Credit unions must frequently rely on their quality member service to compete with larger financial institutions. Marketing automation helps them level the playing field when it comes to building their business.

The $2.9 billion Laurel, Md.-based Tower Federal Credit Union, $2.6 billion Biloxi, Miss.-based Keesler Federal Credit Union, and $186 million Washington, D.C.-based Interior Federal Credit Union, are among the latest credit unions to adopt Portland, Ore.-based provider Act-On's marketing automation system to drive and qualify more leads, retain more customers, and compete against the big financial players.

The Act-On cloud-based software-as-a-service application enables marketers to create adaptive journeys using customer behaviors, preferences, and data to intelligently guide the engagement strategy. This allows credit unions to leverage behavioral data in real-time to more effectively communicate with members in a one-to-one manner at scale, helping them to win more business, and be more strategic about upsell opportunities.

The Act-On marketing command center includes website visitor tracking, lead scoring, landing page development and a web form composer. This enables credit unions to capitalize on buyer behavior and website traffic to drive and qualify more sales-ready leads, while advanced segmentation and automated programs allows them to deliver more personalized customer experiences.

Many credit unions compete with much larger financial institutions so they need something that can help them kind of step up their game, Adam Mertz, VP marketing and strategy at Act-On, communicated. “But what they don't need is more complexity because they don't have the resources. Mertz explained Act-On's goal is to help the credit union marketing team better engage their target audience simply.

Marc Wilensky, VP communications and brand marketing at Tower Federal Credit Union, explained the reason they added Act-On was to help drive loans. “We've been looking for a good email marketing provider for a while that did more automation. We were using a basic, simple company to do emails, but they had limited capability. Act-On was a good fit for what we're trying to accomplish.”

Tower's first auto campaign, which went out in late November, tried to benefit from the accelerated interest in vehicle loans during the December holiday season.

Tower upload a targeted member file into the Act-On system. After their initial email to a pretty sizable part of its membership list, the Maryland credit union let Act-On take over from there. Wilensky noted the system tracked if recipients opened an email, clicked on certain links, read various articles on the Tower web site, and helped the credit union set up a scoring system.

Read the full article in the March 7 issue of CU Times.

Instant Insights /

Credit Unions Call on Marketing Automation to Drive Leads

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