MADISON, Wis. - CUNA continues to play up the online channel. The trade association has launched a new permission-based e-mail service that e-mails information focusing on various topics to CUNA members who opt-in for the service. The free service is only available to CUNA members. "It all started about a year ago. We did some focus groups at GAC to test the marketplace to see if CEOs and senior management would want to receive news and information via e-mail. We felt there was enough demand," said Kevin Lytle, vice president of national marketing for CUNA. CUNA already e-mails the headlines for its daily online service, News Now, to people who opt-in to receive them. This goes a step further, said Lytle. "The idea is we post general category topics in what we refer to as buckets. Any information that goes into a particular bucket is e-mailed to the member interested in that area," said Lytle.
For example, someone interested in lending might receive information on a CUNA lending product line; a lending news story published by CUNA.; an upcoming CUNA lending conference; and other items. "What we expect to do over time is we're going to develop a relationship with these e-mail customers. For those who prefer to receive e-mail information, we'll cross reference with mailing lists and move people off of paper and onto e-mail," said Lytle. Lytle wasn't sure at this point which paper products, if any, a CUNA member would no longer receive if they become a permission e-mail customer. He said a subscriber to Credit Union Magazine, for example, will still get the printed issue, even though the e-mail service may pull a story from the magazine. For now, CUNA also plans to continue to send its normal amount of printed marketing materials to its members. Potential users do have to fill out a "profile" of themselves to sign on for the service. It asks for their name, credit union name, phone number, e-mail address, level of responsibility and to define their primary responsibility. Lytle said under CUNA's privacy policy, CUNA can utilize that information but it will not sell the information to any third-party firm for commercial uses. CUNA has dedicated a staff member to fill each of the online buckets with relevant information. "We will have a person who will monitor frequency of e-mails for each topic to make sure we're staying in regular contact; that too much time doesn't pass between e-mails; and that were not innundating them with too much information. We want to try and avoid spamming," said Lytle. The service is being managed in-house by CUNA and is not part of CUNA's e-commerce unit. CUNA members can sign up at www.cuna.org. -pgentile@cutimes.com
