Shared iDiz is a blog brought to you by the credit union marketing specialists of iDiz Incorporated. The focus here is credit union marketing - branding, membership, loans, web sites, and more. You're invited to read, think and share some iDiz of your own.
Don't miss any of the action:
Pugz shoes for dogs
I had a “light bulb” moment yesterday (BTW, I really hate that phrase because it reminds me of Oprah but I couldn’t think of another way to express it): the birth of all these social media outlets has meant the death of any feelings of satisfaction of having completed a job.
Somebody at McDonald’s just learned how tough Tweets can be.
According to this post on psfk.com, MickeyD decided to share stories on Twitter about the staff and goings-on at the restaurant, and encouraged people to share their own stories. Their first tweets were “Meet some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day #McDStories” and “When u make something w/pride, people can taste it.”
One of the Holy Grails of the internet has always been finding a consistent medium of exchange — a way to pay for goods and services, whether they’re physical (obscure old motorcycle parts) or virtual (armored pants for your night elf character) without resorting to musty dollar bills, crinkled Euro notes, or abstractions of currency, like credit cards.
About a year ago, I wrote an article about the impact of health care costs on credit unions and their members. To recap, medical bills are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy, even if the person filing bankruptcy had health insurance. (Look at your CU’s losses to bankruptcy, and imagine the impact if half or more of those losses didn’t happen.)
To everyone responsible for social media at your credit union, I feel for you. Because frankly, there are too many options out there, and only so many minutes in a day: Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Google+, LinkedIn, Youtube, Pinterest, Posterous, Instagram..
True confession: I actually read most of my junk mail, even the misguided pitches for adult diapers and hearing aids.
Maybe I’m a little strange, but before the mail hits the recycling bin, I always take a few moments to see what the competition is up to, and think about ways to keep our clients’ “direct mail” from turning into “junk mail”. (A lot of marketers do this, right? I hope so…)
I lost a week this month to the flu. I still went to work every day, met with clients and vendors, and taught my karate classes. I did laundry, loaded the dishwasher and straightened up the house. I even managed to drive down to Indiana University one of those awful days, sit in on my son’s travel abroad meeting and take him and his friends out for beer and pizza. (Yes, they are all legal, so I was the only one who could not eat or drink.)
I’ve been working with credit unions for almost 10 years and in that time, I’ve seen their priorities change quite a bit.
Years ago, credit unions faced a big hurdle in trying to convince people to join when they only had a few far-flung branches. They couldn’t seem to compete with the MegaBanks with thousands of locations or even smaller regional banks with lots of branches. So the focus had to be on the great rates and service. Both those things are certainly valued by consumers but people want to know they can easily access their money when and if they need to.
The country recently experienced the re-emergence of the McDonalds McRib sandwich. Frankly, I didn’t care one bit, but apparently a lot of people did. McDonalds has found a true hit with this odd offering.
Marketspeak isn’t the only common ruse used when it comes to marketing goods and services. Buzzwords are often as overused as background bursts in the fifties/sixties and Apple-ish reflective shadows* over the last decade.
Back in 1957, an informal study tried to find out whether squirrels preferred “wild” food or human food. The researchers went to Central Park and put out several morsels at once (natural fare like hazelnuts and acorns, along with human food like peanuts, popcorn, and Cracker Jack) and recorded which ones were taken first.
As an advertising copy writer, I’m a failure. I’m incapable of writing fluff, and I’m not much of a spin doctor. I doubt I’ll ever get rich writing gushy catalog copy or political doubletalk. In short, I just can’t spew marketspeak worth a hoot.
Here’s my little rant for the day.
First there was the Netflix fiasco where their goofy CEO, Reed Hastings, raised their prices by about 60% and then was surprised by the number of people who dropped their subscriptions. Their stock price dropped dramatically and in an effort to woo back customers, they decided to split the company in two: one for renting DVDs and the other for streaming them. Neither one of these things has been popular – in fact they’ve gone over like a lead balloon and poor Mr. Hastings must be wondering if he’ll still have a job when he wakes up each day. I don’t feel sorry for him.
Over the last few years an amazing sequence of events has occurred. Consumers have been hearing negative news about banks, from bailouts to bonuses to brand new fees; the general public is finally primed to hear about a better option, and it has all dropped in the laps of credit unions. Yet so many of you are still sitting on your hands. What are you thinking?!?!
A high school friend of mine who’s a minister posted the following parable on Facebook:
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.” There were only a few coins in his hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up, as more people were giving money.
That afternoon the man who had changed the sign walked by again. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”
The man said, “I said what you said but in a different way. I wrote: Today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it.”
Of course my friend then ended his post in a religious context, but all I could think was: Now, that’s a marketer – seeing a problem, making connections, and making a difference.
Loading ...
Sign up today for your free, no-strings-attached Strategic Brainstorming Session. It'll be a fun, frantic session of strategic problem-solving, insight, and inspiration. And did we mention it's free?
Read the best of Shared iDiz! We’ve put the best articles from two years of SharediDiz in one volume.