shouldn’t ask what your members want if you don’t intend to act. Their answers might make you realize that some of your products and services aren’t as popular as you think or that your member service isn’t reaching its potential. Your credit union needs to be prepared to really assess and explore survey results and be willing to shift its strategy where needed to not only help you reach your goals, but to give your members what they want and need.

Related Services:  Marketing Research Services, Online Services