By Ray Birch
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—The $1.1-billion Collins Community Credit Union has launched a redesigned website that allows users to personalize what they see by entering their birth date.
Visitors are then redirected to one of three versions of the website based on their age demographic—Millennial, GenX or Boomer. The site delivers not only imagery that reflects their age group, but also customized content and recommended products for them.
A primary goal of the personalize design is to enhance relevance with members.
“We have not seen another credit union do this, at least in our area,” said Marketing Director Mai-Linh Hoang.
Differentiating the credit union is a main reason CCCU chose the personalized website approach, Hoang told CUToday.info.
“We are trying to be different among a field of many,” she said. “A key way we can do that is with our website. Most of the time the website is the first thing members or potential new members see of us.”
Higher Expectations
But Hoang, who said the credit union’s previous website had begun to appear outdated, said Collins Community understands that consumers today are receiving more personalized treatment from many retailers and that they expect the same from their financial institution.
“So, we went the personalization route, because today it’s all about me, right?” said Hoang. “People want to see relevant website content, and content that is relevant to them. We think we can create interest in the credit union quickly this way. We are saying, ‘Here is relevant content and here is what we recommend for you, because we know that there are many financial services products to choose from’.”
Hoang said that Boomers will see more images of older adults, and photos of typical retiree activities, like biking and vacationing.
In addition to the personalized graphics, products on the menus are presented differently as well.
While a user can always select “View All” and get the entire menu of products and services offered by Collins Community, what will only be shown are the services the credit union has determined that demographic uses most.
Generational Preferences
For example, “GenXers might have a growing family, their income is well established, and they are often in the market for a forever home. So they might well be looking for a construction loan. That, too, would mean a fixed rate.”
But for Millennials, Hoang said the site would not offer a construction loan to an age group that is looking for their first home, and likely one that is already on the market. The mortgage emphasized would be an ARM, since Millennials won’t likely stay their entire life in their first home.
For loans, Boomers would see offers for vacation loans and autos.
For educational materials, Boomers see heading on things like financial management while Boomers are provided retirement advice.
Hoang explained that the GenX version of the site is slightly geared towards women.
“But it’s not so in-your-face to offend those who may fall slightly outside the targeted demographic. It's subtle, as the photographic imagery is pretty subtle throughout,” she said.
Extensive Research
The Millennial version is what the site defaults to if a user does not personalize. Hoang said that since that is the default setting, the images here are very diverse.
Taylor Yezek, CCCU corporate communications coordinator, said developing and launching the site—which occurred in July—took two years.
“We dug into research on the different age groups and also connected with our members to find what products were best for each segment,” explained Yezek. “We did a lot of internal and external research. We had our website company (Lyquix in Philadelphia) do the research for us, and then we combined the internal and external research to determine what was best for our website.”
Yezek said that a website that allows for personalization is more expensive than a “standard” site.
“Typically, people spend between $20,000-$50,000 for a new website,” said Yezek. “For this site we budgeted more than $120,000 because there was much more work involved, the mechanism behind the site was more involved, and we did a lot of research.”
She said the credit union also paid a little more to allow for greater flexibility in future for site enhancements and “widgets.”
“Digital, as we know is changing so fast now,” Yezek said.
Early results show that people are spending more time on the site and looking at more pages, Yezek said—pages/sessions is up 5.30%, the average session duration is up 19.45%, and the bounce rate has decreased 4.48%.