How much do you trust your members? How much should they trust you? A couple of days ago the NAFCU Compliance Blog kicked off a discussion about credit unions offering consumer opt-outs from third party and affiliate marketers.

Okay first, selling your members’ information is just shady. Come on.

But moving on – my attention perked when the Compliance Guy brought up a credit union that allows its members a full-on marketing opt-out:

These members have the right to exclude themselves from all credit union marketing campaigns. (Interestingly, this credit union currently does not need to offer their members an opt-out under the privacy rules and does not plan on offering an affiliate information opt-out.) I asked how it worked, and the compliance officer said that it seemed to keep a very specific segment of their membership happy. “And happy members deposit more,” she added.

I’d like to shake this credit union’s hand. What an enormous amount of trust and respect for their members’ time and privacy.

But that brings up a new question – how do you reach members that have opted out of everything? I think part of the answer lies in the reason for opt-out. These members aren’t trying to shut you out entirely, they’re filtering out irrelevant noise. So the key to reach might be relevance. Opt-in.

One simple-ish way to stay relevant and paperless is to offer topical RSS feeds and email alerts (see NPR’s news feeds). For example, right now I’d absolutely subscribe to a “small business” feed offered by an FI. But if I see another credit card app, I’ll probably set something on fire.

How would/do you reach members that have removed themselves from your traditional marketing?

Maybe a better question is – would you even give them the option?

As you may have read here, here, here, here, and here, CUES Experience was a blast.

What struck me the most about Mark Stutrud, Summit Brewing Company’s founder and CEO, was that he knows exactly who Summit is and where it’s going. He makes no apologies, and doesn’t try and water Summit down (figuratively, but also literally….there’s no “Summit Lite”), or grow without reason to be like his larger competitors.

One of my favorite quotes by him was, “If we aren’t making some people mad a few times a year, we aren’t doing our job.”

My main takeaway, and the theme of my workshop after the tour, was to differentiate by knowing exactly who you are and pursing that as deeply as you can. Get specific. It takes businesses years and a lot of hard work to find a nitch. Credit unions come with one – its automatic! And as a result we have a built-in affinity and culture from the very beginning. So own that.

Our final question was this: What is something you can do at your credit union that is so relevant to your specific SEG and/or community, that it absolutely wouldn’t make sense somewhere else?

Also, I highly recommend Ron’s post on his Summit takeaways – “Financial Services Marketers Could Use A Beer .”

Here are the slides (a few of which make little sense without their talking points):

| View | Upload your own

Also, Summit beer is fantastic. If you can get it in your area, do it.

ps: I didn’t take any pictures, because I’m a moron. But I’ll update this post with a link to some shots from the tour as soon as a certain someone hooks it up.

A great conversation with Tim over dinner tonight brought up this:

I probably write one out of every ten ideas I have for a post. Why? Because I tend to overthink, over-present, and tie a bow around my point. This doesn’t just stress me out (and it does) – pre-packaging a point clips off the conversation. In trying to wrap up my own conclusions, I bypass the fact that what I really need and want for any given topic is your collective perspective.

What hurts my blogging? Formatting. Packaging. Which is dumb.

Here’s to grittiness, reality, and ideas.

I’ve read a few posts across the financial blogosphere about Starbuck’s user-generated idea site, MyStarbucks Idea, and its relevance to financial institutions as a channel into consumer insight another way to listen.

As usual, the good folks at Vancity are ahead of their game with weallprofit.vancity.com, a (beautifully designed) user-generated idea site that launched months ago.

Their explanation of the site and philosophy hits the nail on the head:

You can call us a financial institution, you can call us a credit union, you can even call us a bank. But the truth is, when it comes right down to it, we’re really just in the business of ideas. An idea for a different way of banking is what got us started. It was the idea of profit sharing that made us grow. And today, it’s the innovative ideas that help make our members financial lives easier and our communities stronger. In short, through good ideas, we all profit.

At Vancity, we believe good ideas can come from anywhere. Which is why we always like hearing new ones. If you have an idea you’d like to share, then by all means, put it on the wall.

Well said.

Vancity’s William Azaroff says the site will be getting a facelift in the next several months. I’m looking forward to the action if/when they begin to implement the ideas they’re collecting.

(Starbucks site via Jim on Netbanker, Robbie on the fi-linx blog, and Brady on Grow Your Bank)

I thought it’d be nice to start the week off with a rant inspired by three things:

1. Jim Bruene’s recent post about the scrappy usage (his word: ‘anemic’) of financial apps in Facebook.
2. My disagreement with this quote from the CUES Nexus blog (sorry, Lisa):

   If you want to reach Gen Y, why not be where they are? The more than 68 million Facebook users (many of them young people) spend an average of 20 minutes a day on the site. And about 250,000 new users sign on every day. Some CUs are already there, waiting to greet them.

3. That there are still high-fives given for credit union MySpace pages.

Social networks…

Are Not:

Real estate. If you look at online communities as an opportunity to park your caboose and head people off at the pass, you’re missing the point. Go buy a TV spot, pop up or newspaper ad – stick to the proven, tried and true methods of interrupting and annoying people.

To brands who treat conversations like billboards: you’re not just old marketers, you’re also posers. (And I should note that I’m not talking about Lisa here at all.)

There are 140 Facebook apps added every day. This is Noise 2.0. The apps that are the most successful are those that help Facebook users do what they came to Facebook to do rather than react to the fact that they happen to be there. More on that in a second.

Are:

Communities. If you bust in on that without immersing, participating, understanding, you are a door to door salesman. If you show up, you and your toothy grin, you’d better be adding value to the community by helping them interact, grow, and have a deeper connection with each other (that’s why they’re all there in the first place). The Cluetrain Manifesto said communites are groups “of people who care about each other more than they should.” And each community/platform is unique, but also interwoven. Engaging the Facebook community looks different from engaging the Second Life community looks different from engaging the Twitter community.

For Example:

Why is Facebook’s iLike so successful (361,568 daily active users, $15.8 million in funding…for a Facebook app)? Because people use Facebook to communicate themselves, learn about and connect with people. iLike enables that and, as a result, enhances Facebook for its users.

This is shown across the board in the numbers too. According to Adanomics data (made sense of by Asi Sharabi) the most widely used apps (44%) are “Identity Formation / Social Comparison.”

Why do I think Fiserve’s MyMoney will not succeed as it is right now? Because, frankly, who cares that you can access your account within Facebook? It is not that difficult or time consuming to open a new window or tab and get to my online banking login. Thank you for saving me three clicks, but until MyMoney brings more to the table I’d rather keep my applications clean.

What if you could use MyMoney to visualize your progress as you saved for a vacation, a new toy, or the secret to time travel. What if a few trusted friends and I could use Facebook’s social tools to build a cross-FI collective overdraft protection account that auto transfers cash in a time of need, notifies each person on the account, and in doing so: 1) saves me fees and 2) builds in the obligation to replace that money as soon as I can?

By the same token, Financially Fun Island™ (not a real thing, but almost a real thing) in Second Life will, at best, attract a lot of industry insiders who are interested in this “innovative new tactic.” But the citizens have better things to do than go to your island and play money games. They’re building an active economy. However, a financial institution that offers home, land, and small business loans in Second Life for Second Life is enriching the in-world experience…not just capitalizing on it.

I’d much rather be enabled than greeted.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. You can yell at me now.

Hi, I’m Terrell Meek, Marketing Manager at Verity Credit Union. The following is a true story.

One day in 2006, I typed the name of a restaurant I wanted to visit into Google, hoping to find their website. Instead I stumbled upon Yelp: Real People, Real Reviews™. The site intrigued me from the beginning because I love to write, I love to try new things and I love to meet new people. I signed up, created my profile, wrote a couple of restaurant reviews and have been addicted ever since.

When I first joined Yelp, not too many people in Seattle had heard of it yet and they were in the process of hiring a full-time marketing person to help grow and promote the community. I started to be active in the talk threads, asking and responding to questions, and finally a group of us decided to meet up in person for dinner. More dinners followed, and pretty soon I was meeting up with Yelpers for concerts, plays, coffee, shopping and other events. Some of us even formed a craft club called Sew Drunk, which ironically did not involve sewing or booze.

More and more people joined the community, Michelle was hired as their full-time marketer, and the site improved and added functionality. The talk threads also evolved and became a place where almost any topic could be discussed. One day, about a year ago, I was pinged by Michelle in a private message. She told me that someone was complaining about Wells Fargo in the talk threads and that it would be a perfect opportunity for me to talk about the credit union difference. I found the conversation and gave my two cents, fully disclosing that I work at Verity. After that day, I became a go to person on financial matters. If there is a conversation about banks or debt, savings, credit cards, budgeting, etc., I am usually alerted. I have never told anyone I’m a personal banker, an accountant or financial advisor. They all know I work in marketing, but they trust me.

Recently, I used the talk threads to do an informal survey and asked how people manage their finances. I asked how likely they’d be to use Wesabe or Mint and pointed them in the direction of those websites. I received several emails thanking me for sharing that information. When Verity’s Velocity Checking launched, I found an old talk thread about saving money and bumped it by talking about our new account. This resulted in a flurry of emails, and again, many notes of thanks. Because of the conversations I’ve had with these friends online, I’ve been asked to upload any financial seminars through Verity on the “events” section of Yelp. I have handed out our temporary Passport cards (get two meals for the price of one at local restaurants!) at Yelp sponsored events and they are a huge hit.

People not active in the Yelp community have criticized my actions. Sure, from the outside, it may seem like I’m only online to shill my credit union, but honestly, that’s boring and I don’t roll that way. The truth is, I’m just having fun, making friends and sharing information (which is bringing in new members). Although the site is bigger than it used to be and it’s harder for me to meet everyone and stay on top of all the conversations, I still participate. I am constantly learning things that bring value to my life: great restaurants to try out, where the sales are, what shows are coming to town.

I wrote this post to offer encouragement to other credit union marketers who are wary of jumping into social media. I know how you feel—I’m actually only on a small number of social sites and find some of them intimidating. I would advise that you take a look around your credit union, see who is already using these sites and go from there. You might be surprised to find a staffer among you who is already advocating for you online.

(If you’re viewing this in an RSS Reader, click here to see the poll.)

FinovateStartup is right around the corner, and if it’s anything like last October’s conference tickets will be sold out soon. Finovate and FinovateStartup are financial innovation and technology conferences put on by tech+finance guru Jim Bruene of Netbanker.

Startup companies demoing their products (Jim’s blog says “No PowerPoint slides allowed!”) include: Andera, Boulevard R., Buxfer, Motley Fool CAPS, ClairMail, Credit Karma, First ROI, Jwaala, Lending Club, Mint, Prosper, SmartHippo, Unified Money, and the rockstars from Wesabe (see how big a fan I am of Wesabe here).

It’s a stockpile of some of the coolest things to happen to money since they invented “buying stuff.”

Watch videos from last year’s Finovate here, and sign up to attend here.

The Credit Union Innovators Podcast

Last week Tim McAlpine from Currency Marketing launched a podcast devoted to highlighting and interviewing passionate and inspirational people from the credit union movement. His first guest is Gene Blishen, the tech-and-people-savvy General Manager of Mt. Lehman Credit Union.

One of my favorite parts is Gene discussing the future of credit union survival:

The question I would first and foremost ask any board or credit union manager is “Are you relevant to your members?” and, “Do you have passion to exist?”

Word on the street is there’s talk of an interview with the CU Skeptic. Sweet conflict!

Listen to it on the web here or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here.

Banktastic, a social network for financial institutions

In late October of last year, the Garland Group launched this social knowledge hub for financial institutions. Now don’t get in a tizzy just because of the word “Bank.” Here are a few discussions happening in Banktastic:

• What is your favorite credit union marketing campaign of all time?
• Emerging Markets and What They Could Mean for CUs
• Using Mobile Phones to Make Remote Check Deposits (which is honestly worth a blog post of its own)

The community is currently in “semi-private beta” What does that mean? “We have no idea,” says Brad Garland. But you will need an invite to join. I have a few, and I know several others do too. Post in the comments if you’d like to join, and I bet you’ll get hooked up.

Update: The Banktastic Invite Fairy hooked me up with quite a few more invites. If you want one, email me at brent [at] trabian [dot] com.

Young & Free Alberta

If you haven’t taken time to look at the best credit union social media campaign in existence (only rivaled by ChangeEverything), please go check out CommonWealth CU’s Young & Free campaign (orchestrated by the crazy Canucks at Currency Marketing).

After running a contest to find the most charismatic and expressive person under 25 in Alberta, Canada to take a year-long gig as the CUs spokesprson, they hit a goldmine with winner Larissa (see yesterday’s post).

She blogs, she makes videos, she digs up free stuff, and she positions CommonWealth as a youth-centric credit union. And the entire campaign ties to their Young & Free Checking Account.

It’s brilliant.

Tech CU’s iPhone button

Says Gabriel Garcia in a comment on Netbanker (link added):

”...I created and iPhone icon for the Tech CU Blog. One of our members had coincidentally inquired about the same thing the day before. We tested it on his iPhone and enjoys it!”

What a cool way to engage tech-savvy members (of which I have a feeling Tech CU has many) while raising awareness of their blog.

Next stop? iBanking:

(Video of German bank Postbank’s iPhone account interface. Sorry, the video is in German…but the demo speaks for itself.)

The brass|SHOW

I’ve always dug the content Gen-Y experts brass|MEDIA put out in their made-for-gen-yers magazine, brass. It’s relevant, on-point, and an entertaining read.

In early Feb, they’ll launch the brass|SHOW. brass CEO Bryan Sims described it nicely in an email:

We developed a 3-5 minute video podcast about young adults, money and real world stuff, that credit unions can license and place on their site to begin delivering updated content rather than many of the static sites that are out there.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. And I’m especially looking forward to seeing how it is received by young members.

Check out an example of how the brass|SHOW could play out on a credit union site here

Did I miss something? Post other instances of CU New Media Awesomeness you’ve found in the comments.

This is a straight-up re-post from Currency Tim’s blog, but I don’t care because this video needs to be posted as many places in Credit Uniondom as possible.

Please watch 19-year old Larissa, spokesperson for Commonwealth CU’s Young & Free campaign, explain the difference between credit unions and banks.

To quote Charlie from an earlier tweet:

“Larissa’s vid is just what I have in mind when I picture a national CU vs Bank differentiation campaign.”

Question for Tim:

Would you ever consider re-editing, and re-releasing a less-Y&F-branded version for CUs to put on their own homepages, “about us” pages, and blogs?

Question for CUs:

Is this something you’d like to put in front of your members?

Denise Wymore sent me this blog post about Alliant Credit Union. Dave’s comment at 2:42 AM, January 18, 2008 summed it up:

I had the same problems. It is difficult for me to put my money in an institution that:

1) cannot even get their application process to work correctly, and

2) cannot be clear on who can be a member who who cannot.

Even though 5.40% is a good rate, I will also find another credit union or bank to park my money.

I think it amplifies the point I tried to make with my last post: CU websites should be operations oriented, not just sales oriented. Make the online experience as close to the in-person experience as possible.”

Why can’t the credit union staff use the online application form while taking applications in-person? This solves several problems:

1. It streamlines the application process for operations 2. It familiarizes employees with the online processes (a CSR laughing and admitting the online application isn’t reliable…really?) 3. It tests the system. It’s easier to fix a problem if you can replicate it on the spot.

Dave’s second point is salient. Most CU’s provide FOM information on their sites, and I think they should continue to work to make it crystal clear who can or cannot be a member. I think this also helps the credit union remind itself of who it is serves.

It touches a branding point, too. I’m not a fan of the diaphanous CU name. Be who you are. Alliant was United Airline’s Employee’s Credit Union. I understand the need to grow and diversify. But moving completely away from who you are as a CU is disconcerting. Why not build the brand around your original sponsor SEG and grow from there? When picking a new name, why not put more effort into staying close to your primary SEG or community?

Of course, I also don’t think sports teams should not have mascots/names that can’t be pluralized.

By this stuff, I mean this new stuff. Web 2.0. User-generated content. Social media. Whatever you want to call it.

All this stuff you live and breathe. All this stuff that continues to come in waves. All this stuff that you know is perfect for your credit union. All this stuff that you can’t explain to anyone who is not involved. All this stuff your members are doing online. All this stuff that you know is passing your credit union by.

How about the brand and name experts? No, they’re too busy helping credit unions merge to waste their time on this stuff. They’re telling credit unions, “Skip this stuff. It will pass.”

How about the ad agency? Not likely. They make their money in 30 second increments. If they can’t monetize it, forget it. They, too, are telling credit unions, “Skip this stuff. It will pass.”

How about the PR consultants? Nope. User-generated content with no editorial review is too scary for them. “We need to control this stuff.”

How about the IT department? Yeah right. They’re too busy with bank system security and making sure your in-box isn’t filled with spam. Just try to convince the techies that embedded code from a third-party website is a good thing to do. “Nope, that stuff is not touching my stuff. My job is to block stuff, not touch stuff.”

How about the young person in the organization with a knack for computers? Maybe, but this person will never have the influence or the resources to really implement this stuff. “OK old dudes, this stuff is so cool. Trust me, we really need this stuff.”

How about your marketing and communications department? They would be the natural fit, but with a steady flow of branch requests and with the production of your ingrained annual sales promotions, time and resources are spread too thin. “We’d love to help, but we just don’t have time to do this stuff.”

How about the digital agency or the web consultancy? Possibly. They are definitely capable of doing whatever your credit union wants to do. But they can’t go it alone. “OK, before we do anything, we want to make sure you guys understand this stuff and are comfortable with us doing all of this stuff.”

How about hiring an expert on staff? Good idea. But you better be prepared to listen and give him or her the freedom to experiment or he or she will get frustrated and leave. “I have been telling you about this stuff for months now, but you all still don’t get this stuff. I’m packing my stuff and leaving.”

So, who’s left? Your senior management and, especially, your CEO. Until credit union CEOs and the senior executive team are actually involved in this stuff, it’s not going as far as I know it can go to propel the credit union movement forward.

CEOs and the senior executive team need to feel the anxiety of not being able to see what their Twitter crew is up to while on a flight. CEOs and the senior executive team need to feel the exhilaration of receiving a slew of comments on a controversial blog post that they just posted. CEOs and the senior executive team need to understand the power of this new form of community firsthand. It cannot be explained. It must be experienced.

And CEOs and the senior executive team need to be seen participating in social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn by staff and members. CEOs and the senior executive team need to give permission to experiment and innovate.

As it stands, credit union CEOs and the senior executive team are out of the loop. They see all of this stuff as a waste of time and energy. But guess what, this stuff is real, this stuff is happening right under their nose and this stuff is not going away any time soon, if ever.

Signing off on a message from the president that you didn’t write for your credit union’s quarterly newsletter is not a two-way conversation. Not even close.

Two questions for you:

1. Who owns this stuff at your credit union?
2. What can we all do to prove this stuff is worth doing?

Tim McAlpine is the President & Chief Strategist of Currency Marketing. You can read Tim’s ‘stuff’ on the Currency Marketing blog at www.currencymarketing.ca/blog.

The folks at Common Craft do an awesome job of demystifying social media buzzwords through their “Explanations in Plain English” videos. Here’s their video on RSS (hat-tip to Bryan Sims for sending this our way several months ago):

They also explain blogs, wikis, and zombies.

These rock because:

• Video is a lot more engaging than a long blog post, or even an audio podcast.
• Their presentation is all about imagination and clarity over production quality.
• They don’t talk down to me, they just talk.

Are any financial institutions out there doing something similar with personal finance? I’ve seen quite a few financial literacy podcasts pop up, but honestly, most are boring – not something I’d spend time listening to if I didn’t work in this industry.

Wesabe and Mint have made managing your cash a little sexier. Can understanding your cash be interesting and simple?

Christopher Morris has set up YES Summit social network at yescucommunity.com. He used Ning, a free (for a basic account) tool for building custom social networks, to create it. The YES CU Community allows users to engage in conversation forums, post blogs, join and create groups, “friend” each other, and share photo and video content (Ning automatically converts video files to a flash player…awesome).

In Christopher’s session explaining the network, he said they built it to 1) Facilitate and perpetuate discussion on reacing the 18 – 30 demographic and 2) Provide hands-on education to allow users to play in a social networking space and see how it works.

I like that CUNA is experimenting with this. A conference-specific social network has the potential to add a lot more depth and follow-up opportunity to the experience. Facebook and LinkedIn are both much better ways for me to keep up with new credit union friends than the lunchbox I keep my business cards in. Admittedly, half of this is because I always forget to bring my business cards to conferences.

Ning’s functionality and back-end interface are really impressive. To add features to your network, you simply drag and drop:

Definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for a way to kick off an online community.

A couple of weeks ago Brent, Doug and I were in New York for the ad:tech conference. I got to stay an extra day to attend a panel discussion called Design, Wit and the Creative Act. It was put together by Core 77 and hosted at the Art Director’s Club. Ze Frank played moderator to the four-person panel of Kelly Dobson (Technologist), Steven Heller (Writer/Editor), Tobias Wong (Artist) and Paul Budnitz (Founder, Kidrobot).

Ze was asking great questions, but some of the panel members were having trouble describing how they work. Paul Budnitz, however said the one thing that really got my mind working.

Kidrobot, Paul’s company, creates and retails limited edition art toys and apparel (Hang in there, CUers, it’s coming ‘round to you soon.). He was speaking about designing apparel carrying images of his characters. A literal translation of a character on a t-shirt or hoodie would be a medium sized head-to-toe image of it slapped right in the center. Their approach is to change-up literal translation. They take one part of a character (like the eyes, nose and mouth) and zoom in tight on it and that becomes the image. Like so:

So Literal Translation (Paul’s words) becomes Macro Translation (Mine, I think. I’m copyrighting it now just to be sure: Macro Translation©™®.)

How can we apply the idea of Macro Translation©™® to a credit union, or can we at all? And I’m not talking about design elements, necessarily, like cropping the logo tightly and huge in the corner. My question is, what about the concept and content can we zoom in on, simplify?

Let’s start with credit union website content. Is there too much to talk about? Yes. Good gracious, yes.

We are afraid to leave details out. Everything is important. Every department is vying to be a part of what gets distilled down into something more digestable, which brings the communication right back into horse pill territory. Every department want’s a little plot of prime real estate on the home page of the website (even though the login field is all anyone clicks on).

What if the home page of your website was just a login screen? What if that login bypassed all the digital brochure-ery and headed straight to a rich, deftly cross-pollinated online banking interface that pointed members to appropriate services only when their patterns displayed a need for them?

Now, what about Branches? I’ve put my own macro lens on my FI’s branch. I zoomed in on the drive-up ATM. I’ve darkened the actual door one time in the last year. Now, I’m sure branches with real people in them won’t go away any time soon, so which piece of the branch experience can we zoom in on, and would it make the experience better? Would it help people make better choices?

Brent had this to say:

On the branch level the macro lens for me is the conversation. Sometimes there are questions that a website can’t answer. I know if I make a call, ill most likely be on hold forever. So branches are less for anything transactional, to me, but more for something explanatory or conversation. Is explanatory a word?

What do you think? (About macro lenses, not about “explanatory” being, or not being a word.)

Chat with me.