WOODBRIDGE, Va. —- Offering members what they might want, not what they already have, has been a key to targeted-marketing success at Fort Belvoir Federal Credit Union, the CU says.
The $236 million institution has been using a preference-based, opt-in electronic alerts system (called eLerts) from DigitalMailer that allows members to choose the type of information they receive from their credit union.
The offers are delivered through the online banking, electronic statement and e-mail channels and in the first eight months were clicked on 1,348 times, generating 46 new loan accounts with total balances of $667,128 and 15 new deposit accounts of about $150,000, the CU says.
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Fort Belvoir FCU decided to use the system because "we wanted to get the right message to the right person at the right time. We were looking for ways to target more specifically and we knew we wanted more than just a generic set of banners on our Web site," says Jacque Connor, the credit union's vice president of marketing and business development.
"This program allows us to target directly to the right people," Connor says. "If a member has a car loan with us, no car loan offers appear in his eLerts from us or on the Web pages he views. And if a member has a checking account, she won't see checking account promos, but might see bill payment banners or other offers. Our members receive information about products they don't have with us instead of those they already use."
While most of the electronic alerts are used for transactional information, sharply reducing the number of calls to the credit union's contact center, Connor says, about one third of the credit union's 26,500 members are now regular users of its online offerings, making the timing right for targeting marketing messages to them as well.
DigitalMailer developed the system with the help of the Deep Target data mining and tracking tools from AdeptMedia. The credit union uses the solution to create stacks of offers to fit members' individual criteria, based on MCIF data.
The MCIF information, drawn from a database built around a Symitar Episys core platform, is uploaded to Deep Target, which sets up the ads and pulls the groups of members to receive a particular offer. Next, the credit union uses DigitalMailer's e-mail delivery tools to send the individualized messages to members.
"By repositioning its online marketing strategy to focus on the specific needs of members, Fort Belvoir's overall efforts are more powerful and their results more effective," says Ron Daly, president/CEO of DigitalMailer in Herndon, Va.
Daly, a former executive at Northwest Federal Credit Union, founded the company in 2000. Its client base now claims more than $12 billion in assets and 1.5 million members and customers as end users.
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