New trend poses challenges and opportunities for credit union marketers

One of the biggest emerging trends in marketing this year is the use of “earned media” as the primary strategy for bringing in new business. What that means is that public relations strategy is taking a front seat on the marketing bus.

Earned media is the term used by public relations professionals to describe exposure that is not paid for: press coverage, newsletters, blogs, podcasts, articles, social media engagement, etc.

“Paid media,” on the other hand, includes advertising, direct mail and other budget busting tactics which, until about five years ago, were the primary expenses in the marketing budget. Meanwhile, many credit union marketers are unequipped to implement public relations programs.

Accordingly, expect to encounter some challenges for incorporating earned media into your marketing plan, such as:

  1. Understanding the new way credit unions communicate via social media.  Egocentric, sales-focused marketing communication (humble brags, ninja advertising) is now considered inappropriate for building audience. The new protocol is to earn audience trust before moving in for the sale. This is a total reversal of the way credit unions are used to using social media.
  2. Requiring marketing managers to be proficient in “earned media” skills. Public relations has always driven the “earned media” function in business. Now marketers are learning journalistic and media relations skills, along with a strong handle on content marketing (a.k.a. brand journalism).
  3. Using the credit union website as an “owned media” outlet. While it will still be important to work with traditional and digital media outlets to relay messages to audiences, resource-rich credit unions are leveraging social media channels (YouTube, Facebook, blogs, mobile phone video, etc.) to create, host and distribute their own content. It’s estimated that in 2019, 80 percent of all online content will be video. Smaller credit unions may not be able to go whole hog in this approach, but the related skills will still be needed in-house to drive business development.

It’s a brand new day in credit union marketing. It ought to be celebrated, because now credit unions can do more to convey commitment to the community and take a deeper dive into the stories they can tell via more channels than have ever been available before.

Dana Dobson

Dana Dobson

Dana Dobson is an award-winning public relations expert, keynote speaker and author of, “How to Reach Millions with Artful PR.” Over her 30-year career, she has developed winning PR and ... Web: dana-dobson.com Details