When credit union marketing is discussed, the focus is often on how to attract new members. In doing so, nurturing current members can fall to the wayside.

However, in reality, it’s crucial to keep your current members engaged and make them aware of products and services that will meet their financial needs.

Your current members can serve as ambassadors for your company, which is one of the most influential pieces of social proof and marketing tools you can have. It’s also more affordable to market to current members than new members so you should experience a better return on your investment.

Here are some common strategies for marketing to credit union members.

Think digital first

We live in the digital age, so it’s no surprise that you can incorporate digital marketing when connecting with current credit union members.

This is especially true for Generation X, Generation Y, and millennials who are drawn to information presented in a tech-savvy or digital format.

You can incorporate social media marketing, text message marketing, chatbots, or any other digital marketing options available.

Another benefit on the advertising front is that digital platforms allow you to precision target segments of your email list who have shown interest in additional products and are most likely to engage and convert.

In doing so, you target a warm audience that is primed to take action on a new product or service.

Create meaningful content

Since current members already have a relationship and connection with your credit union, you can market to them by sharing meaningful content that will help them gain more valuable information.

You can share content across various social media channels and on your website that will address their needs.

This could include tools, calculators, video training, articles, etc. Experiment with the content that best resonates with your audience.

Content that is informative with a hint of entertainment often converts better with current credit union members. However, ultimately, this decision will depend on your brand voice and target audience.

Listen to them

Sometimes the best way to connect and market to your current credit union members is to listen to them. When you collect the data gathered based on their actions and directly ask them questions, you obtain more accurate information instead of making assumptions regarding what they want or need.

This might include sending surveys asking what their most significant financial goals, needs, or questions are or having more in-depth conversations with small pockets of your members as a form of market research.

You can also look at their actions based on data. If you find that specific topics are more popular than others when you produce content or check website traffic, you can conclude that those topics are where you should place your focus on marketing.

Then based on the information you receive, you can develop a plan to focus on the products and services that will best serve them.

Offer exclusive benefits

While exclusive benefits are common with new members, you can and should also offer current members perks that can prompt them to accept a new product offer.

You want your current members to feel that they are still valuable members of your community, and being able to take advantage of perks is a great way to do so.

Share behind the scenes

Marketing to credit union members can also come in the form of connecting with them. Take the time to build a stronger sense of familiarity and community by sharing behind the scenes information with your members.

This can be done informally on social media via live video or stories or in a more traditional structured format on your website.

Either way, including a call to action that will lead them to take action after building more of the know, like, and trust factor with your credit union can be beneficial and help improve conversions.

Segment your members

Finally, segmenting your members into different groups based on their actions or needs can provide them with a more personalized experience.

People have come to expect messages to be personalized to them and their needs, and digital segmentation and automation allow you to deliver on that.

You don’t want to consistently market products and services to them that aren’t relevant. This can lead to them feeling disconnected from your content, causing them to tune out your marketing messages.

Instead, you can segment your audience and use marketing automation tools to send content and offers specific to their needs.

You'll need to put some effort into building a CRM of some sort to gather information about products and services that members are using and have expressed interest in, as well as other relevant information about them that can be used to further segment your database and deliver highly relevant messaging.

Keeping your current members engaged

Marketing to credit union members should be part of your ongoing marketing strategy.

Whether it’s based on building a stronger connection by sharing behind the scenes information or segmenting your audience and sending personalized offers to them, you can position yourself as an answer to many of their financial needs instead of just the ones they initially came to you seeking help with.