Please meet Oscar Rogers, Financial Consultant – the man with a plan to get us out of this mess:

“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

(Thanks, @denisewymore)

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about the current situation in credit unions and we got to talking about the role of the 7 cooperative principles in all of this. She relayed a quote she’d recently heard from a credit union CEO:

“Philosophy is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”

So I’ve got to ask both sides of the spectrum – from the ice-cold dollars & cents folks to the rainbow-colored, patchouli-scented idealists – What do you think about that? Is there a business case for philosophy? Are the principles only suggestions?

Also, I wouldn’t mind asking a lot of banks: “How’s not-philosophy working out for paying the bills?”

These Target spots came on last night during the Grammys. Man, I like them a lot:

They promote living well through frugality at a time when everyone’s feeling the weight of our whacked-out economy. As one YouTube commenter put it:

“Bad economy doesn’t have to mean life is going to suck, just means we need to be more creative.”

At the same time these spots position Target as the jumping off point for that kind of creativity. Agency Peterson Milla Hooks did a great job of wrapping an important message up with on-point positioning.

Please enjoy this guest post from Morriss Partee. ........................................................................................

Jeffry Pilcher, editor of the Financial Brand first alerted me that NCUA chairman Fryzel was lobbying the government for credit unions to get TARP bailout money back in November (Don’t Tarp Credit Unions). Since then, he’s written about how this affects the movement’s reputation here, and here, and so has Matt Davis, Tim McAlpine, Ron Daly, and others.

Last Wednesday, the NCUA revealed that they had unanimously ruled to fee credit unions an additional amount for insurance coverage. Naturally, credit unions of all sizes, large and small, are upset about being charged more money exactly when they can least afford it.

So what is happening here? Regular credit unions are being made to pay for their corporate credit union’s mistakes. Some corporate credit unions made some aggressive investments which are now in trouble. I thought that Corporate credit unions were created to serve the investment and borrowing needs of regular credit unions. Now, regular credit unions have to bail out the Corporates. With hard-earned member dollars. (Edward Filene is turning over in his grave.) If I were a CU CEO, I would rightfully be hopping mad about this.

Well, there’s not much that can be done about this now; it’s spilt milk. I think everyone understands that we need to band together and make tough sacrifices given the current economic dire straits.

But it would be a real shame if taxpayer money were also accepted. I hope that Wednesday’s announcement by the NCUA means that credit unions can at last get OUT of line for government dollars, acceptance of which would, at the least, tarnish the reputation of the CU movement, and at worst, destroy it by leading to the elimination of the last remnants of credit union differentiation. Since the NCUA is going to proceed with its plan to fee credit unions, we need CEO Michael Fryzel to officially state that the CU movement is now OUT of the TARP/government bailout line. Otherwise, credit unions will suffer the WORST of both worlds; having to pay for the mistakes of Corporate Credit Unions AND getting bailout money from the government, putting an end to ONE HUNDRED YEARS of self-sufficiency.

If we can weather this economic crisis, we would prove the superiority of our non-profit, democratic, cooperative way of handling our finances; the notion that putting people ahead of profits is not only the RIGHT thing to do, it’s ALSO the fiscally right thing to do! If we accept government money now, putting an end to 100 years of self-sufficiency, we would be snatching our own defeat from the jaws of victory.

But no matter how egregious it is to have to pay for mistakes made at the corporate credit union level, NOW is the time for credit unions to shout their difference and advantage to the rooftops. This economic crisis is our time to shine, just like we did during the Great Depression. No matter whether you use social media, traditional media or both, no matter if you have an increase or decrease in your marketing budget, the time to tell the world about credit unions’ chocolatey goodness is NOW.

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Morriss Partee is the Chief Experience Officer of EverythingCU.com, an online, private community of 6,653 credit union professionals. EverythingCU.com is hosting a webinar this Thursday, February 5th, titled Communicating Credit Union Strength to your Members.

If you have ever pitched an idea to credit union (or any other non-government business) executives, you have undoubtedly encountered the question, “how much will this cost?” In a perfect world (at least in the world of you, the fearless marketer) the hard work you put into sales projections, implementation timelines, competitive market analyses, and focus groups more than justify your project’s associated cost. But this isn’t a perfect world. Whether or not your idea has a snowball’s chance in the Sahara Desert of seeing the light of day depends first and foremost, at least in my experience, on how you have prepared for this obligatory question.

Now, I completely understand that each credit union and each decision-maker is different. Their backgrounds, levels of risk tolerance, and motivations vary wildly. I have reason to believe, however, that my approach to pitching an idea will work in most cases with most executives. Why? Because I try to design ideas that minimize or eliminate hard dollar costs associated with any idea that strays from business as usual. In doing so, I minimize the “skin” executives have in the game.

In essence, I go blue light to earn the green light. When developing ‘What are you saving for?’ (WAYSF), I could (some would argue “should”) have outsourced the project to the experts. I knew that would cost a fortune, though. So, instead I called everyone I knew with Wordpress experience and learned all I could about the platform. I called credit union marketers with experience in blogging for guidance on how to launch and maintain an online community. I tried to teach myself Adobe Flash. When it was clear that the software was kicking my tail, I requested that the credit union send me to a one-day Flash course at a local training center. The next day, I built the site’s calculators. A week later, with help from yet another industry contact, I created the WAYSF prize meter.

I worked countless hours on this project. However, I was still mindful that the more on-the-job time I put into this project, the more “skin” our credit union had in the game. I could have been spending my time on other, more proven projects. I offset this opportunity cost by doing an exorbitant amount of work at home, at night, on weekends, in the morning before work. I slaved away at lunch, at Panera Bread, in my car.

There are many factors that played into our executives approving this project. Obviously, the principles of WAYSF fit in beautifully with our credit union’s mission. That helps. Our executives and our Board also trust my judgement thanks to years of tireless work earning that trust. That’s important too. But I contend that this project would have never gotten the green light had I not been able to keep its associated costs as close to zero as possible. You see, we are still in an industry that in large part is reluctant to try something new. Everything has to be proven somewhere else before it gets adopted. This is a shame on one hand because it nearly eliminates any hope for innovation. But I totally understand the motivations. Run correctly, a credit union must be as conservative as possible with members’ assets. Adopting risky projects can seem contrary to our mission. By eliminating/minimizing the hard dollar cost associated with your next innovation, you take that concern out of the equation.

WAYSF’s design is far from world class. I know that, and you know that. The concept, however, is one that I truly believe could really take off throughout the movement. At the end of the day, that will be the most satisfying result from this project. By getting my credit union to green light WAYSF, I have established that all-powerful precedent that other credit unions require before moving forward with a project.

And I think that’s the point of this post. While I hope that your next innovation is perfect right out of the box, chances are it won’t be. Chances are it CAN’T be. Budgets need to be considered. Concessions have to be made. Lessons need to be learned. If you or your credit union are in the perfection business, innovation may not be your cup of tea. Take a chance. Keep costs low. Be passionate about your project and its mission. Expect failures.

And when you get the opportunity to pitch your next big idea, make sure you have at least one blue light special version up your sleeve. It may be all it takes to get your next innovation off the ground.

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Matt Davis is the Director of Public Relations at Members Credit Union. A member of the Filene Research Institute’s 30-Under-30 Group and author of ‘The Credit Union Warrior’ blog, Davis has been at the center of credit union innovation since 2004. Pet projects such as What are you saving for? and Football Pick’em have earned Davis international recognition inside and outside the credit union space.

Last week I was in Madison judging CUES’ 2009 Golden Mirror Awards. During the judging, several major trends jumped out. Among them, this:

Across all categories, a lot of small to mid-sized credit unions (less than $700 million in assets) are doing creative work that is head-and-shoulders above that of the big boys.

Why do you think that is?

(PS: Later this week, I’m writing a more in-depth piece for the NEXUS blog about the trends we noticed. Stay tuned.)

In case you’ve missed it, we here in the United States inaugurated a new president today. Big news. Not to be footnoted is the inauguration of a new website at Whitehouse.gov.

I surmise that communication is vital to leading. The ability to communicate – dare I say market and sell – ideas and news to constituents is paramount to earning buy-in and support. And with the new URL at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue, we are seeing a new approach to communicating that embraces social media. Indeed, social media – from iPhone apps to Twitter (admittedly probably updated by a staffer or intern, but still an official tool) to video and podcasting was used by the new administration with varying degrees of effectiveness to earn the office. Whitehouse.gov even features a new blog.

It’s an acceptance of social media as the norm, and not a fringe or a fad. In addition to the traditional media of print, radio and television, we can see this administration embraces new channels for communicating with its people.

It’s a validation of the medium. And this validation makes it important for credit unions to look at this as an example of the power of social media.

It’s no longer a cool way to communicate. It’s how we communicate.

Part 3 of 3 about word of mouth marketing for credit unions

Question #1: Is social media word of mouth marketing?

Question #2: Is word of mouth marketing social media?

Answers: Yes. And no. In that order.

You see, social media is a subset of word of mouth marketing. WOM is a bigger, broader topic, and social media is one of categories within WOM. That’s because word of mouth is about anything and everything that makes people want to talk, and makes it easier to talk. That could include everything from guerrilla marketing and handshake marketing to blogging to influencer marketing (check our word of mouth marketing glossary to learn all the key terms).

Talk to social media experts, and I’m confident they’ll tell you that simply having a blog does not does not equal a social media strategy. A blog is a drop in the social media bucket. Similarly, being active in social media does not necessarily mean you’ve mastered a complete word of mouth marketing strategy. It’s certainly a good start, but a well-rounded WOM diet would also consist of strong offline components that spark WOM, facilitate and track WOM.

The best part about social media as a WOM tool is that the Internet makes buzz-worthy stuff so easy to spread. To use the terms we discussed in the first post, social media like blogs and Twitter are great “Tools” because they facilitate the spread of a message really well. WOM spreads offline, as well of course, but not quite as quickly or exponentially. With one click of a “tell a friend” button, you can send some buzz to dozens of people at once.

Screenshot from: cnn.com

Thanks to all the focus on social media in the credit union space in the past couple years, credit unions have a great head start on developing a word of mouth marketing presence. CU’s had a jumpstart on banks in terms of interest in leveraging social media. So if credit unions can now turn that love of social media into expertise in the larger concept of word of mouth marketing, the CU movement is in for some serious success.

Click here to read part 2, ‘Why WOM for Credit Unions?’

Homework

1. Continue learning. Download the credit union word of mouth marketing white paper, ‘Bottling the Buzz,’ which includes good examples of WOM in financial institutions.
2. Join or attend an event or tele-seminar from WOMMA.
3. Develop a word of mouth marketing plan and adopt it for 2009!

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Jeff Stephens is CEO of Creative Brand Communications (a multi-sensory marketing and experiential brand development agency), whose new division, PSST! is the world’s first word of mouth agency for financial institutions. Drop Jeff a line at jeff@psst-marketing.com.

Subscribe to PSST! Marketing’s RSS feed here.

What are your resolutions in 2009?

Here are a few of mine:

• Simplify.
• Think less, create more.
• Build a brand for my new studio.
• Spend less time on biz travel.
• Take piano lessons.

Can’t wait to hear yours. Have fun tonight, everybody.

(Photo credits: Forever Young by Steven Effu & Sweet Pea by tvchicklet)

TreeWaxHD from klipcollective on Vimeo.

Give lots. Eat lots. Laugh lots.

Love,

Your friends at OSCU

I enjoyed this note from Spokane Teachers Credit Union to their members:

“In the interest of full disclosure, STCU would like to announce that, in the midst of the national mortgage crisis, your credit union has had one bad home loan…[the crisis] was all over in less than an hour.”

Perhaps a little horn-tooty, but I think many credit unions have earned their bragging rights.

Read the full note here.

(via Filene’s “Does Capitalism Need Cooperation?“)

Great credit union awareness campaign from the fine folks at Boom Creative.

Check out the other two spots here and here.

(via the WhatTheB.com)

OK, I need some candid information from the credit union and financial industry braintrust that reads this blog.

The Economy is doing some pretty squirrelly stuff right now. Politics aside, the Bailouts seem to only be prolonging the inevitable. Surely there are some of you CU folks with greater insight into this mess. How bad is it going to get? For real. And I’m not asking you to tell just me.

CUs seem to be the only financial institutions left that have any trust. How are you using that trust to prepare people for what may come: very hard times? I hear people on TV saying Obama & Co. can turn it around. Super. I really hope they can. I’m rooting for them so hard. But I hear other people burying 20-pound bags of rice in their backyard, and these are NOT the usual crazies whose inane babbling is easy to write off, they are people whom I respect, sharp, sane, wise.

It seems like a great opportunity (responsibility?) for CUs to come out and say, “Here’s how you can act now to keep it from going bad.” Or “Candidly, it is going to get pretty hairy for a lot of people, so here are some practical ways you can prepare to weather it well.”

And I’m not talking about re-explaining “freer checking”, I’m talking about getting real with people about what they can do to prepare for what might be harder times than our country has ever seen. If CUs are truly dedicated to their communities this seems like a great time to commit to being about the “whole man”, to really being in this thing together.

People are looking straight answers. If you know something that will scare them – and I mean scare the living tootsie rolls out of them – will you tell them? Then, will you tell them how to do something about it? If you do, if you are on the level with people in ways no one else will be, then, when it does swing back around, they will never forget who kept their trust, who helped their families by saying some hard, scary things, then helped them process those things sanely. And they will remember it a lot longer than that free iPod.

Jeff has been talking about word-of-mouth in his last two posts (with more to come). But word-of-mouth doesn’t just happen when your members are happy with your services, it also happens when people are scared.

So, please, tell me what you know, then tell me how you are going to tell your members the same thing.

Part 2 of 3 about word of mouth marketing for credit unions

A well-crafted, strategic, and thorough word of mouth marketing program is a smart move for any business. But for several reasons, word of mouth marketing is especially appropriate and well-suited for credit unions. It is—dare I say it—one of the keys to this movement reaching its potential.

Word of Mouth Marketing is Cost-Effective

Most credit unions do not have the [perceived] luxury of outspending the competition. Bank competitors often have much heftier marketing budgets, and can get more media saturation as a result. In other words, they can emphasize quantity over quality. As credit unions with generally smaller budgets, we can’t do that…nor do we want to. With word of mouth marketing, we focus on quality over quantity—having a bigger impact on a fewer number of people. That way, we’re not paying for “waste” media. In other words, WOM lets credit unions work smarter rather than harder.

Credit Unions Are WOM-Ready by Design

When you bring together people with similar characteristics—let’s just call it a “common bond”—something not-too-surprising happens. People can relate to each other! And what happens when people can relate to each other? They tend to get along. To build friendships. And to…talk!

Consumers Trust Credit Unions More

It’s no big shocker that due to the events over the past several months, consumer confidence in financial institutions has taken a big hit. And while, yes, that unfortunately reflects on credit unions, I believe it’s safe to say that many people are feeling that it’s banks—not credit unions—that in all the negative national headlines and news stories. As a result, many credit unions have been able to not only keep the trust of their members, they’ve been able to further solidify their position as stable, trusted financial resources.

Stay tuned for the next installment, part 3 of 3, “Social Media and WOM.”

Click here to read part 1, ‘Have You Heard About WOM?’.

Homework

• Get a sense for what has worked for other companies, by checking out the case studies at http://womma.org/casestudy/
• Join the FREE Society for Word of Mouth

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Jeff Stephens is CEO of Creative Brand Communications (a multi-sensory marketing and experiential brand development agency), whose new division, PSST! is the world’s first word of mouth agency for financial institutions. Drop Jeff a line at jeff@psst-marketing.com.

Subscribe to PSST! Marketing’s RSS feed here.

Part 1 of 3 about word of mouth marketing for credit unions

Think back to the last time your friend asked for a restaurant recommendation. Maybe you eagerly told them about the hot new dinner spot that just opened. Your friend hadn’t heard of it, but was excited by your recommendation. How did it make you feel to pass along this hot tip to your buddy? It made you feel great! You are cool. You are in-the-know. You were helpful.

People tell others when it makes them feel good to do so. So the question is, “what can we give people that will make them feel cool/smart/helpful when they tell others?” Or in other words, “what can we do that’s so buzz-worthy that they cannot possibly keep it to themselves?”

Word of mouth is kind of like the oceans—as old as time but until recently we didn’t know much about them. Ever since cavemen were roasting brontosaurus burgers over newly discovered fire, phrases like “dude, have you heard about __?” have been influential and credible sources of recommendations.

Yet as credit unions, we’ve not been able to harness the power of word of mouth marketing. In fact, it wasn’t until recently that word of mouth marketing in any industry truly came into its own as a discipline. It was around 2005 when the Word of Mouth Marketing Association formed to create and formalize an official industry trade group to truly transform word of mouth from being a mystical elusive idea into a respected discipline.

WOMMA defines word of mouth marketing as: “Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place.”

Principles and Steps of Word of Mouth Marketing

To wrap your brain around the main principles and steps of word of mouth marketing, start by asking yourself these questions, in this order.

• Talkers — Who will talk about you and tell their friends?
• Topics to Talk About — What will give people a reason to talk?
• Vehicles for Spreading the Message — How can we help make the message spread faster, farther and easier?
• Joining the Conversation — How will we participate in the conversation the talkers are having?
• Tracking and Measuring ROI — How will we find out what people are saying?

Up next, part 2 of 3: “Why WOM for Credit Unions?”

Homework

I highly recommend you read Andy Sernovitz’s book, Word of Mouth Marketing for an excellent primer on the subject. Andy is also one of the founding fathers of WOMMA.

Subscribe to some good WOM blogs:

• The WOMMA Word
• PSST! Word of Mouth Marketing for Credit Unions
• Buzz Marketing Daily

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Jeff Stephens is CEO of Creative Brand Communications (a multi-sensory marketing and experiential brand development agency), whose new division, PSST! is the world’s first word of mouth agency for financial institutions. Drop Jeff a line at jeff@psst-marketing.com.

Subscribe to PSST! Marketing’s RSS feed here.