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Sure, I liked it when Amazon started showing me what others bought based on items I have purchased, and when Pandora started picking the music in our office based on bands and musicians we prefer. But now it seems as if every site wants to profile me and make recommendations based on little more than a few clicks.
Quick — how many domain names does your credit union own? You probably have awesomeCU.org, but do you also have awesomeCU.com, awesomefcu.org, etc.? What about your promotional domain names, like awesomeCUloans.com, or getawesome.com? Is a consistent person or role at the credit union listed as the owner and admin contact for all your domains? Is that person’s email accessible if you need to make changes to where your web site or email is hosted?
Be honest — how many of you have web sites that show a Big Scary Lawyer Warning (BSLW) like this when a member clicks a link to another site?
OH NOES! You are leaving the ABCFCU web site! ABFCU has no control over and is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other web sites. ABCFCU does not endorse or guarantee products, information or recommendations provided by linked sites and is not liable for failure of products or services advertised on these site. So if you click a link somewhere else and your toes fall off, don’t come running to us!
Is this REALLY necessary? I don’t think it ever was. Yes, of course you should make it clear when someone is leaving your site, but do you have to remind people that you’re not responsible for the entire internet? Besides, who’s going to read all that?
I went grocery shopping last week, and I learned something the hard way. After 10:00 pm, the Kroger supermarket near me closes down all their human-staffed checkouts, forcing everyone to to scan and bag their own groceries.
“The average attention span of an adult is 20 minutes.”
- Brad Vander Zanden, University of Tennessee“On the Internet, the average attention span is three to five minutes. We have to cater to that.”
- Steven Hirsch, co-chairman, Vivid Entertainment
Back in the day, the only way a company knew how well received their products were was by looking at the sales numbers. Certainly news was spread via word of mouth and occasionally, if you got really mad at a company, you might write a letter and send it off to the CEO just to make yourself feel better. (For a humorous look at this lost art, check out this book, Letters from a Nut by Ted L. Nancy.)
Moms are hot.
If you want a sure-fire marketing strategy, you need to focus on one underserved market niche that has the strongest sense of affiliation, the most homogeny, and the most influence over others. According to Shari Storm, CMO of Verity Credit Union, author of Motherhood is the New MBA and speaker at the recent MAC Conference, you need to target Moms. Here’s why:
We live in a world bursting at the seams with new web sites. Each of these sites offers to transform our lives in unimaginable ways but very few maintain any lasting power after the hype has subsided.
My name’s Kent and I’m addicted to being online.
It happened when I got my first Palm, then it became an obsession when I got an iPhone. From the time I get out of bed in the morning until I place it in the charger at night, I never go anywhere without that little electronic window-on-the-world attached to my hip. I check email, the scores of last night’s games, Twitter, Facebook, multiple news sites, and even play an online game or two.
You may not pay much attention to what your social media friends are posting, but creditors are. If your settings are “public”, what you are discussing is available to companies that want to sell their products – that includes banks, credit unions, and credit companies.
Instead of looking at the big picture – the country’s economic problems, the swine flu and what to get your brother-in-law for Christmas – the folks at Consumer Reports decided to do a survey about what annoys each of us the most. They presented people with a list of 21 items that they were then asked to rank in order of annoyance.
We’ve had some interesting discussions lately on metrics for credit union web sites. How do you measure the success of a credit union web site, and how do you justify spending money on it?
To your members, a credit union web site is a tool, a way to learn something or get something done. It’s the online equivalent of a branch — a place to get some answers, conduct your business, and get on with life as efficiently as possible. While the experience should be friendly and enjoyable, it’s not entertainment or socializing.
Traditional media is based on buying exposure – how many people will see this newspaper ad, this TV spot, this outdoor board, this trade show booth. As a result, buyers of traditional media calculate what it will cost to “rent” those eyeballs just long enough to get a message across, then pray for a 1% response in order to pay for the media, and (hopefully) make a profit.
You’ve probably seen a couple hundred articles about all the ways the internet and social media are going to change marketing forever. We are facing a fundamental shift in marketing, but it’s not particularly tied to a certain technology or fad — it’s tied more to some profound differences in generations.