SEATTLE — The soaring costs of media and the sheer number of potential new members to be reached is forcing a doubling of marketing budgets for community charters.
"The days of changing the signs in the branches and issuing statement stuffers are long gone," said Jane Ronnfeldt, vice president of marketing at Numerica CU, Spokane, Wash., in warning senior management that "if you have $50 in the ad budget, you will now need $100."
Ronnfeldt joined by Randy Schultz, vice president of marketing at Weber Marketing Group, Seattle, spoke at a break-out session on "Seven Deadly Mistakes of Community Charter Marketing" at the annual Marketing Association of Credit Unions conference convening here this week.
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Ronnfeldt said her own Spokane CU has long felt the strains of higher marketing expenses even though she admitted her top management had a hard time grasping any move to up budgets "beyond 10 or 20%" at the start.
In her remarks to the MAC conference, Ronnfeldt also urged marketers to resist draining the budget with small contributions to needy sponsor groups and instead "try to get in on the big events" where the CU name can be put up on banners and paraded before the public "to get your money's worth." Wait for "the big local event" or as one member in the audience put it, "start your own run with your name on it."
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