What your frontline staff needs from marketing
Your credit union likely touts a robust lineup of products and services, but getting them into the hands of your members requires more than leads from your website. To be successful, you must engage your frontline staff.
Keep your team informed about how they can help members.
Selling isn’t easy. It may come naturally to some people (the marketer, for instance), but most people generally shy away from sales. It comes across as pushy, if done improperly, and most people don’t enjoy imposing their will on someone else.
Knowing the subject matter of something always makes it easier to talk about. Educating your team about your products and services must continue beyond employee onboarding. Your staff needs a comprehensive analysis of each product. They need to know how those products work and what the benefits are for members.
Your product line should be in a digital format, accessible to all staff and easy to search using keywords and phrases. You must equip your staff with the tools and the knowledge to effectively cross-sell products and services.
We’re all in need of something. Even if we don’t realize it.
Understand the need for a timely, targeted offer. It’s different from a one size fits all promotion. To achieve any measurable success, frontline staff (who are not typically marketers by trade) must offer something valuable to your members.
As a marketer, it’s your job to get those tools in their hands.
Your core probably has a built-in platform for cross-selling opportunities. Query your membership database to identify your target-members. Next, script a brief sales pitch frontline staff can read aloud, verbatim, to members.
Over time, staff will rely less on the script; starting out though, you should provide precise language. Make sure you have something in place to avoid selling a second time to an already-converted member.
Pay a little more for what you want.
Money talks. For subtle conversions —paper-statements to e-statements— reward your staff a small, fair incentive on a per-signup basis.
Sure…this will drive up short-term cost, but in this case, you can offset that with what you reduce in postage-related expenses going forward. You’ll probably even come out ahead. And ultimately, those members can enjoy the convenience of access to a digital copy of their statement whenever it’s needed!
Publish the staff signup efforts internally each day or week. Make it automated if you can. Seeing a quantifiable metric encourages healthy competition. Collectively working toward the common goal strengthens cohesion. And remember that incentives are more than just dollars and cents. PTO is a great motivator of staff-driven sales. So get creative!
Chances are, your frontline staff is eager to help…but are they able? Providing the right tools and information goes a long way toward achieving your marketing goals.
