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Advertising has been around for a long time. In fact, the first paid advertisement was a Coca-Cola ad in a French newspaper in 1836. Today, there are boundless advertising strategies that credit unions and banks can learn from and leverage. But, what makes a truly effective advertising strategy?

Do a quick search for “credit union marketing strategies”, “credit union marketing plan” – or even “how to market a credit union”. You’ll find a lot of the same, thin recommendations over and over again.

If you look at the marketing for manufacturing companies around the country, you’ll see that they’re all over the place. That’s because the manufacturing industry is filled with companies that are extremely varied in size, revenue, service area, and much more. This makes it tough to nail down a “correct” marketing plan.

You know the difference between your credit union and local and national banks. Banks can’t compete with your interest rates. You also know that you provide more personal, attentive customer service than banks. But what about your potential members...do they know the difference?

You've been doing this content thing for a while now. You've even established a content promotion strategy to make sure people actually see what you're publishing. If you're like most marketers who are doing well with content publishing and promotion efforts, your strategy probably includes things like reaching out to industry influencers, guest blogging and maybe even a little social post boosting.

There aren't a lot of people saying this, but direct mail marketing is dead. Actually... Direct mail can still earn pretty remarkable returns, especially in certain industries. But, the ROI that direct mail offers has slowly decreased over time while ROI for email marketing continues to grow.

The term "marketing automation" has been mentioned a lot over the past several years. It's considered the marketing technology that is most likely to deliver significant, measurable ROI. As of 2016, 49% of companies currently use marketing automation, with over half of B2B companies adopting the technology. 

Back in 1996, Bill Gates published an essay called “Content Is King.” He predicted how important content would become over time. More than 20 years later, that prediction is being affirmed. Interest in content marketing is rising by leaps and bounds and it has become a focal point for nearly all marketers and businesses.

Just like other online advertising channels, freshness is critical to the success of Facebook advertising campaigns. If you only have one set of copy and one ad image, your campaign is sure to run out of steam quickly. One way to keep your campaigns fresh is to edit ad copy and images frequently. Another way is to use the Facebook Carousel feature, which allows you to display multiple graphics & copy within one ad. Not only is it a great way to keep your ads fresh and varied, it's also a great way to test what's working and what isn't.  So, what are you waiting for? Here's a step-by-step guide for creating, customizing and editing a Facebook Carousel Ad: