Limits don't exist for Kathryn Davis, senior vice president at El Segundo,Calif.-based Xceed Financial Credit Union.

“My parents always told me that I could be and do anything aslong as I put my mind to it,” said Davis. “I still believe this today and am a champion of that atmy credit union. I actively work with my teams to not only stretchtheir minds at what they can do at Xceed, but also how they canstretch their minds personally and professionally and just go forit.”

She said marketing has dramatically changed over the years andthat good marketers understand the full business of a credit union.They understand the balance sheet, income statement and how to makea meaningful impact based on their contributions as a strategicpartner.

“Marketers today have an opportunity to truly help shape thebusiness of credit unions. I also think the change in technologyhas changed the role of the marketer. Today, it's no longer aboutsending direct mail, but creating an integrated experience wherethe member can act upon offers from start to finish from theirphone or tablet,” said Davis. “To me an effective marketer has tobe not just visually creative but creative in their thought processviewing the world, your credit union, your members differently thananyone else.”

Constantly challenging herself and others has helped driveinnovation by further defining how the $756 million credit unionengages its SEGs and members through customized marketing andunique online experiences.

For example, the iXceed Fiscal Fitness Challenge was issued in abid to provide more value to one major SEG that had over 10,000employees nationwide.

The program was a competition for SEG employees to improve theiroverall financial well being by reducing debt and increasingsavings. Within the first week of launching the campaign, over5,000 employees viewed the challenge website and more than 50employees submitted applications into the challenge. Ultimatelyfour employees competed for the opportunity to win a $10,000 prize.The winner of the competition won by improving her financial wellbeing by 32% in both debt reduction and savings. All contestantshad access to an Xceed Money Coach who helped them navigate thecompetition along the way. In addition, a play-at-home version ofthe site was created so all employees at the SEG could play alongand have access to Xceed Money Coaches. The results of the campaignincluded a 57% increase in new members, 45% increase in loanaccounts, 46% increase in deposit accounts, 19% increase in loanbalances and a 54% increase in deposit balances.

“What a fun and meaningful campaign,” said Davis. “I think thecampaign was such a success because it addressed a specific needthe SEG had. As a result, the SEG was very committed to helping usget the message out in weekly communications, linking the site forthis campaign to their intranet, and giving us access to theiremployees across the country. We also had amazing support from oursales and business development teams, who actively worked eachlocation and worked with the contestants as well.”

Focused on innovation and technology, Davis also led her team toimplement 46 SEG portals in 2011, which are customized websitesfound on Xceed's SEGs' intranet. Although the team exceeded theyear-end goal of launching 40 new portals, Davis has begun work onenhancing the experience found on each of these sites.

The most successful SEG portal was one created for one ofXceed's larger SEGs. A year-end campaign offering membership,credit cards, checking and auto loan specials drew over 6,000employees from the SEG to the portal within the first week. Thecampaign generated 169 new memberships, $56,000 in share balancesand $587,000 in loans.

She also worked with her team to run several successful lendingpromotions, helping the sales and lending teams have a record yearin loans. Specifically, the team ran three successful autopre-approvals in 2011: the February-March campaign brought in 191loans for $3.9 million; June-July campaign brought in 118 loans for$1.9 million; and the October-November campaign brought in 84 loansfor $1.4 million.

“I think the secret sauce for us has been our approach toconsolidate loans, but not necessarily for members looking for aconsolidation loan. We pride ourselves on helping members keep moremoney in their pockets every month. When we run auto loanpre-approvals we always segment the data to do refi offers forthose members we know have a loan someplace else,” said Davis.“These offers track much better than our standard offers andgenerally get between a 3% and 5% response rate, which is amazingfor such a small quantity of direct mail. I also think we've seensuccess in our campaigns because they are fully integrated–so amember could receive an offer by mail, email or when interactingwith one of our sales associates by phone or in person. We try tomake all of our offers as simple as possible. So there isn't a tonof fine print, our offers are easy and straightforward tounderstand.”

Passionate about furthering products and services designedspecifically for women, Davis and her team have been busyresearching and developing a customized service strategy. Nearly50% of Xceed's members are female and approximately 75% of Xceed'sSEG contacts are female. Focused on the interests and concerns ofbusy women, Davis played a key role in introducing LifeWorks, a newseminar series that covers a range of topics–career, self, familyand, of course, finances. The seminars garnered much local press inkey markets and ran throughout the second half of 2011. Inaddition, extensive research, including focus groups on femalepreferences, delivered some surprising results.

“So we ran focus groups and part of it was bundled productoptions where from checking you could sweep a certain amount intoanother account like a shoe fund or mad money account and there wasa special website very female-centric,” said Davis. “And to acertain degree the women found it offensive and asked, 'So myhusband couldn't have access but what about my kids?' And that gooddialogue made us realize that what they gravitated toward wereofferings we already had on the shelf today, like our personalbanker program. They had a great interest in that type of programand wanted it to be more about can we communicate to them moreeffectively without talking down to them. As they learned moreabout our dynamic at the credit union, that our senior managementis an all female group our chairman is a woman, they then becameless guarded about it as they felt it would be more genuine. It'sanother example of what good can come from being open and thinkingcreatively.”