How Much Do Credit Union Marketing Executives Make?

CUES Employee Salary Survey looks at compensation packages for seven different marketing positions using data collected from 624 credit unions. CUES shared salary and bonus data with The Financial Brand for three of these positions: Senior Exec, Director/Manager and Specialist/Coordinator (detailed tables provided below).

The other four marketing positions for which CUES has data include:

• Marketing Communication Specialist
• Manager of Business Development
• Business Development Specialist
• Marketing Research Analyst

Access to the CUES Employee Salary Survey requires a subscription — 12 months at $609 for members or $899 for non-members — but getting internal approval shouldn’t be too big a problem. Who doesn’t want to see how much their peers are earning? Or how much they could be making? Or (more practically) how much they should be paying the staff they manage?

The survey covers way more than just marketing jobs. You can slice data just about any way imaginable for nearly every credit union position with a title — over 60 total. You can analyze salaries or bonuses (average, median, high range, low range), compare similar positions between credit unions across varying asset sizes, and even isolate specific geographic regions. You can run all kinds of different analyses with the online database, then print out custom reports or save them as PDFs.

The CUES compensation study has been around since 1979, and has nearly 1,000 subscribers today. The data pool is updated constantly throughout the year.

Senior Marketing Executives

For the purposes of the survey, CUES defines the senior exec as the highest marketing position, whether that title be CMO, SVP, VP or something else — the credit union’s top marketing spot. This person plans and directs the marketing of the credit union’s products and services, and is responsible for public relations, advertising and communications activities.

The highest paid senior executives in the industry work at credit unions with over $5 billion in assets, earning over $200,000 annually with a bonus that can top $40,000. Meanwhile, someone in a similar position at a credit union one-tenth that size will earn just about half those figures. Some top marketing execs at smaller credit unions break six figures, but that isn’t the norm.

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Marketing Directors/Managers

As defined here, the Marketing Manager or Marketing Director is a non-executive management level position, managing day-to-day operations and supervising staff in support of advertising, public relations, and business development activities. If the job title for the top marketing executive was “Marketing Manager” or “Marketing Director,” their data would be included in the “Senior Executive” group, and not included in this section.

Marketing Managers at $1 billion credit unions earn around $85K, while those at credit unions with $2+ billion in assets will likely break the $100,000 mark. Bonuses range from around $1,500 to $7,500 and up. A Marketing Manager at a $500 million credit union will earn a similar bonus, but get a salary around $75K.

Marketing Specialist/Coordinator

CUES defines Marketing Specialists and Marketing Coordinators as those who work under supervision to implement marketing and communication activities. Typical support functions include working with mailing houses and printers on daily promotional- and branch marketing needs.

Some Marketing Coordinators at small credit unions make just a shade more than $30K, while those at billion-dollar CUs can earn nearly twice as much. Bonuses for Marketing Coordinators are modest, ranging from a few hundred dollars up to a couple thousand.