Hello,and welcome to the Theory of Marketing Relativity Podcast. I'm Jess Burton, a marketing specialist here at epic marketing consultants Corporation. Let's talk all things marketing and merchandising with our epic team. Today, my guest is Maureen. She is the COO for the Nassau County Police Department Federal Credit Union in New York. Thank you so much for joining me today Maureen. Thank you so much Jess for inviting me.
Jess:Absolutely. I always love having different different credit union people from different parts of the United States on our podcast, because I feel like, well, credit unions are all very similar. They're all equally as different depending on where you are and who your member base is.
Maureen:Well, we're in New York and our member base is very different. I think for many other credit unions that you would find, I've worked in quite a few different credit unions, and this particular credit union has a very closed membership. We really only serve the law enforcement community of Nassau County and their families. And that makes our Marketing challenge just a little more challenging than it would for other people, because we can't use many of the traditional methods of marketing that you would use.
Jess:That is very true. I think most credit unions I've stumbled across have started kind of widening their membership berth. And I feel like you guys definitely have a very specific membership requirement.
Maureen:We certainly do. And that means traditional marketing channels like television, or print ads, or radio don't work for us, because everybody who would hear that can't become a member of our credit union.
Jess:Exactly. So today, I brought you on because we wanted to chat a little bit about and as it's I know, hear at least in Delaware, it's we went from 50 degrees to right now it's coming in at like 40 and windy as all get out. Um, we wanted to chat about winterizing, and every time I hear about winterizing, I think of like all the people around here who go to the beach and have boats at the beach, watching them all drive up the highway with their like, shrink wrapped boats. Um, so we just kind of wanted to talk about how we can winter eyes, our credit unions and our credit union marketing to kind of make it a little easier on us during the holiday seasons.
Maureen:Well, that's one of the things that we're doing right now with my colleague Rosina is we're trying to come up with a very tight marketing plan for the rest of this year and the beginning of next year as well, the first quarter, we feel that if we have a tight marketing plan, where we have everything kind of lined out, we can then if we have to zig and zag, we have the ability to do that. But we also have the limited our stress during this holiday season by planning ahead.
Jess:Yes, planning ahead is such a good, I feel like I know I'm a planner, I finally graduated from writing things down to like a Google, Google Calendar and like a to do app on my phone. But before I used to be like a hardcore paper and pen planner with my color coded pens, um, I think definitely, especially now that we're headed towards the end of q4, we're looking ahead to 2021. It's seeing what can we do in 2021, that'll help us be more prepared for the unprepared like this
Maureen:Well, that's, that's really one of the biggest year. challenges we have, we want to be prepared. But, you know, 2020 has taught us that you can't ever really be fully prepared. And you have to be able to zig and zag and you have to be able to take what you've already prepared, and and change it. Things have to change and you have to be prepared to change it. But we really do feel that with a good tight plan going into the new year, you have that ability. If you don't have a plan, and you're just kind of winging it along, you don't have that ability. Just to step back a little bit. Both Rosina and I are fairly new to this particular credit union. And we found that our challenge right now during this winterizing is that actual just writing out that plan. We don't have anything to go by from last year. So it's kind of we're creating it all brand new and fresh. With the help of Epic, I might add. And, and it's kind of an exciting time for us to do that. But it's a long time to think about everything through the end of 2020, all the way through 2021. So that's our struggle right now.
Jess:I would definitely I can definitely see where you're coming from. I know that, um, a lot of times with the end of the year, it's so hard to think about the end of next year when you're still trying to finish up this year. I know there are some clients we have that we actually think backwards for them. So we actually start thinking okay, we're in November and December. Now let's look at November and December of next year and then we'll start with January, because they want to think of all the ideas that are fresh like top of mind before they tackle July, which seems like it's so far away from now.
Maureen:What a great idea. I think Rosita, and I got to change our plan for afternoon meeting and start thinking about November, December of next year, and work our way backwards a little bit, maybe work our way forward at the same time, but I like approaching it from both ends.
Jess:Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I'm definitely one of those people when I have ideas, like as I'm doing stuff, so it makes it so much easier when we're doing things in the moment to like, write it down, and then just kind of earmark it for next year, whatever. Um, and I know that for a lot, I feel like even I mean, for credit unions. I I learned something new through you guys. I didn't realize that you could purchase VISA credit card, Visa gift cards, through your credit union. I was like, wow, I learned something new today. Well, not today, but a couple weeks ago. Um, but yeah, I think that that's like a huge thing, especially now that everybody's shopping online. And everybody everything's going virtual, the ability to harness your technology and use that is definitely something that I was very surprised at.
Maureen:Yeah, we have quite a few of our members who are working with organizations that are surrounding the police department, different youth organizations, different philanthropy organizations in the police department. And we find that at this time of the year, many of them are either giving away gifts or some kind of honorariums to different people. And they're using our gift cards to do it. So we've actually had to change some of our processes along the years, that you can't just come in and order because people would come in order 20-25 gift cards at a time. We have an online forum for people to do that. And we're very, very busy with the gift card world right now.
Jess:Wow, that is awesome. I'm so like, it's funny, like gift cards, like that's one of those things that I feel like if as you as I said earlier, quote unquote, winterize. Um, that's something that I feel like always, obviously, it's one of those. Oh, my gosh, I can't remember, like evergreen content, especially for social and marketing. You can wrap gift cards into any time of year. But I feel like gift cards is definitely one thing that I'm definitely you guys are pushing that, like q4 as the holidays roll around, especially because gift cards are good for all the holidays. Like not necessarily, like I know, a majority of people celebrate Christmas, but we have a couple, um, and my co workers that celebrate Hanukkah. And you know Kwanzaa, so I feel like that stuff, gift cards are always a good topic to cover.
Maureen:I think you're right in. And it also is a great stress reliever to our members to know that, you know, last minute gifts can be gotten at the credit union, while you're cashing a check or making your deposit. We don't charge for our gift cards, which also makes it a little bit easier for our members to swallow. And no, we would, that's our goal here is to make things easier and better for our members. We say around the credit union here that we actually do try to spoil our members. And we do that by giving them free gift cards, and making our hours as easy as possible. And making the process as easy as possible, you know, order them online and pick them up. Just like Starbucks.
Jess:Absolutely. Who doesn't like the convenience of Starbucks? Um, I was it that I was just thinking, Oh, um, you guys had a great, I was very surprised at the turnout for your member appreciation. I guess you guys had a week. Um, just because I know, like a lot of people had, you know, been limiting the amount of people in the branches, but you guys did a really good job of being able to kind of transition it to a virtual format. And send out the the nomination forms at words are escaping me today.
Maureen:Raffle form, what in the past, we've always celebrated international credit union day on a single day in October. And with the COVID situation, we really didn't want to encourage all of our members to come in on a single day. So instead, we chose that week, and we did member appreciation for the entire week. So if members did come into the credit union, they got some giveaways, which was nice and with some pre wrapped snacks. In the past, we've done cookies and coffee and such, which we couldn't do this year. So all of our snacks and our beverages were pre wrapped and we gave away I think it was Starbucks actually Starbucks coffee, or Dunkin Donuts. I'm not sure you know what a bottle. But then we did our raffle. And we traditionally do a raffle when people come into the branch. But this time because we didn't want people to have to come in. We put the raffle ticket in with our newsletter. We got almost 800 entries mailed into us. For those, those individuals that some people did come in and enter that way, but an awful lot mailed in. And actually one of our winners was in Florida, we had to send him a gift to Florida.
Jess:That is awesome, though. That's and that's like a, that's like a great touch point on, you know, just like little things like that being able to check in with your members. And even if they move out of New York, even though you guys are based in New York, they might, you know, they move to a completely different state, and you have to mail them their, you know, prize, that's awesome. And that 800 people mail something in because I know a lot of people don't mail anymore.
Maureen:Well, we had actually thought about doing something online, but we weren't prepared for it. You know, I think with this COVID thing, most of us are taken month by month or week by week to see how things are changing. Now, things are going in the wrong direction. But we weren't really in a situation where we had any kind of function available to us to take entries online, which is something we may be looking at in the future. So we had to do it via mail. And actually, we your group suggested that we put in as a separate little insert in our newsletter, and it worked really great. I think a lot of people really enjoyed it. And we got at least two pictures of people who are local, accepting their prizes. So we put that on social media. Again, we're trying to build our social media as well as our emails and to support the things that we're doing and to support our members.
Jess:Absolutely. And I think because you guys have such a niche, membership base to pull from, it is super important to kind of cover all of your bases, especially because, you know, you guys have, you know, all the new recruits and all the people going through, I don't even know what the correct technical term is. I'm going
Maureen:Academy
Jess:Academy, that's what it is. And I should know this, I have friends who look, you know, our state cops in Delaware, they go through the Academy, there's young, but then you have the people who have been part of the NCPD for years and years and years and maybe even have retired already. So I think definitely, with the mailers and the email list and social media, you're getting a good mix of touch the different ways to get in contact with the different age groups and the people have different spots in their career.
Maureen:Right, we're extremely lucky that the NCPD itself really does support the credit union, all of our board members are either current or former and NCPD officers detectives that we even have a chief on our board, several inspectors. And, you know, we get great access from that. Our credit union is 80 years old, and it was actually started by officers. And it's continued to be run by those same, you know, will not the same officers but but by officers of the NCPD. And I think that really shows the longevity of it. And it shows us as more of a family and and very much so supportive of our new recruits. Our board of directors is very concerned that we make sure that the new recruits get a fair and equitable deal. We really do practice our transparency as much as possible, because the only reason we're here is to support those officers. So we try to make sure that they buy the right cars at the right interest rate and have those down payments ready. And if they need equipment loans, we have special recruit equipment loans for them to be able to buy the equipment they need at a zero percent interest rate to support them in that effort.
Jess:That is amazing. But that but accessibility is phenomenal. Um, so it's funny that you I know you mentioned Rosina earlier and one of the parts of winterizing quote unquote, I keep doing the air quotes, but like you can't see me so I'm just air quoting here by myself. I'm about quote unquote, winterizing your credit union is that sometimes, um, you know, you have their people wearing a lot of hats, things need to be updated. Um, and I know Rosina is my point person is one of my main point people with you guys. And she's new. Um, and she's doing a phenomenal job. I just got her email this morning, and I loved everything she sent over. Um, so tell us a little bit about how you guys kind of decide that you need to, you know, hand off a hat to someone else to wear or, you know, update some different things at your credit union.
Rosina:Um, well, I think we just wanted to have more of a streamlined process over here for us. So I am the new marketing specialist at the credit union, which is a fairly new position. So we're trying to build out our plan and strategy of how we can work more in collaboration with you guys over at Epic but also That I'm able I have the information I could tell my team was on, we could collaborate on ideas, and we're not just solely relying on, you know, one set of ideas. So I think that was a great way to distribute the amount of work that was being put on one area.
Jess:Absolutely, it's definitely, I think that's, at least in marketing, it's always nice for and you guys aren't the only credit union that I have a point person with, um, because like Epic is sort of like, the social media part of the marketing department for a lot of credit unions that we have. Because social media is relatively new, and we do tend to specialize in it. Um, but I think that yeah, it is nice to have someone that you just refer to all the time, and that is there, and living it and present, to help keep everything up to date and running smoothly.
Rosina:Definitely. Also, to repeat something Maureen has said, we are trying to focus on building our brand over here at ncpd. So with your help of building the strategy, we want it to also provide some creative, and creativity.
Jess:Yes, I think it's super important that and we've talked about this a number of times here Epic about, especially during this pandemic, about making sure that your brand voice and your branding is super strong, and you stay true to it. No matter what you're doing. It makes it so much easier when it comes time to even just create imagery, or create copy or even if you do have to deliver bad news. Um, you know, especially now that we're all probably going to I feel like an impending lockdown is going to happen, at least here in Delaware sometime soon. Um, but being able, like Maureen said earlier, keeping that transparency up is definitely super important. It makes it easier to when you have someone that can solely focus on your messaging.
Rosina:Exactly, definitely feel the same way.
Maureen:It it helps us a lot to be able to, you know, Rosina and I will come up with 5 6 7 8 ideas, bounce them off the team over there and Epic to see which ones really stick. And which ones really fit within the strategy that we're we're creating. And it makes us all feel like we're we're more part of it. And then Rosina will take that information and make sure that the rest of the team here knows how that fits into this strategy so that when our MSRs answer the phone, they know what's going on. So, you know, we're we're relating our strategy back to what's necessary for the credit union from a budgetary and a financial standpoint, because I think sometimes we miss the fact that marketing is really important to be integrated in everything the credit union does. We have internal marketing as well as external marketing.
Jess:Absolutely. I think that's something that a lot of businesses, even businesses, not just credit unions tend to miss sometimes is that like, internal marketing piece, like not only are you marketing to your desired customers, desired members desired client, but also to the people who are behind the scenes who are answering the phones who are meeting the member or the client face to face or through email. I think that's definitely something that everybody needs to keep close when they're making when they're thinking about, you know, marketing strategies.
Maureen:Totally agree.
Jess:So I have one last question for you ladies, just out of curiosity, because we've been planning ahead, looking ahead, what do you think will be a challenge for a challenge and an opportunity for when the spring rolls around? So let's think like, well, spring around here starts at like, April, May.
Maureen:Um, I think, you know, one of our challenges is going to be to continue to provide our members with, with, with remote products and services, I personally do not think that we're going to go back to the part where everybody comes into the branch to sign every loan document and put every deposit in, I think, times are passed. So I think, too, how do we continue to improve the delivery that we have to our members in remote settings in rural locations. Our members are very mobile. They don't have regular hours. They and you know, at any time of crisis, a crisis occurs and a vast majority of our membership could be mobilized to do other things. So we have to be prepared to be able to give them those kinds of things and it's not extending our hours. It's extending our E-branch or our electronic commerce type things. So I think that's our challenge. And then to get our older members I hate to say older, but maybe our old is not the right word. Maybe our our members who are less familiar with e commerce, yeah, to do the to do those services as well. So it's got to be easy. It's got to be quick, and it's got to be available.
Rosina:And I think to play on the opportunity off of what Maureen said is an opportunity for us is definitely reaching more people through social media, and maybe messaging and marketing all of the online abilities we have now for the loans and signatures. But definitely, we will be focusing on that.
Jess:Yeah, I definitely think from what I have seen, I'm not that we compare clients, but it is interesting to have multiple credit union clients, and to see how everybody does everything differently. Um, I am I have always been super impressed by how much of the things you guys can do online, through your computer through your tablet through your phone. And I hadn't even thought about it talk about like, good thing we have like a, you know, group of people thinking I hadn't even thought about, you know, what if a good chunk of your membership does have to mobilize and they can't come in to do signatures or deposits or stuff like that. That is something that is definitely very specific to you guys.
Maureen:It is your right.
Jess:Well, Maureen and Rosina, thank you so much for joining me today. And I hope that I can have you guys back again sometime.
Rosina:Thank you.
Maureen:We've enjoyed it and we'd love to come back.
Jess:Absolutely. Thank you
Maureen:Have a great day now.
Jess:You too. Thank you all for tuning in this week. We hope this theory is relative to your marketing needs. Make sure you subscribe to get notified of our latest episodes.