Credit Union Case Study

Credit Union Marketing Automation

With 8 locations locally and over 30,000 members, this not-for-profit financial institution is a staple in its area and founded on the principle of giving back to the diverse communities that it serves.

This credit union’s email marketing strategy involved conducting all of their communication manually, and they struggled to communicate with potential and existing members consistently and promptly. This led to many incomplete applications and low engagement metrics from their marketing emails.       

Approach

In search of a more advanced approach to communicating with members, this credit union partnered with WebStrategies to create an automated system that would improve their application submission rates and consistently email prospective and current members, providing them with useful financial information. 

WebStrategies implemented several automated email workflows within a marketing automation platform in which contacts were entered based on their website behavior and segmented by various product tags that were uploaded from the credit union’s core. 

Unique campaigns were designed for various situations, including when a potential member submits a contact form, is in the process of paying off an auto loan, or visits a product page. These campaigns would then send automated emails with optimized timing to offer financial education and information about the credit union’s products and services, and nurture users toward converting.

Results

WebStrategies’ marketing work resulted in a staggering increase in the amount of engagement that this credit union saw from their emails to current and prospective members. In their credit card application campaign alone, they saw an average open rate of 77% and an average click rate of 14.8%. 

Their member recruitment campaign, which was triggered when a user submitted a contact form to receive more information on becoming a member, received an open rate of up to 77% and up to 19% click rate.

Similar results were generated from their auto and mortgage loan product campaigns, where they achieved an open rate between 37-55% on the emails in these workflows. In addition to their product campaigns, they were able to automate their member onboarding communication, which was previously done through direct mail resulting in cost efficiencies and the ability to communicate with members sooner. 

Overall, these campaigns have greatly improved this credit union’s ability to follow-up with potential leads and engage with current and prospective members regularly. They have seen a rise in product applications for the products these campaigns focused on, and have gained efficiencies in employee time. CRM automation, such as automated deal and task setting, has improved the sales process and allowed loan officers to reach prospective members sooner.