AUSTIN, Texas–It’s an enormous market that’s also enormously influential, yet “moms” remain overlooked by many credit unions—which is why the experiences of one CU that moved to serve that market was featured during the CUTomorrow Conference here.
Shari Storm, a former credit union executive who now leads Category 6 Consulting, shared that she discovered something shortly after returning to work after having a child, which was “to be working mom was something quite positive, which was the opposite of everything I had heard about it.”
She told the CUTomorrow Conference here hosted by CUToday.info that many in credit unions don’t think or view the world from the perspective of a mother because 1) it’s very likely they aren’t one, and 2) the much larger business ecosystem is dominated by two male-oriented metaphors: battles and wars, and sports.
A Little Bit Damaging to Women
“This is problematic in a number of ways, and what concerned me the most was women’s roles in military and sports. I think it’s a little bit damaging to women in a very subconscious ways,” said Storm. “But if you think about business in terms of a family framework, it’s more inclusive, compassionate and nurturing. That’s the credit union model.”
Storm shared with the meeting her experiences while working at Washington-based Verity Credit Union, where members of the board had all read the best-selling book “Blue Ocean Strategy,” which posits the best way to be successful is to find a good niche and to be really good at serving that market.
Focus on ‘Family,’ But…
The Verity CU board finally settled on “the family” as its new focus. But while that feels good, the problem with “the family” is it means “everyone,” explained Storm. “That makes us the credit union for everyone, which credit unions love to do, but it’s the opposite of what Blue Ocean Strategy was telling them.”
Assigned to execute on the board’s vision, Storm said she was finally able to get the board refocused on a narrower market, working moms.
Four Issues
Any credit union looking to identify where a strong target market might lie needs to ask questions around four issues, according to Storm:
- Affiliation. “The things people talk about in the first five minutes of meeting each other is generally what people have a strong affiliation with. It’s not what you think people are, it’s what they think they are. It’s very important how people categorize themselves.”
- Homogeneity. This is a “group that perceives themselves similarly and reacts accordingly.”
- Buying Power. “You need to market to people who have the money to buy your stuff.”
- Sustainability
In doing research around working moms the first issue was around affiliation.
“Those who are mothers consider it to be among the top three things they are. The role of mother has perceived similarities, a strong homogeneity,” Storm told the CUTomorrow Conference. “Most moms feel they are doing the best they can do and want to be recognized for being a good mom. So you have this thread that goes through this target market.”
Most Important
But most important, said Storm, is the buying power. “This is why they are such a good target market. A mother influences 80%-85% of buying decisions, and she influences her family, friends, online communities and place of work. They congregate to online, which means they are far less expensive to market to. The forum where moms hang out is much more accessible, especially to smaller credit unions.”
The reason moms can be an effective target market, Storm added, is that while mothers may control more than 80% of spending, 70% feel they are not well marketed to.
Among the first moves Verity Credit Union made was to change the name of its checking product from Velocity to Cartwheel.
Moms & Cartwheels
It also launched its first “Verity Mom” campaign in 2009, when it also hired its first Verity Mom spokesperson. IT built out a dedicated website and launched social media and a blog, with one person hired to manage those channels.
Verity next rolled out a “Cartwheel for a Cause” video contest in which it asked people to create a video for a charity they believe deserves support, with the caveat the video had to include a cartwheel.
That in turn, led to a significant number of page views for the videos.
Other Initiatives:
- Verity CU’s branches were redesigned for kids. “We wanted to win the hearts of young members before they became teenagers. We fall in love with brands while we are still kids.”
- Verity CU introduced a program to reimburse a parent once a year for a kid’s activity up to $40. “We opened up so many new accounts.”
- Verity CU opened its meeting rooms to members to use. “The only stipulation was one of our business development team members had to greet you and could tell you about our latest promotion.”
- It offered bill pay for people in the so-called Sandwich Generation, that is they are between taking care of kids but also taking care of aging parents. For those people, it offered to pay a parents’ bills using the members’ funds.
“The hard part of marketing to moms is you probably don’t have any moms on your executive team or board,” said Storm. “You have to constantly tell the story of why you are doing what you are doing, because you WANT to be the credit union for the family.”