I would bet my bottom dollar that if we were able to listen in on conversations of credit union leaders everywhere over the last month the word "opportunity" would probably be one of the most frequently spoken words.
For all of the calamity that is the current economic landscape, opportunity is staring credit unions in the face. It's not a new story. Whenever there is trouble on Wall Street or economic distress, credit unions see the good old flight to safety. Credit union leaders are so darn proud of that term. A flight to safety has become a comforting, feel-good friend for many of us. We should be proud–the problem is credit unions should be bigger than our 6% market share in good times as well. We need to be more than just the safe play during the tough economy.
Our problem in overcoming 6% market share has been and continues to be awareness. There is still confusion about what a credit union is, what it does and how you "join" (an absolutely terrible word). You add those three uncertainties together and you have confusion and a barrier to growth but also an incredible upside. Those are three things that are relatively easy to overcome, but we first must be willing to step up, join forces and spread the word about credit unions.
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Yes, I am talking about something that has been talked about for years–a coordinated national effort. I don't even want to call it a branding campaign, because it's hard to brand something people don't understand. It's an awareness campaign.
Americans are eager to find institutions that they can trust, that have their best interests in mind and that are not putting their money at risk by trying to hit obnoxious profit margins. That is credit unions. Aren't we proud of what we do? Of course we are. Why don't we work to spread the word?
New Jersey is just one state, but I want to share what's happened here recently. Due to the market turmoil, we stepped up with emergency funds to run ads in the state's major newspapers and on the radio touting credit unions, the safety of credit unions and trying to convey what a credit union is.
Our slogan is, "New Jersey's Credit Unions, Banking You Can Trust." That's right, we embrace the "b" word. Credit unions should not be scared to use "banking" in their awareness efforts. It instantly tells consumers what credit unions do. We offer affordable, high-quality banking services. You don't do "credit unioning" at a credit union, you do banking. People like to use "financial services" as an alternative to banking, but financial services can mean anything from brokerage to trusts; banking is spot on. And of course the word "trust" says it all. There is more to an awareness campaign than a slogan, but a good one can go a long way in delivering a hard-hitting message.
Our ads are not cute. They are not cuddly. They simply state some basic facts about credit unions and we point them to the www.findacreditunion.com site run by our friends at the California Credit Union League. That is an excellent service and could be extremely powerful if all states hooked on it. It allows potential members to answer a few simple questions to locate credit unions they can potentially join. (Check it out if you haven't.)
We stay away from the word "join" in our ads. People don't like to have to join something. It sounds like it comes with catches. We simply say "when you open an account at a credit union" you become a member.
Another key message credit unions should be touting is that we have no outside interests. There are no shareholders or outsiders influencing a credit union's decisions. We have no one to please but our members.
Here's the bottom line–our phones have been ringing off the hook. People are embracing the message. Our credit unions are seeing an uptick in interest. Hits on the Web have quadrupled. We have struck a chord. Do I have hard numbers on what we're experiencing? No. And if we go into a debate about a national effort with hard number goals as the priority, we're starting the wrong way. You have to let it build, give it time. Awareness is not an overnight phenomenon.
I don't want to tout what we're doing in New Jersey as the shining example of awareness or even that we're doing the best job–many states do it much, much better than us–but I believe we could see the same consumer response nationally that we're having here and in other states.
So why don't we have a national awareness effort that is simply part of our world from here on out? One of the biggest excuses you'll hear is money. We don't need billions to do it. You do not have to be in every paper, on every channel all the time. You do strategically targeted placements that give you the most bang for your buck. Your goal is to start a ball rolling that little by little elevates consumers' IQ about credit unions. You don't get it done in a year, three years, or five years–it has to be an ongoing effort. Think where we'd be if we had been doing this for the last decade.
Back to the money excuse. If you've ever been on the credit union conference circuit, you'll see there is a lot of money being spent on all sorts of things. We throw a lot of money around within this great industry to the same organizations over and over and over. Are we really saying we can't channel some funds from all the different things credit unions support for a national campaign? Are we saying the hundreds of vendors that credit unions have supported for years wouldn't step up? Why don't credit unions become their own charitable cause? We give so much to great causes and we must and will continue, but couldn't we shift a few percentage points to spreading the word about credit unions. Raising the awareness of credit unions is a good cause!
We can make a lot of excuses for why we don't do it. We don't have the money. We can't agree on a theme. We can't, we can't, we can't, we can't.
I think we're nuts if we don't.
Paul Gentile is president/CEO of the New Jersey Credit Union League. He can be reached at 609-448-2426 or [email protected]
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