Narrowing down the secret sauce for what product or service a member may want to hear about next can be daunting but doesn’t need to be that complicated. If your goal is to improve member relationships and product penetration, giving your employees a tip or a lead in the right direction is a great way to go, whether it’s a feature in your core processing system or not.
The key to cooking a great batch of sauce is prepping all the ingredients in advance. Likewise, a credit union needs to make sure all the steps are planned out before jumping into a new marketing campaign. Before launching a suggested product campaign, here are a few key pointers to keep in mind.
Identify products to offer
It is important to work across departments to determine what are the key products to offer in your cross-sales endeavor. This should align with the strategic goals for the credit union. Is there a need to put more auto loans on the books? Or does the credit union want more deposits? This will take a small team to discuss and decide what to offer.
Plan a calendar or schedule for when different products will be introduced
Use a suggested product campaign to align with the current marketing strategy. Is the credit union already planning an auto loan promo in Q3? Then have your program align with the quarterly campaign. Stay ahead of the curve and plan out the entire year!
Prioritize the products
Don’t limit yourself to just one product or service. Instead, layer your campaigns such that when a member is successfully approached for the top priority product, they can then be targeted for the next. The credit union can determine which products have the highest priority, and then once that offer is closed out, the second one will display, and so on. This will allow for team members to cross-sell different offers to the same member. Try to limit the offerings to a max of eight products. This will ensure there are not too many conflicting offers.
Create data parameters to narrow down your targeted audience
The credit union should always be after a captivated audience. Do not schedule a mortgage offer for a teen’s membership! The offers should make sense for the demographics of the member being targeted.
Develop talking points to help front line team members
Creating talking points will help team members sell the products to members in a confident manner.
Include quick links to help team members
Want to give team members an additional boost of confidence with cross-selling? Include product sheets, applications, or other relevant marketing material with the next suggested product.
Train team members on the program
The credit union has gone through all the trouble to plan out the products to offer, take the extra step and make sure the teams understand how it will function in your core system. In my case, I am sure to teach the team how the pop-up messages work within the teller platform and member inquiry functionality.
Refresh and purge the program monthly
Keep the offers fresh by purging the program monthly. This will allow the content to be up to date, accurate, and relevant.
Celebrate wins
Monitor the results of the program and make sure to communicate wins to the team! This will help to encourage utilization across team members.
The most important aspect is to keep it simple and a regular part of your campaign and new deployment strategies. Giving team members an educated guess on how to interact and deepen the relationship with the member is always more valuable than leaving them guessing.
