Five Expert Opinions on the ROI of Branding

by Mark Arnold

What is the return on investment (ROI) of branding? It’s a question many CEOs and CFOs ask
their marketing executives. Although hard to formally calculate, it’s an extremely important question to answer. However, there are no easy answers.

In a recent CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council white paper, “Designing an Integrated Branding Approach,” we explored the concept how your brand encompasses everything do, everything you are and everything you market. The paper dived deeply into trends, how to develop an integrated brand, integrated branding tools and tactical ideas.

As part of the paper, we interviewed a number of branding experts. However, due to length
we couldn’t capture all their comments. One particular question we addressed in the paper was “what is the ROI of branding?” Below are answers (not covered in the paper itself) that five experts provided to this challenging question.

Amy Davis, Vice President of Marketing with Red Canoe Credit Union in Longview, WA ($580 million assets, 55,000 members)

We must remember that integrated branding is more of a marathon than a sprint. It is a long-term play. Consumers don’t change banks until they hit a point of pain. When they finally hit that point of pain, you need to be in that consideration (top 3). Keeping your credit union in the top of mind for that conversation is part of branding’s ROI. We look at loyalty and repeat business. If you have a strong brand you will get more loyalty and word of mouth.

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