Digital Must-Dos: 3 End of Year Essential Digital Marketing Tasks for Your Credit Union

Digital Must-Dos: 3 End of Year Essential Digital Marketing Tasks for Your Credit Union Digital Must-Dos: 3 End of Year Essential Digital Marketing Tasks for Your Credit Union As the year draws to a close, credit unions have a prime opportunity to assess their digital marketing strategies and make necessary adjustments for the upcoming year. Let’s explore three essential digital marketing tasks that you should prioritize before the year ends. These tasks are designed to enhance online visibility, engage audiences effectively, and set the stage for a successful digital marketing strategy in the year ahead. Year-End Content Audit and Refresh: When was the last time that you took a look at the content on your website? Is it outdated? Is it relevant? Is it searchable?  These are all questions that you should be asking yourself as you audit your credit union’s content strategy.  Whether it is your website, your blog posts, your social media or even your emails, taking a look at the evolution of the information that you have shared with your members this year will set you up for success in the new year.  What are the keywords that will help you stand out in this ever evolving digital landscape?  Are those keywords included on your website and in your SEO strategy?  How are you connecting the content on your website to your email and social strategy?  Evaluate the connectivity of your content strategy across all of your digital marketing platforms and you’ll be sure to set your credit union up for success in the new year.  Social Media Strategy Review and Optimization: Social media is a dynamic landscape, and it’s crucial to ensure that your strategy remains effective. Begin by reviewing your social media analytics from the past year. Identify the platforms that delivered the best results in terms of engagement, conversions, and audience growth.Consider any shifts in your target audience’s behavior or preferences and adjust your social media strategy accordingly. Explore new features or advertising options offered by platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or X.. Even TikTok could be a great place to add some fresh content to your social strategy. Consider investing in influencer marketing to expand your reach. Collaborating with influencers in your industry can provide a boost in credibility and help you tap into new audiences. Data Analysis and Performance Metrics Assessment: As a credit union, you can benefit significantly from tracking key digital marketing metrics to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and strategies. Here are some of the most important digital marketing metrics that every credit union should be looking at: Website Traffic: – Metric: Unique Visitors, Pageviews, and Traffic Sources – Why it Matters: Monitoring website traffic provides insights into the popularity of your credit union’s online presence. Track the number of unique visitors, pageviews, and where your traffic is coming from to understand user behavior and optimize your website for better engagement. Conversion Rates: – Metric: Conversion Rate – Why it Matters: Conversion rates indicate how well your digital channels are performing in terms of turning visitors into members or customers. Track conversion rates for online applications, contact forms, or other desired actions to assess the effectiveness of your website and landing pages. Social Media Engagement: – Metrics: Likes, Shares, Comments, Click-through Rates – Why it Matters: Social media engagement metrics measure the effectiveness of your credit union’s social media presence. High engagement indicates that your content is resonating with your audience. Track likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates to understand which content is most effective. Email Marketing Metrics: – Metrics: Open Rate, Click-through Rate, Conversion Rate – Why it Matters: Email marketing remains a powerful tool for credit unions. Monitor open rates to gauge the effectiveness of your subject lines, click-through rates to measure engagement, and conversion rates to assess the success of your email campaigns in driving desired actions. Cost per Acquisition (CPA): – Metric: Cost per Acquisition – Why it Matters: CPA helps you understand how much it costs to acquire a new member or customer through your digital marketing efforts. It’s calculated by dividing the total campaign cost by the number of new acquisitions. Keeping CPA in check ensures efficient use of your marketing budget. **Return on Investment (ROI):** – **Metric:** Return on Investment – **Why it Matters:** ROI is a critical metric for assessing the overall effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns. It calculates the return generated relative to the cost of the campaign. Knowing your ROI helps in optimizing marketing strategies and allocating resources to the most successful channels. Regularly monitoring and analyzing these six digital marketing metrics will provide your credit union with valuable insights to refine their strategies, enhance member engagement, and ultimately drive growth in the digital landscape. As the year comes to a close, taking the time to complete these three essential digital marketing tasks, along with exploring new content formats and automation tools, can significantly impact your business’s online presence and overall success. Conducting a content audit, optimizing your social media strategy, analyzing performance metrics, and embracing innovative approaches will position your credit union for a strong start in the new year. Embrace the digital landscape, adapt to evolving trends, and leverage data-driven insights to refine your digital marketing strategy for sustained growth and success in 2024.

Personal Growth for Credit Union Professionals

Reflecting on the Year That Was As the year draws to a close, there’s a natural urge to shift our focus to the future. Before you do… what story did this past year tell? How have your chapters unfolded? Let’s not overlook the art of personal reflection. It can illuminate your path forward and pave the way for a more intentional and prosperous new year. Before we begin, let’s laydown a ground rule. There are some common barriers and excuses used by credit union professionals. Blaming the economy, time constraints, and comparison to others can distract us from gaining clarity. When we focus on external factors as the cause of our problems, we adopt a victim mentality. A negative mindset can hinder personal growth and professional development. Instead, let’s focus on empowering personal responsibility. Celebrate Your Wins No matter how big or small, you’ve made progress. As a credit union professional, you’ve made an impact on your member’s lives. List your accomplishments and milestones. Consider any feedback or recognition you received from colleagues, supervisors, or clients. Revisit goals you set for yourself. Even if they weren’t fully met, partial success can still be considered a win. Remember: Progress, not perfection. Learn from Setbacks Setbacks and challenges provide valuable lessons that can help you grow both personally and professionally. Assess the root causes. Was it a lack of a specific skill, poor decision-making, procrastination or maybe difficulty in setting priorities? Perhaps it was excessive workloads, lack of setting boundaries, communication issues, or negative self-talk. Resilience is a key trait in personal growth. Identify what went wrong and how you can improve in the future. Prioritize Your Well-Being Are you well-rested, healthy, and happy? Take time to assess your physical and mental health. This could involve regular exercise, mindfulness practices, or simply spending more time with loved ones.  As you start to tell yourself “yes,” you will also need to learn to say “no” to things that zap your time and energy. Note Well: Sometimes well-being can be used as an excuse for not getting things done. You can over-schedule self-care. You can use it as escape from responsibilities or as a source for external validation or sympathy from others. You can even overly focus on well-being to the point of perfectionism. Seek a healthy equilibrium by setting realistic goals. Seek Feedback Seeking feedback opens us up to the potential for disapproval, which is why we rarely ask for it. Too often we can’t seem to separate self-worth from feedback. The truth, however, is you develop a growth mindset when you view feedback as an opportunity for learning and growth. When you ask for feedback regularly, you’ll become more comfortable with it over time. You do not need to wait for your next performance review to ask for it. When asking for feedback, request specific and actionable suggestions. This can make feedback feel less intimidating and more practical. Embrace Change with Gratitude Change is an inevitable part of life, and how we embrace it can greatly influence our personal growth. Meanwhile, gratitude is a practice that involves acknowledging and appreciating the positive aspects of our lives, both big and small. By embracing change with gratitude, you will improve relationships, become more resilient, and find yourself more prepared for circumstances and challenges that lie ahead. Remember this: the past year’s victories or setbacks have shaped the credit union professional you are today. With a resilient spirit and commitment to personal growth, you can take on this new year as an opportunity to write new chapters. Embrace the upcoming year with open arms, and make it your best year ever. As Vice President of Brand Experience for Your Marketing Co., Frank Allgood works with credit unions to develop strong leaders, create effective training programs, and build powerful brands. Want to connect? Call 864.326.8740 or email frank@yourmarketingco.com.

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The Pandemic of Nice is Not Working Out

I’ve had a recurring theme in conversations with credit union leaders this year. “Bo, I just don’t know if all my staff is on board. I don’t know if they are a good fit to take us to the next level, where we’re going.” OUCH! That is a touchy conversation. But the fact that these credit union leaders recognize the problem is a great first step. Perhaps you’re thinking the same thing but afraid to verbalize it to your team or board. Perhaps deep down you’re really frustrated but refuse to bring it up to avoid tough conversations. As a credit union leader, it can be easy to make excuses and trick yourself into thinking that allowing underperforming and unengaged employees to stay on your team is the kind and generous thing to do. “Well, Sally has been here 23 years…” It’s not. It doesn’t help your credit union, your members nor the rest of your credit union team. In fact, I’ll share with you the tough words one mentor had for me on this subject: It’s selfish. Just because you hate having tough conversations, doesn’t mean the entire rest of your organization, members and your mission should suffer. Here are some outcomes I have personally experienced because of this very scenario, and what I have observed from other credit unions: 1. Good team members become toxic. Your culture is defined by the worst behavior you are willing to tolerate. “Why should I work my ass off and give 110% when Sally is as productive as a Ficus tree?” You start to either lose productivity from good team members, or they go somewhere else that has a team of high performers to match their energy. Opposite that, when team members see that good work is rewarded and bad work has no place, they’ll know that they’re at an organization that’s worth staying at. It’s easy to think that firing an employee puts other employees on edge. More often, it sends a signal to the good employees that you’re on their side and don’t want them to spend time compensating for underperformers. 2. You’re holding that person back. Keeping someone on your team that isn’t a good fit isn’t just holding your credit union, but also, it’s holding that person back. There’s a good chance that person is very unhappy and is as afraid to make that decision as you are. There’s only so many working years someone has ahead of them. 3. You and your team begin to think differently. There is not one person that has been fired from my organization because I woke up one day in a bad mood. I always use the word CHOOSE. If you have updated and specific job descriptions (we call them KRAs or Key Result Areas), expectations for work and what success looks like will be clear. If you have an underperforming team member, first look to yourself and ask some tough questions. Are your expectations not clear? Have you failed to provide training or tools to make them successful? If you get past those questions, you turn your questions toward the underperforming team member. “Why are you choosing not to do the work?” This question allows you to not be the bad guy but focus specifically on the choice the team member is making to not do the work to achieve the desired results. 4. You’re wasting time. You have good team members who are craving your time and attention to grow and prosper in their position and become a better asset to your team. Instead, you are spending time having the same conversations with the same underperforming team members. You waste time on conversations with no outcomes and headspace in the “what if” scenarios that you have no intention of acting on. Let me give some clearly defined solutions if you find yourself in this place right now:1. Update your job descriptions. Make sure expectations of both task and outcome are clearly defined so there is no wiggle room when review time comes around.2. Speak up. Don’t avoid tough conversations. When a team member at your credit union is not living up to their potential and dragging the team down, talk about it. Identify the problem and what the desired behavior is and give a timeframe for when the performance should turn around.3. Hold your leadership team accountable. Sometimes it’s not a team member issue, it’s a leadership issue.   What does all of this have to do with credit union marketing? Marketing is a team sport, and if you are spending money on marketing and bewildered as to why no matter what you try you just can’t find success, it may be a cultural issue that needs to be dealt with. Leads may be coming in for new loans and new members but lost to a poor first experience with your credit union because of an underperforming on disengaged team member. That’s a lot of credit union marketing dollars wasted! Every member experience can either build or kill your credit union’s brand and negate your marketing. Ready to discuss real change for success? Let’s talk!