Community Credit Union's Marketing Automation Platform Journey

The client is posed for growth and has some goals to achieve over the next few years. The company wants to not only add members but achieve higher cross-sell ratios and bolster the credit union's value to its members. "Attracting new members is a key strategic initiative at [client] - and the credit union has had success with annualized membership growth of 6.7% the past five years," says the SVP of Marketing. "Our goal for implementing an automation platform was to leverage that rapid growth and further deepen the member relationship by cross-selling the right product at the right time."

THE CLIENT BEGINS ITS MAP JOURNEY

ABOUT THE CLIENT
This client was founded in 1951 and today, this credit union operates several branches and serves 90,000+ members.
A Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) could provide the missing data needed to understand customer expectations, but the client didn't have one in place. "Although we were engaged in a fair amount of digital marketing already, we wanted to extend our capabilities by automating key marketing activities and select delivery channels that offered a significant return on investment and improved member experience," according to the SVP.

The client wanted to increase services per individual and started exploring other marketing techniques. The average services being used per member was about 2.57 - but the team wanted to see that average increase. The SVP suspected digital marketing strategies would help the company match the right services with the right customers and increase adoption.

"We took a deeper look at digital marketing - specifically email marketing - and invested in Documatix," said the SVP. "After the implementation, we realized a cross-sell ratio increase of 2.3%, moving the average services per customer from 2.57 to 2.63."

This slight increase inspired more out-of-the-box thinking, and the credit union began to explore other MAP options. They started small with some very specific goals in mind:

• Understand what interests prospects or members
• Offer relevant content and financial advice to entice buyers
• Automate key delivery channels to improve reach and frequency         

After exploring several vendors and fine-tuning their strategy, the client selected Marketo as its new MAP. The company also enlisted help from DemandGen to assist with developing an implementation plan and support retainer for achieving their growth goals over the next few years. 
 

A NEW APPROACH TO MARKETING TAKES SHAPE

DemandGen led the swift implementation of Marketo and teamed up with the client's technology team to integrate important data elements between Marketo and their proprietary systems. This enabled Marketo to access data elements for the purpose of Onboarding and Reboarding Nurture campaigns. The 2017 results of those activities yielded a 3.4% increase in average services per customer, increasing the cross-sell ratio from 2.63 to 2.72 – a great start.

Next, DemandGen led the client on the design and implementation of product interest-based, multi-channel- triggered campaigns. This included implementing lead scoring and pairing that methodology with the client's existing propensity insights. DemandGen also leveraged tactile marketing via a third-party vendor, Printing For Less (PFL), to add a direct mail element to the campaigns. The results of these 2018 efforts increased the average services per customer 5.1% more, moving the cross-sell ratio from 2.72 to 2.86.
 

IT’S ABOUT TO GET PERSONAL

In 2019, the client and DemandGen have continued to partner, building in more delivery channels and automating more nurturing campaigns. Using the multi-model lead scoring system, daily leads are sent to the client's outbound call-center team for telemarketing follow-up. As a third channel, telephone-based outreach resulted in additional incremental cross-selling and a further improvement in the average services per customer.

On the roadmap is website personalization, set to deploy in June 2019. Website personalization will enable the presentation of personalized product offers based on a proprietary propensity model that the client uses. Other work with DemandGen will continue as adjustments to the models, nurture paths and data enhancements work together to increase leads and sales opportunities. PFL continues to work alongside the client and DemandGen to deliver expertise in tactile marketing as well.

 

“Supporting member engagement across multiple delivery channels is at the center of [the client's] digital strategy. By connecting data with modern technology, automation tools and relevant content, [the client] is in position to continue growing while improving member loyalty.”

- Client's SVP Marketing