Maybe It's Time to Reprioritize

I speak with many credit union marketing leaders and most struggle to prioritize their time. Marketers get torn in a million directions, but it is important to stay aligned on the highest priority, the most effective channels, and not the loudest requester. Below is a typical conversation I have with marketing professionals.

Me: “How much time does your team spend on search engine marketing?”

Marketing Leader: “We don’t manage that; we have an agency that handles search engine marketing.”

Me: “How much time do they spend on it each month?”

Marketing Leader: “They manage the account and send us a monthly report.”

Me: “How often do you review the report?”

Marketing Leader: “Most of the time but sometimes I am too busy.”

Me: “What changes are made based on the report?”

Marketing Leader: “It leads to a change sometimes.”

Me: “How much time do you spend on email marketing?”

Marketing Leader: Begins to get proud before saying, “We have someone that spends 50% of their time on email marketing.”

Me: “What percentage of your digital conversions (click to apply for a loan or membership) are from email marketing compared to search engine marketing?”

Marketing Leader: “Without the data in front of me, I’m unsure.”

If this is you, don’t fret, it aligns with a very large portion of credit union marketing professionals. It is nice that they have someone dedicating a lot of their time to email marketing but they need to dig deeper to determine if this is the right balance. With most of our clients, search engine marketing drives in, at a minimum, 10 times more clicks to apply than email.

Now, before you run off and reprioritize your team/agency, let’s understand what causes this. One, paid search isn’t sexy. It is bidding on words. It isn’t a cool brand campaign that everyone, members and staff, can see and say, “that’s my credit union!” Two, email is a quick and easy way to put out fires. I’ve been a marketing leader at a credit union, so I get it. When your lending team comes running and says, “We need more auto loans. What can you do?” The natural response is to tell your lending team, that your team can build an email campaign and the lenders love that. They can see it and clearly explain it to others when questioned about an action plan. They are content until the next fire but if you truly want to drive in more auto loans, it’s time to dive into search engine marketing.

At Sapphire Trail, we help our clients take a balanced approach to digital marketing. We've been in your shoes, we know what it's like to be pulled in all these various directions all at once! We'd love the opportunity to talk with you further and see if there's something we can do to help ease your workload and make your digital marketing that much more effective. Learn more about our Search Engine Marketing offerings.