We checked in with CU*Answers Marketing Manager Peter Meyers and asked him a few questions about marketing at the CUSO, how the team can help credit unions, and learned a little more about who he is.

CUSO Magazine: Let’s start out easy… Pete or Peter?

Pete(r): I go by both. My mom has always called me Peter, my dad has always called me Pete, so I’ve been both my whole life.

CUSO Magazine: How does CU*Answers view marketing?

Pete: From inside CU*Answers, we look at marketing as a cross between sales, promotions, and advertising—our three pillars of marketing. We’re doing anything someone inside or outside the building needs help with to promote their products or services. This might be IRSC promoting MOP to credit unions or a credit union promoting bill pay to a member. Either way, we’re involved in helping them craft the look, feel, and message.

CUSO Magazine: Can you tell us more about what you do for our credit unions?

Pete: We have three major services that we do. The fourth is basically anything custom that you want to explore. We’re happy to work with you and help either get you what you’re looking for or give you guidance on where to go with it.

Of the three big services, the first is Cooperative Campaign. It’s a managed marketing service that’s run monthly and can be purchased for a full year. This campaign is designed to be “set it and forget it”. We deliver materials promoting services and products to your website, mobile apps, social media, etc.

The second is our quarterly contests. Similar to the Cooperative Campaigns, we take four different products or services and manage it as a contest. So for example, e-statements. We’ll send out materials for the credit union that encourage members to sign up or use a service and be entered for a chance to win a fun prize, like a drone or hoverboard. They’re run quarterly and they’re completely free. We buy the gift and we send it out to one winner across the entire network, and credit unions can choose to guarantee their credit union a winner by purchasing their own prize.

Our final service is newsletters. We have a fully custom option where the credit union tells us what they want and we’ll work with them to get it done. There’s also a template version that’s more affordable. We manage printing and coordination with the credit union to get them done.

CUSO Magazine: For the Cooperative Campaign, are the campaigns mix and matchable? Can I run any of the campaigns whenever I’d like them to be run?

Pete: Due to the high level of coordination between our marketing, web services, online banking and mobile banking teams, campaigns are not variable. The February campaign is the February campaign. We’ve done our research though and have matched campaigns to relevant annual events so credit unions can get the best bang for their buck.

CUSO Magazine: What does marketing look like at the organizational level?

Pete: The primary goal of our marketing efforts at the organizational level is to help promote the CU*Answers name in the industry. We build our products and services with the intent to disrupt either via price, access, or shared execution. It’s the role of marketing to get that message out.

To do that we create ads that are distributed across various channels, we help the web services team develop new websites to capture the attention of credit unions and inspire them to action, and through our content marketing efforts, we help spread the wealth of knowledge that our leaders have. Marketing efforts are continually evolving though—so stay tuned for exciting developments to come in how CU*Answers and the cuasterisk.com network communicate with credit unions!

CUSO Magazine: Thanks for talking with us, Pete. Last question—what inspired you to get into marketing?

Pete: I went through school for Computer Science, but I was always more fascinated with the art and design aspect. I’ve always considered myself to be artistic and that passion led to web and marketing design. As I developed my career and experience, the design work led into a bigger understanding of branding, marketing, messaging, and the bigger picture of managing an organization’s marketing efforts. It was a natural progression for me and I’ve embraced it wholeheartedly.

I’ve been given a great opportunity here at CU*Answers to really foster that passion while also embracing change and growth. Just like art and design are constantly evolving—remember when Clip Art was the norm?—so too is marketing and it’s fun to watch its evolution.