09/29/2008

We launched a new youth campaign for Westminster Savings Credit Union today

By Tim McAlpine

Marketers seem content with a two or three percent direct mail response rate. What if you could do better? That's what we have set out to prove for British Columbia's Westminster Savings Credit Union.

We were approached to launch a new free young adult chequing account. We were given a targeted mailing list and free reign to create something exciting and new! We named the product the Dub Free Chequing Account (Dub is short for the "W" in Westminster). We then developed a distinctive brand identity and look and feel.

That's when the ideas really started to flow. 

Since the goal of the direct mail campaign is to get recipients to act on an offer and return a reply card, we asked ourselves "Why not make the reply device fun and interactive?" The idea of dubbing took hold. We deployed a simple microsite built on the open source WordPress blog platform. The microsite is located at www.DubMeFree.com and is designed to feature the postcards with user-generated captions.

The direct mail recipients are given three random postcards to dub. When we receive them in the mail, we will scan and feature them on the blog. We expect the postcards to start coming in next week.

In addition, we have created a Flash Dub Machine that allows visitors to the microsite to create their own dubs online.

For credit unions that want to dabble in social media, an approach like this offers a few advantages.

• Tying a blog to a short-term campaign gives you the ability to test the waters
• Giving yourself the license to have fun and experiment can take the pressure off of writing a lot of educational blog posts
• Since the content is user generated, the credit union's time commitment is greatly reduced

I am a firm believer in utilizing social computing technologies combined with a strong product brand and marketing to communicate and sell product. It has been a fun project to work on and we are really interested in seeing how it performs. And I am sure Westminster Savings is too!

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09/28/2008

Credit unions rock Lifehacker and other mainstream blogs lately!

By Tim McAlpine

I caught this one in my RSS reader this morning and it took me by surprise. Good news credit union stories don't typically come from the biggest blogs on the planet. There was a great article posted to LifeHacker on Friday: Why Choose a Credit Union Over a Bank. Within the article are numerous links to other mainstream sites singing the praises of credit unions lately.

The credit union blog-o-sphere is a great place but it largely speaks to the converted. When credit unions get this kind of positive coverage in a non-industry blog with a huge readership, it is worth noting. As of the time of this writing, the article has been read 15,322 times. That's awesome.

Take a read and pay special attention to the more than 70 comments. For the most part, the comments are very positive. Good news like this couldn't come at a better time for credit unions.

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09/26/2008

Surprise and delight

By Tim McAlpine

Just watch and you'll see what I am talking about.

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09/24/2008

CUES Experience Podcast 04: Sense and Respond Marketing by Aite Group's Ron Shevlin

By Tim McAlpine

Welcome to episode 4 of the CUES Experience Podcast. I recorded a bunch of conversations and sessions at the  CUES Experience: Immersion Learning for Marketing, Technology and Operations Leaders Conference. The event was held from May 13–16, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.

In this episode, I interview a few attendees on the conference floor and also highlight about 25 minutes from the Ron Shevlin's talk on Sense and Respond Marketing.

You can listen by streaming audio here on the blog or you can subscribe to it in iTunes and listen on your iPod. You can also visit the CUES Nexus Connection blog to leave a comment.  

 
Production notes

+ Recorded with a Zoom Handy Recorder H4 mobile digital recorder
+ Edited in Audacity
+ Hosted on Evoca
+ Podcast RSS Feed through Feedburner
+ Intro music produced by Brent Dixon

NOTE: If you are listening on this page and want to post a comment, there is a good chance the CAPTCHA will time out. Make sure to hit the 'Post Comment' button twice. Copy your comment to your clipboard just to be safe. Thanks!

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09/23/2008

BarCampBankBC: It's a wrap!

By Tim McAlpine

I'll make this short and sweet. Here are five reasons why BarCampBankBC was awesome.

1. My organizing partners William and Gene
2. The beautiful city of Vancouver
3. The people that came from all over North America
4. Morriss and Andy's rocking song to close out the Pecha Kucha
5. The industrious Brent Dixon broadcasting BCBBC around the globe

Thanks for coming and making the event a success. Visit the Wiki for links to blog posts and images.

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09/19/2008

BarCampBankBC: One day to go

By Tim McAlpine

It's BarCampBankBC Eve and I can't wait.

I love how it all came together. Gene, Nala and I went for lunch in April. During the lunch we started talking about the various BarCampBank gatherings that were taking place this year and at about the same time Gene and I both said, "It's time to hold a BarCampBank in Vancouver." We elected William to help and since he wasn't there to disagree, he was unanimously sworn in. That evening, I e-mailed Frederic Baud from France, one of the originators of BarCampBank movement, and asked how to setup the Wiki page. He e-mailed back with some simple instructions, I created the page the following morning and between William, Gene and myself promoting the event on our blogs, we now have approximately 65 people coming from all over North America.

Attendees are flying and driving from every corner of the continent including Alberta, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington! These people found the Wiki, added their names, paid by Paypal, made their own travel arrangements and will magically show up Saturday morning ready to create an agenda that doesn't yet exist.

No elaborate marketing, no speaker line up, no nothing. $35 per person to cover the cost of the facilities and meals. Is that not cool?

I like this quote from William's blog yesterday:

"We are lucky to have a great mix of local BCers and people who have travelled from far and wide to participate. Some of us have been to a BarCampBank before, and many have not. We have all the right people and expertise to create a truly amazing weekend. We hold this philosophy to be true: The right people will show up and the right things will be discussed.

 

Thanks for coming. See you tomorrow.

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09/18/2008

We helped Vancity change everything about ChangeEverything.ca

By Tim McAlpine

I am thrilled to be able to talk about the redesign and relaunch of Vancity's hugely successful social network, ChangeEverything.ca! The new verson launched today. Currency was hired to redesign the user interface and was part of a fantastic team including Affinity Bridge for Drupal development and Ballistic Arts for video production.

Kate and William from Vancity are passionate about Vancity's online community and brought plenty of insight to the project. The key challenges were to increase usability, clarify navigation and, most importantly, to reveal the wonderful dialogue and participation going on within this vibrant online community.

The community member videos are terrific and immediately tell visitors why ChangeEverything.ca exists and why people should care and get involved.

This was a dream project to work on and we are honoured to be part of such a great team.

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09/18/2008

Does your credit union stink?

By Nala Henkel

Earlier this year I attended the 2008 MAC Conference in Newport Beach. As I do whenever possible, I stay at the hotel where it's being held. And, as in most cases, the walk from my room to the conference area feels like a five mile hike. This time, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

To get from my room (at the back of the hotel) to the conference area, I had to walk down a path lined with various shrubs and flowers. It smelled heavenly! I loved my morning and afternoon walks. I kill most plants I even LOOK AT, so I had no idea what I was smelling, but I knew I wanted to bring that smell home with me. I ended up buying a guava candle before I left. It's not a match for that scent, but whenever I light it, it reminds me of how much I enjoyed my stay at the MAC Conference.

Smell can be a huge emotion and memory trigger. And don't tell me "but they can also trigger BAD memories and emotions, and that would be BAD!" I've yet to meet someone who has a bad memory associated with, say, freshly baked bread. Except for Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck maybe, or someone who was beaten with a bread pan in their teen years. But WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF THAT?

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09/17/2008

Social media best practices: create a positive environment that promotes discussion and learning

By Tim McAlpine

This post is in response to Mitch Joel’s great suggestion to write about social media marketing best practices.

Tag, I'm it. Morriss Partee challenged me to add my two cents to the social media best practices meme making its way around the blogosphere. Mitch Joel started it here. Morriss recommends using multiple media, William has a better name for social media and Trey recommends being compelling in the real world first. Here's a best practice that I have been thinking about a lot lately:

Make a positive contribution. The social web has its share of negative places. If you or your company are going to enter the fray, commit to being positive. Be lively, be interesting, be an expert, be encouraging, but try to avoid publishing negative content just for the purpose of being controversial. This applies to your own blog or commenting on other blogs.

Criticism is welcomed, but I encourage you to back up your criticism with helpful suggestions that promote healthy discussion.

Always think it through before publishing a potentially caustic blog post or blog comment. If you are not sure, get a second opinion before putting it out there. Breathe. Take a walk. The Internet never forgets.

Leave the hating to the celebrity gossip bloggers and the like. Link baiting and negativity used solely for driving traffic or controversy doesn't lead to anything worthwhile and doesn't reflect well on you or your company.

Now I am supposed to tag some people to add to the meme. I tag Denise Wymore, Charlie Trotter, Jeffry Pilcher and Gene Blishen.

Mitch is planning to organize all of these posts in some fashion. Once I have a link, I will let you know where you can go to read the entire collection.

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09/17/2008

Get on the e-mail boat-now!

By Nala Henkel

In the last week or so I've had conversations with two different clients that went like this.

• Me: "So about how many member e-mail addresses do you have for this group?"
• Them: "Uh, I think about... I'm not sure. Maybe a couple hundred?"
• Me: "Is it part of your application process to collect an e-mail address?"
• Them: "Yes. Well... it was on the online app, but I think... (to the other "them" at the table) do we have it on the form in-branch? I think so."

People. PEOPLE! You need to be actively collecting e-mail addresses. Here's why, courtesy of my Twitter friend Ron Shevlin who tweeted the link (e-mail me if you are scratching your head over "Twitter" and "tweeted"):

E-MAILS SENT TO HOUSE FILES FOUND TO PRODUCE HIGHEST RETURN-ON-INVESTMENT FOR SOLICITING DIRECT ORDERS

ORLANDO, FL, OCTOBER 13, 2003 -- A new landmark study from the Direct Marketing Association (The DMA) found that e-mail offers, particularly those sent to in-house customer lists, produced the highest overall return-on-investment (ROI) for marketers focusing on soliciting direct orders, generating leads or building store traffic.

Copy and pasted totally without permission from The Direct Marketing Association

There's more to this article (and I sincerely apologize for the screaming caps– their choice, not mine) but you can see why it's VITAL that we are building e-mail databases.

There's no excuse. You're sitting at your computer right now, so you can e-mail everyone who needs to make this change. I mean it.

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