CU*Answers Web Services » new membership

Marketing to your online bankers

David Damstra — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:21:12 +0000

Carma from Affinity Group shared this article with us, and we wanted to share it with the rest of you.

A better Internet Bank? Who gets it right…

The article talks about how most Financial Institutions focus on the transactional aspect of Online Banking. They dwell on the fact that a member wants to get in, work with their finances and get out. While this is true, you are also missing an opportunity to target marketing to an existing member. This is a member who already has an active relationship with you (otherwise they would not be in Online Banking) and you have information about this member to fine tune the marketing.

CU*Answers is already working to address this new marketing vector. Today, you can market inside It’s Me 247 Online Banking with e-Info Banners from Xtend. In the next year you’ll be able to really target a member with Smart Promos. Teams are also discussing how a Next Suggested Product Engine would work in It’s Me 247 Online Banking and also including CU*OverDrive banners.

Read the article and if you have other ideas, let us here them in the comments. Also, if you find other great articles like this, please share them with us.

Reg E and Opt In

David Damstra — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:23:05 +0000

We’re getting several emails about adding Opt-In forms to Credit Union websites in response to Reg E. At this time, we are asking everyone to sit tight. We suggest you read up on what CU*Answers and our partners, such as Xtend, are preparing in response to Reg E. There is information online in the CU*Answers Kitchen. Additional information is presented in a recorded webinar at Ondemand.cuanswers.com. We are also preparing marketing collateral for your to use in statements, e-statements, e-Info, in your lobby and on your website. In the end, members will be able to opt-in via It’s Me 247 Online Banking. We would expect more information to be announced at Leadership Conference. We know this is a large and pressing concern for Credit Unions. But rest assured, CU*Answers is working on it and will have a solution well within the time frame.

Update: Some marketing collaterals have been published.

Please feel free to contact us with any further questions.

Where Do I Sign Up?

David Damstra — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:35:17 +0000

From the CU*Answers Newsstand.

Mike Escudero, a Filene 30 Under 30 member, makes an interesting observation about Credit Union web site design:

We only design our sites for existing members. Not a bad idea, as our number one mission is to serve members, but here’s the thing. We started tracking Web traffic at my credit union recently and found that people were really only visiting our site to log into Online Banking to check account balances, pay bills and move money around. Virtually no one was visiting our site to learn about accounts.

His point is, your existing members are already being served. Why not use your website to capture new members. Why is it so hard to sign up on our sites?

Currently, if you have it enabled in CU*BASE, there is an “Apply Online to Become a Member” button on both the It’s Me 247 Login Pages and the Online Banking Community Pages, but what about our websites? So I went and checked our Membership Application Snippet.

Yikes, that’s 2 years old, and its just a link. What can we do to make a badge, or graphic for your website to encourage new membership? (I am not asking for ideas about the application itself, that is beyond my control — Use an Idea Form.) Mike likes the ING approach.

What can we do to make it obvious on your website how to sign up a new member? Post in the comments.