If you’re about to start a credit union membership drive, there’s one important thing to remember:
Your existing members.
In this blog, we’ll talk a little about how your credit union’s net promoter score can help—or hurt—your membership drive.
Marketing Ideas for Credit Unions
Let’s be honest: we’re not a credit union marketing team. We don’t have all the best credit union marketing ideas out there. And frankly, that’s not the point of this blog.
The truth is that there are dozens of high-quality ideas out there from bloggers and marketers who want to help you increase your membership. But here’s the thing:
They’re all focused on the same thing.
Getting you new members while forgetting about the ones you already have.
Why Marketing Ideas Aren’t Enough
But that’s not a winning strategy. Any marketing plan that doesn’t involve your existing members is a bad plan.
Why?
Because your existing members are one of your greatest marketing resources! Sure, they sign up for your products and services. And sure, they’re the ones helping to keep you afloat.
But they’re also the ones who talk. They use Yelp. They use Facebook. They chat about their car loans and mortgages at happy hour. They leave online reviews about how friendly your tellers are. They tell their friends and family about the great interest rate in their savings account.
Or they complain. Or warn others.
Understanding the Net Promoter Score
The idea behind the net promoter score is that people’s opinions of your business fall into three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors.
Promoters really like you. They’re the ones who will talk about how quick their loan application was, or how friendly your tellers are.
Passives are people who generally like you. However, they probably aren’t so impressed that they’ll go out of their way to say anything nice about you to their friends.
Detractors are people who aren’t so pleased with you. They may have had one (or a few) bad experiences. If they’re going to say something about you, there’s a good chance it will be at least partially negative.
You can see how having promoters would help you accumulate more members. They’re out there on the front lines doing your marketing team’s work for them. Thus, having happy members isn’t just an institutional goal—it’s a critical marketing objective.
Using the Net Promoter Score for Marketing
Okay, it’s not a direct solution. But if you leverage net promoter score surveys at your credit union, you can strengthen your marketing outreach. Here’s how:
1. Start using NPS surveys
Get an idea of where you stand. This will provide a baseline to let you know if you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.
2. Follow up with very low scores
Whenever someone gives you a very low score, perhaps a 1–3, follow up with them. Ask them what you could do to ensure a better experience.
3. Make changes
After you’ve seen what people don’t like, get ready to change things. If half the negative respondents think your tellers are rude, then you’ve got some retraining on your hands. If people find your online banking app clunky and difficult, you might want to start shopping for a new provider.
4. Keep surveying
Keep surveying your members to make sure that you’re heading in the right direction. As you address issues that your members don’t like, you will see detractors turn to passives, and your passives turn into promoters.
Why It Works
No, it’s not exactly marketing, but it will work. Instead of marketing your services, you’re improving them so that other people market them for you. If your members are your champions, they’ll spread the word.
A credit union membership drive won’t go far if the members you already have won’t corroborate your marketing team’s story. If your Yelp reviews are bad, you’ll have a hard time convincing people to take a chance on you.
Surveys are your best research tool to figure out how to make your members happier. And happy members will bring in their friends.
Now that’s how to crush a membership drive!
If you’d like to read more about credit union surveys and strategy, subscribe to our blog! Or follow the links below to learn more about net promoter scores, how they work, and what you can do with them.
