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Some CUs are finding success marketing loans in a difficult economy. Here's how they're doing it-and how you can, too.
Ask a credit union marketer if she and her staff have had a hard time promoting loans as of late, and you're likely to see a lot of nodding. What's behind all that nodding? The economy, for starters - at least, that's what a trio of credit union marketers interviewed for this article suggest.
In the current economic environment, "people don't seem to be as eager or willing to get into debt, or to add to their debt," says Lesli Bishop, director of marketing at Gadsden, AIa.based Family Savings Federal Credit Union (www.familysavingscu.com), with $257 million in assets and 53,300 members.
CUES member Kim Wall, VP/marketing at $638 million Georgia Federal Credit Union (www.gfcuonline.org) in Duluth, Ga., agrees, saying "people just aren't looking to take on additional debt in this challenging economy, if they can get around it. So, [marketing loans] can be a tough sell at times."
"It depends on the loan product," adds Jason Halperin, the 85,400-member CU's VP/lending. Marketing mortgages hasn't been too challenging, he shares- "It's just a matter of getting people to understand that we offer them" -while marketing auto loans has been the complete opposite.
"It's very difficult to show solid results [when it comes to marketing auto loans] because people just aren't purchasing new vehicles right now," Halperin says.
That's a problem because auto loans have long been one of the credit union's core products. Specifically, Georgia FCU has a history of growing such loans from year to year, but according to Halperin, "in the past year or two, we've been backing up."
Although the credit union has turned things around a bit in the last few months thanks to a well-received auto-loan campaign (more on that later), Halperin expects the tide to reverse course again soon.
"It's going to be more challenging moving forward," he says, "because banks are starting to get back into lending." Not that he's complaining. After all, "it's our jobs to market appropriately for the times that we're in."
It's also a credit union marketer's job, Wall adds, "to be sensitive to what our members are going through and to market...