When growth slows, most organizations reach for the most obvious lever. More marketing. More campaigns. More emails. More social posts. A better rate promotion. A stronger call to action. A bigger push.
And sometimes, yes, that is exactly what is needed. But often, “more marketing” is not the real answer. It is simply the easiest answer to see. And it’s also the easy way to complicate your problems even more.
For credit unions, this shows up all the time.
Auto loan growth is down, so the natural response is to promote auto loans harder. Launch a new campaign. Put a better rate on the homepage. Send another email. Push the offer on social. Maybe add a few digital ads.
None of those ideas are wrong. But they may be incomplete. Because before we decide how loudly to talk about auto loans, we should first ask a better question:
What is actually preventing members from choosing us?
That answer may have very little to do with awareness. Maybe the auto loan button is hard to find on the website. Maybe the application takes too many clicks. Maybe members do not know they can get pre-approved before going to the dealership. Maybe the dealership financing process feels easier in the moment. Maybe follow-up is too slow. Maybe members are seeing the message after they have already made the decision somewhere else.
In that case, the problem is not simply marketing. The problem is friction. And friction does not always get solved by saying something louder.
This is where credit unions need to think beyond promotion and start thinking more carefully about behavior. People do not always act because they have been told enough times. They act when the next step feels clear, easy, timely, and worth it.
That shift changes how we look at growth. It also changes how we look at reporting.
A basic monthly report tells you what happened. Loan volume was down. Membership was up. Website visits increased. Applications dropped. A campaign performed above or below expectations.
That information matters. But it is only the beginning. The better question is: why did it happen? And then, just as important: how certain are we?
Let’s stay with auto loans. If new auto loans are down, but the average loan amount is roughly the same, that tells us something. It may suggest the issue is not loan size. It may be demand. It may be competition. It may be timing. It may be dealer financing. It may be the economy. It may be internal process. It may be all of the above.
The easy story is, “Marketing is not working.” The strategic response is, “Let’s figure out what is actually true.”
Are fewer people buying new cars in our market? Are more buyers financing at the dealership? Are interest rates creating hesitation? Are inventory constraints affecting purchase behavior? Are members shopping but not applying? Are they starting applications but not finishing? Did something change internally in the approval or follow-up process?
This is the discipline credit unions need more of. Not just collecting data. Not just making charts. Not just reporting numbers. But using those numbers to challenge assumptions, test the story, and uncover the real barrier to growth. Because every organization tells itself stories.
Clients tell stories. Leadership teams tell stories. Employees tell stories. Even data tells stories. The danger is not that people are trying to mislead anyone. Most of the time, they are trying to make sense of what they are seeing. But a plausible explanation is not the same thing as the truth.
That is why research plays such an important role in our work.
When a credit union says, “We need more marketing,” our director of research at YMC helps us pause and ask, “What problem are we really trying to solve?” That question matters because “we need more marketing” is often the first answer, not the final one.
The conversation might start with a broad concern: “We need more marketing.”
Why?
“Loan growth is down.”
Why?
“Auto loans are down.”
Why?
“Members are financing somewhere else.”
Why?
“Because the dealership process feels easier.”
Now we are getting somewhere.
Now we have moved from a marketing problem to a behavior problem. From a promotion issue to a friction issue. And once we understand the real problem, we can build a better solution.
Maybe the answer is a campaign. Maybe it is a better landing page. Maybe it is clearer pre-approval messaging. Maybe it is staff training. Maybe it is a faster follow-up workflow. Maybe it is a dealer strategy. Maybe it is product positioning. Maybe it is all of those things working together.
The point is not that marketing does not matter. Marketing matters deeply. But better marketing starts with better diagnosis.
The future rarely comes from making today’s solution bigger. It comes from reframing the problem. It comes from being willing to look past the obvious answer and ask what is really getting in the way.
That is the difference between a vendor and a strategic partner.
A vendor asks, “What do you want us to make?”
A strategic partner asks, “What are we trying to change?”
For credit unions trying to grow, stay relevant, and remain independent, that question matters more than ever. And we ask it. If you feel stuck, trying to yell louder or do “more marketing” perhaps we can help you get unstuck. We’ve worked with hundreds of credit unions over almost two decades to gain perspective and find the right solutions to their growth problems. We can help you, too. Let’s talk.