PALM DESERT, Calif.–In a world of overwhelming communication, credit unions need to quit selling rate and stop comparing themselves to banks. Instead, they will succeed only if their brand gives people something to believe in, according to one person.
Indeed, credit unions should stop “selling” altogether, as it doesn’t work and is counterproductive, according to Sasha Strauss, who leads the Los Angeles-based brand management firm Innovation Protocol and who teaches at UC-Irvine, USC and UCLA and who offered seven “rules” every CU should be following.
Strauss, who has consulted with organizations ranging from Google to Disney to the Roman Catholic Church, told the California/Nevada Leagues’ REACH Conference here that, while daunting, the new era of communication and the “new normal” are actually “not only as an opportunity, but one that is perfect for credit unions.”
“Technology is changing how all of us are doing their jobs,” said Strauss, noting that consumers will not “deal with the old ways of interfacing with their bank. You (as consumers) want the same thing everyone wants, and that is you want the information, but you want it in a story. You want it in a story that will feel comfortable to you.”
Strauss urged credit union leaders to understand the most fundamental thing of all before understanding what it is consumers, members and employees want from a credit union.
“Every single person interviewing for a job at your credit union, every member of your family who is learning about your work every day, they all want to be engaged; they want to feel loved,” he told the REACH meeting. “This isn’t a new concept. Businesses have known this forever. It’s good business if people like you. Business didn’t figure this out first; they learned it from the political parties. If we want people to be activated to vote, we have to give them something that has an emotional trigger to get them engaged. And who did they learn from? The non-profits. They’ve been asking for funding from the very beginning. They figured out if you can get a human emotionally involved they will donate and participate and volunteer.”
The original organizations to figure all of that out, said Strauss, were religious faiths.
The Reality of it All
With credit unions a religion to many, Strauss added, “All the greatest influencers in human history have learned that we owe them something to believe in, to love and care about.”
In an era described by Strauss as one of “overwhelming communication,” Strauss said despite the impulse by everyone to just hit “unsubscribe” and “control, alt, delete,” the world isn’t going to go away. That means that credit unions need to learn to effectively compete in the “new normal.”
Among the realities credit unions need to recognize, according to Strauss:
- Your secrets are out. “If you have something to hide, the market is going to talk about it. This is super-scary and it’s freaking out all kinds of organizations and their leadership. Your citizenship is a little skeptical now. Whoever you are targeting, they are not sitting around waiting to hear from you. People have moved from belief to question. So, remember the audience you are talking to is questioning your statements. When you say you have better rates or services, their response isn’t going to be ‘I believe you,’ it’s going to be ‘What do you mean by that? Tell me more about people like me.’ You have to remember the hearts and minds of your audience are in a state of defense. So how are we going to engage them and communicate in a way that makes them feel like we get them, they get us, and we are in this together? You have got to give your humans something to believe in.”
- Don’t use critique of your bank competition as a crutch. “That’s not something positive. You don’t need to talk about other actors. You need to talk about what you do and why it’s good. People want to feel lucky to be part of a credit union, they want to celebrate something. All humans want to pride themselves in something. But in the name of fair warning, if you do not step up and fill this void, someone else will. Someone else will create the beliefs.”
Living & Breathing
Strauss described every credit union as a “living, breathing organism. No one is asking anymore if a credit union is a .com or a .org. They want to know who works there, who do they work for, how do they make money, what are their passions, who leads them, and what communities do they empower. You already have a brand platform in flight. Its job is to synchronize these assets and bring them together so we can understand.”
Strauss warned credit unions over taking the “cheap route” or falling victim to the “wizardry of words.” He called adjectives such as “biggest” and “fastest” and “cheapest” and similar words in marketing materials and advertising the sign of the “weakness of a poorly built brand,” and that “the problem with these words is they cannot be defined or shown to be true.”
When the member or consumer says, “Yes, I’m listening” to the CU’s message, he asked, “What are you going to say.”
Seven Rules
To help answer that question, he offered these seven rules for the “new normal.”
1. Assume Nothing. “This is the first rule of the new normal. Don’t assume competition, customers, coworkers, category composition, cohort, or comprehension. Don’t guess what your consumers are interested in. Don’t guess what your competitors are up to. You can set up tools to pay attention to all of these. Don’t assume legacy practices work in this area. But, also don’t assume that just because a person is younger than you they know how to do social media better.”
2. Empathy. “Don’t buy the media space and barrage. There is a key ingredient that always works if you are going to talk, and that is empathy. It’s a marketer’s secret weapon. The best way to market to an audience is to feel what it’s like to be them. What does it feel like to be that not-quite-financially astute member to walk into your branch? Your member will hear you if you empathize with them.”
3. Members need an advocate. “(Consumers) need someone to believe in them. They don’t need to be told the actions they have taken are wrong. They want to hear how you have worked with first-time homeowners before and you how you love helping people get into that first home. That action and advocacy is what they tell their friends and family about and do the marketing for you.”
4. Act in Relationship. “When a communicator acts in the form of a relationship with multiple touchpoints, that communication system is what I build my relationship with. That’s where the consumer starts to trust you, when they know you are acting in relation, not in transaction. You show them that you are not just here to sell them something.”
5. Curate Your Offerings. “Don’t show me a long list of rates; that’s not how I buy, that may be how you think. People do not want to click ‘products’ and have a list of things that fall down on a screen and then they can’t sort through the choices and are overwhelmed. You don’t know which is right for you. When the consumer is overwhelmed by choice, they feel stupid. By making it easier for your customer to buy, by making it easily related to what they are going through in their lives, they are more likely to buy from you. You want to make it as easy as possible to buy and sell with you.”
6. Teach, Don’t Sell. “Nobody likes to be sold to. But they do like to learn and consumers will give themselves permission to do so. I would ask you to teach, not sell. When people have learned from you, they will do the transaction.”
7. Show You Care. “Consumers do not want to buy anything from an organization that doesn’t care about the world. We want our schools and faiths and businesses to physically care. You’re lucky that what you do is good work by its nature.”