Featured Project: Interior Savings Facebook Launch

[Note: Want your bank or credit union marketing project featured on The Financial Brand? Just complete this questionnaire here.]

Name of financial institution: Interior Savings Credit Union
Geographic area served: Interior region of British Columbia, Canada
Assets: $2.05 Billion
Branches: 21 retail branches, 2 commercial services
Members: 80,000+
Tagline: We’re Here For You

Name of project: Corporate Facebook Launch
Budget for project: $4,400 for promotion, $20,000 donation

Website: www.interiorsavings.com
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/interiorsavings (1,498 ‘Likes’)
Twitter account: www.twitter.com/interiorsavings (138 Followers)
YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/interiorsavingscu (3 videos – 2,141 views)

Answers provided by: Lindsay Stilborn, Social Media Marketing Specialist

Project objectives?

  1. Gain 700 ‘likes’ on our Facebook page
  2. Engage with our fans
  3. Donate $20,000 to local United Way chapters

Target audience?

Stilborn: People within our service area 19 years and older who are community minded.

What was the basic strategy for this Facebook promo?

Stilborn: The basic strategy was to tie in the launch of the Interior Saving Facebook page with a great community partner of ours. We wanted to highlight how involved Interior Savings is within our community and give our members and potential members a say in what amount of money was donated to the three local United Way Offices, get a bit of competition between our regions. Having a United Way donation tied to our Facebook page also allowed us to engage our communities and got people talking about Interior Savings in social media channels. We also contacted the local United Way offices prior to the campaign starting so they were aware and could assist us in promoting the donation.


How did Facebook ads factor into this campaign?

Stilborn: Facebook advertisements are targeted according to a Facebook user’s profile information such as age, gender, location and relationship status. Advertisers bid for the opportunity to target these specific Facebook users. If the bid is successful, the advertisers can set a daily spend as Facebook is compensated per ad click. Interior Savings had a maximum daily spend of $50 during the two month campaign period. Using web analytics, the credit union was able to determine which ads worked best and adjust the message or design to increase the opportunity for a successful campaign. The ads were clicked on 1,590 times.

Was an agency involved?

Stilborn: An outside ad agency was used to create the graphics for the campaign. Everything else was handled by internal staff both in Marketing and Community Investment.

How did this project integrate branches and staff?

Stilborn: All employees were encouraged to ‘like’ our Facebook page and participate in the campaign. As well, information was provided to them so they could speak to members coming into branch about how they could participate.

What was the biggest surprise?

Stilborn: This project was very successful, and we did not have any hurdles that we had to overcome. The biggest surprise was that we hit our goal of $20,000 to United Way within one month, where we had planned on it taking 2 months. We had great response from people, had lots of engaged fans of the brand, and the United Way used their channels to cross promote the initiative.

What were the results? How did you measure success?

Stilborn: The results were great, we hit our goal of $20,000 to the local United Way chapters. We doubled our goal of 700 ‘likes’ with 1,200 likes, the ads were clicked on 1,590 times, 30 stories were submitted and posts and pictures were tagged and/or shared 250 times. We now have one ‘Like’ for every 59 members. TD Canada may have over 66,000 ‘Likes,’ but they have 11 million customers, so that’s only one ‘Like’ for every 166 customers.

What marketing media did you use?

Stilborn: Facebook, banner ads on our website and some public relations.

Any other social channels used? Or just Facebook

Stilborn: Only Facebook was used in this promotion by Interior Savings. Some of the United Way chapters had Twitter accounts that they used to talk about the promotion.

Anything you regret or wish you could change?

Stilborn: We have taken a lot of time to put together a social strategy that ties into the overall objectives of the credit union. The one thing that I wish we would have done differently is had more content contributors for social media since the audience is so varied with many different interests.

What advice do you have for financial institutions engaging in social channels?

Stilborn: Make sure you have a plan, goals that you want to achieve and a way to measure them. It makes it difficult to show success if you didn’t start with goals and a way to measure them.

This article was originally published on . All content © 2024 by The Financial Brand and may not be reproduced by any means without permission.