In response to Chip Filson’s blog on the future of advertising, NACUSO’s Denise Wymore had this to say:
I wrote a book in 2011 titled The 2020 Vision of Marketing: A Focus on Purpose.
I predicted the demise of traditional marketing channels (TV, radio, newspaper). I was correct in that assumption…
I did not predict the rise in digital marketing (not for credit unions anyway) the message in my book was that we have to get back to word of mouth marketing by focusing on the member experience.
To that end if credit unions had been more prepared with the digital experience we would have won in COVID. Now many are playing “catch up.”
While I agree that the prioritization of marketing channels is shifting, “demise” is a very strong word at the current time. In reality, CUs had really not prioritized traditional channels to any GREAT or comprehensive model in any way. Traditional marketing channels never counted on CUs, or are they now missing our industry in any way. We were not players and we now seem to be justifying it by saying it was based on us walking away.
I do agree with Denise that “word of mouth” is the foundation of all effectively scaled marketing for credit unions of all size. And would now add that digital marketing from a self-serviced publishing approach is “word of mouth”. The revolution for credit union marketing and investments will be when CUs start to use digital marketing concepts as the PUBLISHERS of digital content directly to their audiences. Digital magazines, direct content publishing, press release style postings through their own outlets. Word of mouth delivery is digital, and it’s self-directed community pushed. Eliminate the middle man (somebody else’s eyeballs) and go direct to your community. 80% of your spend at least is cultivating your community directly, and no more than 20% of your outreach digitally is for new community prospects.
All of this was true for anyone really understanding community affinity and how to cultivate relationships at the lowest cost prior to COVID. COVID is just shining a light for cooperative community marketers to follow. What I worry about is that if we promote this as the COVID catch up then people who are waiting for post-COVID returns will never engage at all.
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