How credit unions spend their marketing dollars is not entirelybased on targeting specific demographics, analyzing reams of dataor interviewing focus groups.

For Charlotte Metro Credit Union, Affinity Federal Credit Unionand Redwood Credit Union, their budgets support marketingobjectives that never sleep, require sophistication and crashthrough the clutter. 

At the $290 million Charlotte Metro Credit Union in Charlotte, N.C., marketing islike New York's Times Square – it never sleeps.

“We know McDonald's sells hamburgers because they tell us allthe time,” said CMCU's Marketing Specialist Randall Beckwith. “Sowhat I saw lacking in marketing communications when I came here twoyears ago was they would do marketing promotions for short periodsof time and then go dark for months.”

In Beckwith's view, periodic marketing doesn't do the best jobbecause consumers are very busy. Their eyes and ears may not catchyour ad in the few weeks it's promoted, especially in Charlottewhere CMCU is overshadowed by the nation's biggest banks, accordingto Beckwith who pointed out that the city is the nation's secondlargest center for financial institutions.

During last year's Super Bowl, CMCU kicked off its year-longmultimedia campaign with humorous ads. After that, the credit unionlaunched new ads that promoted its 50th anniversary overtelevision, radio, print publications, billboards and the Web. Italso promoted certain products and services during certain times ofthe year.

“Charlotteans love to get out in the summer, so we play moreradio ads and play down TV ads until September,” said Beckwith. “Ittakes seven to nine [media] impressions to get someone to a buyingdecision. We want to reach consumers often enough so they don'tforget about CMCU.”

That marketing strategy apparently worked. While CMCU benefitedgreatly from Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5, 2011, that event was not withinthe credit union's control, Beckwith said. A 2011 to 2012comparison excludes Bank Transfer Day and measured only the firstthree quarters in both years. Given that criteria, CMCU realized anet increase of 48.6% in product openings from checking, savings,credit cards and loans in the first three quarters of 2012 comparedwith the first three quarters of 2011, he said.

By the end of the year, CMCU's membership grew by 9,000,according to Beckwith. The credit union also increased its loanportfolio, expanded market share by 10%, improved net worth by 14%,and raised asset growth more than 11%.

Even though the $2.2 billion Affinity Federal Credit Union in Basking Ridge, N.J., is thelargest credit union in the Garden State, it also standsovershadowed by the ubiquitous presence of the world's biggestbanks. Because these financial institutions are formidablecompetitors with sophisticated products and services, Affinity saidit pays special attention to delivering its members withsophisticated products and services.

“If you are going to have that sophistication in your productsand services, your marketing also needs to reflect thatsophistication,” said Jean-Albert Maisonneuve, Affinity vicepresident of marketing and eCommerce.

Affinity increased its marketing budget to appear on local cableTV to give the credit union a much broader exposure to its highlydiversified markets, Maisonneuve said.

“Our challenge is how do we make very professional looking TVads without having the budget of a big commercial bank,”Maisonneuve said. “So we went to Oklahoma City and found a spotthat looked like New Jersey. We worked with our agency, got somelocal actors, worked with a cinematographer from Los Angeles andproduced some pretty amazing, very well done spots.”

Affinity doesn't use its marketing dollars to target demographicgroups. Maisonneuve believes the credit union appeals to anyonebetween the ages of 18 to 80. Instead, Affinity reaches members bytargeting its geographic markets or zip codes through certain cabletelevision channels, Pandora radio spots, Facebook ads and otheronline advertising.

“We are not for everybody but we are building the case for whowe are; a kinder, gentler organization that will listen to you andprovide you with the wealth of products and services that the bigcommercial banks provide,” said Maisonneuve.

Affinity also plans to underwrite sponsorships that will invitemembers and others to participate in local sports events.

“It's about getting our community involved in a sports franchiseand for us, to be the linchpin behind it,” Maisonneuve explained.“It makes it more interesting and fun for everybody involved and ithelps brings to life our tagline, 'belong to somethingbetter.'”

For Robin McKenzie, senior vice president of marketing andcommunications at the $2 billion Redwood Credit Union in Santa Rosa, Calif., deciding where tospend marketing dollars is based on the target audiences and whatmediums they use to get their information. The challenge, however,is breaking through all of the other marketing clutter to reachtargeted audiences, she noted.

That's why Redwood invests a lot of time and effort intoresearching and analyzing the market, its audiences and where theyare getting information.

For example, market research of its consumer loan audience ledRedwood to invest in a two month consumer loan sale with specialrates that were heavily promoted in newspaper ads in all of thecredit union's markets. However, the campaign also used somewebsite and email marketing.

“We were very interested to see if newspaper ads would pull forus as they have in the past, and sure enough, we had outstandingresults that were significant to our growth last year,” saidMcKenzie.

In addition to newspaper advertising, she also budgets fordirect mail campaigns. Because many businesses have abandoned thesemediums, it helps Redwood's ads stand out even more.

Even though traditional media still works, the new digital mediaof Web marketing, including pay-per-click, search engineoptimization, online ads, and social media marketing methodsrepresent opportunities that are more challenging as they areconstantly evolving, McKenzie said. “If you did what always workedbefore and never tried anything new, you won't be successful,”McKenzie said.”