Peek Inside: Mid-Atlantic FCU’s In-House Marketing Department
[Editor’s Note: If you’d like to have your financial institution’s in-house marketing department profiled on The Financial Brand, please complete the questionnaire here.]
Name of Financial Institution: Mid-Atlantic Federal Credit Union
Area served: Suburbs of Washington, DC
Founded: 1968, Montgomery County, Maryland
Website: www.mafcu.org
Assets: $260 million
Number of members: 23,000
Number of branches: 4
Members per branch: 5,750
Loans: $187 million
Investments: $38 million
Capital: $22 million (8.6%)
12-Month Share Growth: 8.03%
12-Month Loan Growth: -9.99%
ROA: -0.09%
Number of total employees: 65
Ratio of customers to employees: 354:1
Number of employees in marketing department: 2 (3.08% of entire workforce)
- Marc Wilensky, VP of Marketing
- One Marketing Specialist
Number of campaigns run every year: 7
Systems & Tools
| Have Now | Don’t Have | Not Yet, But Plan To | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal written marketing plan | X | ||
| Brand standards manual (addressing design) | X | ||
| Brand guidelines book (for staff) | X | ||
| CRM system | X | ||
| MCIF system | X | ||
| Onboarding program | X | ||
| Matrix mail program | X | ||
| Social media strategy | X | ||
| In-branch video merchandising system | X | ||
| Formal SEO strategy | X |
In-House vs. Vendor
| In-House | Vendor | Both | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising | X | ||
| Design | X | ||
| Media buying | X | ||
| Direct mail | X | ||
| Email marketing | X | ||
| Web design/development | X | ||
| Online advertising/marketing | X | ||
| Social media | X | ||
| Promotional items, giveaways | X | ||
| Sales collateral, brochures | X | ||
| Public relations | X | ||
| Community relations/events | X |
Social Media Strategy
Our social media strategy can be best described as a "work in progress." We are still trying to figure out what works. We really started using it about a year ago. We spend about 2-3 hours a week on social media — most from home as it is blocked on our work PCs. We had a very successful Photo Scavenger Hunt last summer that we won a CUNA Diamond Award for.
URL for Twitter account: twitter.com/midatlanticfcu
Nature of tweets: Announcements, articles and links; intra-industry and peer-to-peer networking
Twitter account created: June 17, 2009
Twitter followers: 308 (equal to 1.3% of overall membership)
Accounts followed: 313
Tweets sent: 517
Average # of tweets sent per day: 0.5
Average # of followers added per day: 0.30
URL for Facebook page: facebook.com/midatlanticfcu
Facebook page created: August 27, 2010
Number of Facebook Likes: 484 (equal to 2.1% of overall membership)
Average # of Likes added per day: 0.82
Advice for financial marketers on social channels: The true scoop? There is no real value in having a Facebook page. It doesn’t increase loans, it won’t bring in new members. It is a FREE branding opportunity to reach the younger demographic we all crave! Find someone in their early twenties at your organization and have them update your page daily, even if that means doing it on evenings and weekends from home.
Marketing Channels Deployed
| Using Now | Don’t Use | Not Yet, But Plan To | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct mail | X | ||
| Print ads | X | ||
| TV ads | X | ||
| Radio ads | X | ||
| Billboards/outdoor | X | ||
| Ads within online banking/bill pay | X | ||
| Paid banner ad placements | X | ||
| Search engine marketing (e.g., Adwords) | X | ||
| Microsites | X | ||
| Email marketing | X | ||
| eStatement ads | X | ||
| QR codes | X | ||
| X | |||
| X | |||
| YouTube | X | ||
| Foursquare | X | ||
| Blog | X | ||
| Online forum | X |
The Lobster Truck photo and voucher were from a Community Shredding Event we had last April at one of our branches. We partnered with the Red Hook Lobster Truck (20k+ followers on Twitter) and gave away free lobster rolls to the first 100 people that showed up with paper to shred. What goes better with shredded paper than some shredded lobster?
Marketing Strategy
Biggest challenge in the next 12 months?
Not enough hours in the day to do all the things we want to or have to do. Not enough money in the budget to allow us to do everything we want to do.
Critical products/services to market this year?
Loans, loans, loans. We are developing "Life Event" loans — not just calling our Signature Loan a "Wedding Loan," but actually developing a Wedding Loan product. We hope additional life event loans will follow (new baby loan, funeral loan, etc.). Once finalized we will go to wedding expos, etc. and meet with our very specific target audience. We will also develop relationships with vendors that service these individuals (photographers, bands, etc. for wedding loans, funeral homes for funeral loans).
How are branches and front line staff integrated into marketing initiatives?
Not as well as they should be but we are working on that. We’re trying to have monthly manager meetings with the four branch managers, and eventually quarterly branch visits with each branch’s staff. Part of the "not-enough-hours-in-the-day" problem.
How do you track marketing ROI?
We mainly rely on our MCIF Raddon’s Campaign Manager tool. It does a great job of tracking direct mail campaigns. We also have The Kohl Advisory Group "EZ What If" Account Detail Report to project ROI in advance of promotions.
Favorite campaign?
It was our first ever guerilla marketing campaign last winter. We gave out washer fluid around town on the coldest days of the year (picture shown right). I actually brought the washer fluid to my job interview and told them I would do this if hired. It was the first outside-the-box promotion they had ever ran. They thought I was nuts, but I think they enjoyed it. I was trying to show that we had to be a little creative to build our brand when faced with such an expensive media market (Washington, DC). The credit union got to interact with the public in a completely different way. It showed the staff we were going to try new and different things to spread the word.
