Those of us in the field love the excitement, the thrill of anew idea, the rush that comes with starting a new campaign. It'slike the fisherman flinging his net into the deep blue sea, neverknowing how successful the day's catch will be. Yet the days of“let's have fun, this is great for the credit union's image, whocares about the numbers?” are long behind us. Responsibilities oftoday's VP of Marketing include projections, measuring ROI andtracking results. As much as marketing is exciting, you can'tignore the end in the name of the means. Marketing has to makesense. Marketing has to accomplish its purpose: more members, moreloans, more accounts. If it's doing that, your marketing issuccessful. If it's not, your marketing is NOT successful. End ofstory. You're nodding your head, you know all this. Yet thenever-ending quest for new ideas and new campaigns can mean you'reskipping exactly what we're talking about here. You may not haveconsidered this, but the best market research is right there inyour own hands: the market research on YOUR OWN market, your ownmembers. And that is your past campaigns. When a campaign is acomplete failure, we're all quick to analyze what went wrong andresolve to avoid those mistakes in future efforts. But when acampaign is a complete success, are we as quick to analyze whatwent RIGHT? And are we as willing to repeat that success? Beforeyou tell me that you can't imitate your own campaign (one marketereven called it plagiarism!) consider this: It worked. It's yours.If your members responded before, they may respond again.to thesame campaign. While I realize that repeating a campaign may betaking this a bit too far, there are three things every creditunion marketer can (and should) do to make sure valuable insightsare not lost in the quest for new ideas: 1. Study every successfulmarketing campaign in the history of your credit union, and pull itapart. Dissect it. By figuring out what made it successful, you'llfind lots you can copy without having to actually repeat thecampaign. 2. The message of your campaign is often what carries thecampaign to success. Narrow down the messages that brought in agood response. In what way did it speak to members? Can you build anew campaign on the same message? A slightly different message thatsays the same thing? 3. Study the medium that brought your bestresponse. Was it a combination of marketing vehicles? Are youfocusing on those mediums as much as you could be? Having made acase for studying past successful campaigns, there are times whenyou should welcome what's new, and recognize that what once workedmay no longer be working, regardless of how successful it's beenfor you in the past. Here's where your credit union's marketing maybenefit from some new ideas: 1. PR. It's been said that marketingis no longer as effective as it once was. Americans are exposed toover 2,700 marketing messages a day, and, like our overexposure tocertain antibiotics, we've become immune. According to Al and LauraReiss, authors of The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR,opinions are shaped by the editorial, or news part of publications,not the advertising sections. Get your credit union covered in theeditorial section of the publications you advertise in and watchyour marketing success skyrocket. Maybe you've never tried it inthe past, but there's no excuse for not beginning a PR campaignright now. It's free, so the effect on ROI is obviously wonderful.But it does require time, focus, and work. Brush up on your PRskills by doing a quick search online for information, checking outa book or two from your local library or consider outsourcing PR.2. Technology. Credit unions have been quick to embrace technologyon the operations end, but are sadly not taking advantage of themany low cost, high tech marketing tools available to them today.E-zines, e-courses, autoresponders, podcasting, blogs and emailmarketing are just some of the ways technology can be put to workfor your marketing department. All this sounds more difficult thanit is. Speak to your tech person, or whoever administers your Website, and find out what marketing tools are already available toyou. 3. Change your newsletter and add more to your Web site.“Cool” just isn't what it used to be. You need content, and a lotof it. Your newsletter is the ideal forum for financial education,and so is your Web site. Does the content offered on either onecurrently reflect that? In Cashing in With Content, David M. Scottdiscusses the changes businesses face on their Web sites. Heconcludes that in order to keep people coming back, a Web siteshould contain excellent content. Ditto for newsletters, because ifyou want members to read it, you've got to give them something THEYwant to read, not something YOU want to say. By studying the oldbefore plunging into the new; by combining your credit union's pastsuccessful marketing with today's new marketing tools and fresh newideas, you'll achieve breathtaking results for your credit unionbased on the market research that was already done.