Among nonmembers, awareness has always been low. We weredisappointed it fell.”

Those were the words of Jon Haller, CUNA director of corporateand market research, when discussing the results of two newCUNA reports with me.

In the report, “Survey of Potential Members,” Haller wrote,“Certainly, scores of credit unions acted, took advantage of[waning trust in banks] and registered dramatic growth. But for theindustry as a whole, history will record the last two years' eventsas a grand opportunity missed. Many credit unions–hit by theeconomic downturn and corporate-stabilization costs–cut back onmarketing, research and awareness-building activities that couldhave helped them benefit from a seldom-seen opportunity.”

Often trade association members get upset when their advocatesdeliver them sour news. They're supposed to be your cheerleaders,right? Perpetually looking at the world through rose-coloredglasses, even when the evidence is in plain sight, is harmful.Don't shoot the messenger when they're just trying to educate.Ignorance is not bliss; it's negative membership growth.

One problem CUNA faces is trying to serve everyone from themulti-billion, multi-national credit unions–which foot much of thebills–to the $100,000 church credit union. Many credit unions thatneed this report can't afford it and might not even be able tofigure out where to begin with all the data. Others can run theirown reports that are specific to their service areas, but it'salways good to follow national trends because they can affectvibrant CUs, too (think NCUSIF and reputational risk).

So when discussing membership growth for example, in the 1980s it was up 3.9% buthas steadily declined since then hitting 0.7% in 2010, according toCUNA's “National Member Survey.” The credit union community as awhole is unsustainable if this trend continues. Consider too thisis a national average.

There are credit unions like $1.7 billion Texas Dow Employees CU that achieved more than 6% membershipgrowth last year and on its way to matching that this year. Youdon't have to be one the really big guys for strong membershipgrowth; the $198 million North Jersey FCU experienced nearly 2% membership growth lastyear, and June Call Report data annualized show nearly 4%.

That means on the other end of the spectrum, a lot of creditunions have serious questions to answer about how to right theship.

Even though it's much more expensive to acquire new members,they are crucial for new funding. The good news is that CUNA foundCU members' satisfaction with their CUs beat out members'satisfaction with their banks by more than 20 percentagepoints.

Once members are in the door, CUs convert them to net promotersfar more than banks do. CUs' net promoter score reached 32% at thetime of the survey this year. On the other hand, banks' netpromoter score was negative 5%, but up from negative 31% in 2009.

This is where CUs can take a page from the banks: CU membersatisfaction dipped two percentage points while member satisfactionwith banks jumped 10 percentage points. Banks have been marketinghard core to improve their image, and it is working on yourmembers. The bank statistics came from CU members who also usebanks.

During the economic crisis, members' distrust of banks boostedCUs as primary financial institutions from 42% of membersconsidering the CU their PFI in 2009 to 57% in 2011. At the sametime, members considering a bank their PFI dropped from 56% to 42%.This is good news, but Haller cautioned, “It's dangerous to assumethey'll continue to use credit unions at the same or higherlevel.”

However, once in the door, these members can become strongpromoters and exponentially bolster your marketing efforts. Ofcourse, you have to deliver the goods once they're in because morepromoters use the CU as their PFI and have the sticky checking andonline banking products with the CUs.

They also can earn you more money as 42% of promoters holdcredit union loans versus 30% of nonpromoters and the average loanamounts are much higher for promoters than nonpromoters.

So how is it possible that CU loan market share dropped acrossall major loan products between 2009 and 2011 when they increasedacross the board between 2006 and 2009?

Could CUs as a whole have pulled back on credit just as much as,if not more than, banks? Or is it that marketing budgets have beenslashed, magnifying credit unions' already existing awarenessproblem?

CUNA's data showed that credit union members age 18-24 increasedfrom 6% to 9%. Among nonmembers, consumers 18-24 comprised 14%, socredit unions are penetrating that age group.

Still demographic shifts in the population have created asmaller group within prime borrowing age. Fortunately for CUs,boomers, “sandwiched” between assisting aging parents' financialneeds and paying college tuition for their children, may end upborrowing beyond historically normal prime borrowing ages.

Top that off with a poor economy that could further delayretirement and CUs have another window of opportunity to serve asegment of its members that would be dangerous to miss.