You can implement credit union marketing automation practices to generate more leads, be more efficient, and personalize your marketing to appeal to your current and future customers.

When making decisions about marketing automation, you have to determine which system will help you best achieve your marketing goals. We recommend an advanced platform like Hubspot for our credit union clients; however, there are other options available as well.

Here’s how to select the best marketing automation system for your credit union.

What is Credit Union Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation involves tailoring product and service offerings to your members and potential members through the automatic triggering of marketing efforts based on a user’s interaction with the credit union.

By using automated marketing, you save time and reduce the workforce needed to produce high ROI marketing. This allows you to offer your members a better experience throughout every financial transaction.

How to Pick the Best Marketing Automation System

When choosing a credit union marketing automation system, you want to ensure that it includes the essential features you need. Here are eight of the top features and other factors we recommend that you consider when selecting your marketing automation system.

Pricing

The cost of your marketing automation system is a significant factor when looking at your marketing budget. While platforms will have their upfront costs, some also include hidden fees for advanced features. You want to be aware of all of the costs associated with using the features you need for your credit union.

Usability

Although you want your marketing automation system to have a variety of features, you also need it to be easy to use. That’s why you want an interface that is easy to set up and navigate. You will only get benefits from a feature if you’re able to use and understand them.

Integrations

The integrations available with your marketing automation platform are also crucial to consider. Your system won’t be as beneficial if it operates in isolation. To truly be used as intended, you need the ability to integrate with your other software tools.

When thinking about integrations, you want your marketing automation system to be able to integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system and social media marketing tools at a minimum.

There might also be additional integration options available. The more integration availability your system provides, the easier it will be to simplify and streamline your marketing using automation.

Analytics

Part of marketing is reviewing your data to determine your ROI and the results your business is experiencing. You want a marketing automation system that provides you with analytics so you can quickly and easily measure the performance of your campaign. A good marketing automation system will have analytics, reports, and dashboard to help you identify what is happening and make decisions about future marketing efforts.

Lead Nurturing

You will market your credit union products and services to qualified leads, so you want your marketing automation system to offer lead collection, tracking, and nurturing capabilities. Some features to look for include making segmented lists, scoring your leads, and automated marketing such as triggering emails to go to those who take specific actions.

Email Marketing

At a bare minimum, you want your credit union marketing automation system to be able to send emails to those on your list. Emails should be able to respond to triggers based on specific criteria.

You also want your system to let you segment your list, track analytics, and offer other advanced features to help you achieve your email marketing goals. You should also consider any limits placed on your email marketing, such as the number of emails you can send or how many emails you can have on your list.

Content Marketing

Since content is the foundation of your marketing automation, you need to be sure that your marketing automation system can incorporate content by creating and scheduling blog posts, responding to comments left by readers, and tracking the blog data.

Social Media Marketing

Since social media is often a significant part of your marketing, you want to be able to have a marketing automation system that connects to your social media tools. Your system should enable you to connect with multiple platforms, including those you might use most often, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

You also want to be able to schedule social media content to go out when it’s best for your audience. Being able to engage with your audience by responding to comments left is also an important feature to have.

You Want the Best Credit Union Marketing Automation

When choosing the marketing automation software for your credit union, you want to make sure that it incorporates the features, integrations, and capabilities you need most. The options listed above are an idea of some items you might want to consider, but there are additional ones as well to keep in mind. Overall, you need to select a comprehensive system you can use for your business marketing.

As mentioned, Hubspot is our recommendation for marketing automation. Not only does it include everything mentioned above for marketing, sales, and service software to help your business grow with automation, it has many more features available to make your marketing easier.

Since you work with sensitive member information, you want to ensure that whatever credit union marketing automation system you use will maintain security as needed. In an upcoming article we will address how HubSpot keeps their credit union members’ information safe and confidential.