Bank Transfer Day is a beautiful thing!

Wow, all the publicity over Bank Transfer Day is so fantastic for all EverythingCU’ers! We’re also thrilled to be getting a flood of new inquiries about our Online Switch Kit lately… including being mentioned on CUESnet. We’ve been helping people switch from a bank to a credit union for 8 years, so it’s fun to see this getting such great attention from mainstream media.

I just spotted this ABC News clip being shared by a CU on Facebook:

The CU shown towards the end of the clip, where the young man makes the switch, is Charlotte Metro CU. They use a set of static PDFs to help people make the switch. ABC News reports this takes 12 minutes. Imagine how much faster it would be if they used EverythingCU’s Online Switch Kit!

Props to the more than 100 CUs who are already making it easier for their members! If you already have our Switch Kit, today is a great day to take another look at it and make sure everything is working perfectly with it.

The Online Switch Kit continues to garner inquiries

This morning, I saw several credit unions share on Facebook this video clip of CUNA President Bill Cheney appearing on CNBC:

CNBC Video Clip

I can’t help but notice that Mr. Cheney states that many credit unions have Switch Kits… my only question is: Does your credit union have a Switch Kit, and is it an automated Online Switch Kit, or an old-school static PDF? 🙂

With a grass-roots Bank Transfer Day approaching on November 5, now is a great time to implement an Online Switch Kit to make it easier for potential new members to make the switch to YOUR credit union!

Thank you, Executive Members

On this bright and shiny spring morning (Patriot Day if you live in the state of Massachusetts), I’d just like to take a minute to thank all of you Executive Members of EverythingCU. Many of you have been with us since the very early days of the site (2001-2002), and many of you have joined the community along the way. I’m always gratified, honored, humbled and awestruck about the comments you have for the community here. And thank you for sharing the EverythingCU love with so many of your peers and colleagues, at your own, and other credit unions.

I know that this economy continues to be very tough, for both your credit union and your members, which is why we appreciate all the more that so many of you have kept EverythingCU Executive Membership in your budgets. There are currently 270 credit unions who are Executive Members, representing a combined 1,181 credit union professionals.

Just in case you aren’t completely familiar with all the benefits of Executive Membership, let me remind you of them so that you can be sure you are taking full advantage of your benefits.

• Executive Membership applies to all employees at your credit union, no matter if they are already signed up on EverythingCU, or if they sign up later, while the CU’s annual Executive Membership is still in effect.
• Executive Membership allows you to download an unlimited number of documents from the 1451 that you’ve contributed over the years.
• Executive Membership gets you discounts on the products that we offer, including the Online Switch Kit, Marketing Budget Report, Plumwall, Beehive, and Video Tutorials in the Knowledge Warehouse.

And as if all of that wasn’t enough, Executive Membership also gives you the option to post messages on the discussion anonymously for those times when you have a controversial topic you’d like to discuss without fear of reprisal.

If you are already an Executive Member, be sure to tell your colleagues at your credit union that they should register on the site so that they too can enjoy the benefits of your credit union is already receiving.

So thank you again, and enjoy this fine spring day!

FREE PlumWall Informational webinar, July 16

For credit union professionals, I will be holding a short, free informational webinar about our new social media/ testimonial product, PlumWall on Thursday, July 16, at 2 pm Eastern/1 pm Central.

You are probably already at least somewhat familiar with social media. Have you set-up a blog, created a facebook fan page for your credit union, or opened a twitter account to little fanfare? Perhaps you are wondering how you can get involved with “social media” but are concerned about losing control, or IT is shutting down access to certain sites.

Or perhaps you are looking for ways to get more out of your limited marketing budget. You know that online marketing is very low cost compared to traditional media, but don’t know how to leverage it for maximum effect. Maybe you are a fan of member testimonials and member referrals and are looking to put them online, quickly, easily and inexpensively?

Well, EverythingCU.com has the answer for you. With PlumWall, not only have we taken the “scariness” out of social media, we’ve made it as easy as pie for you. PlumWall makes it quick and easy to share member and employee stories online, and puts the whole thing TOTALLY UNDER YOUR CONTROL.

At this short webinar, I will be answering all your PlumWall questions! If I doesn’t know the answer, I’ll make something up that doesn’t sound too far-fetched. We anticipate this info portion of this webinar will last 30 minutes, followed by as much Q&A as your heart desires.

View PlumWall in action on Innovations FCU’s web site.

View the Info page about PlumWall.

Attend this webinar and learn:
• How easy it is to put your member stories online with PlumWall
• How quick and easy it is to get your PlumWall up and running
• About the control panel that puts YOU in charge of everything posted on your web site
• Techniques to increase PlumWall participation
• The answer to any questions you have about how PlumWall works for you, your credit union, and your membership.

Hope to see you there! I’m thrilled that attendance is already running high for this webinar – 67 CUs are already signed up at last count!

EverythingCU hits 1,000,000 mark

EverythingCU.com just hit the 1,000,000 mark for discussion messages viewed on the site since inception in 2001.

That’s a lot of message viewing, especially since EverythingCU is a closed community of less than 6900 credit union professionals. Just goes to show that us marketing-types like to “talk.”

In honor of this milestone, at Shawn Ward’s suggestion, here are ten of my favorite conversations, topics which would likely not find voice elsewhere:

Your Favorite Super Bowl commercial

You know you’re a marketer when…

The best ad you NEVER ran

The Bill Consolidation is here

The most outrageous ad you have ever run

Kick-ass daring names for companies and products

A love note on your special day

Proud to be a CU Lifer!

Credit Unions: Industry or Movement?

What does member-owned really mean anyway?

Some D&B love from TJ McCue

I was introduced to TJ McCue through a referral from William Azaroff. TJ is an awesome, sharp, well-connected professional, and it was my pleasure to meet him for coffee in his home area of the Olympic Peninsula outside Seattle, on the way to BarCampBankBC. TJ now writes for Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness blog, and was kind enough to do a write-up about our online switch kit yesterday.

Earlier this summer, Dan Reynolds, our Switch Kit Coordinator, conducted a webinar explaining what the EverythingCU Online Switch Kit is all about, as well as our latest innovations with it. I’ve converted that webinar into a SlideShare with audio which you can view below. Running time is approximately 49 minutes (about 25 minutes of presentation, followed by about 24 minutes of Q&A). If you don’t have that kind of time, fortunately we have a text FAQ located here.

Our Online Switch Kit came about as the direct result of attending our first-ever CU conference, which was the 2002 CUES Marketing conference in Seattle. The VP of Marketing for Pinellas County FCU (now Achieva) demonstrated her paper-based switch kit to a standing-room only audience during a breakout session. We knew that we’d have a hit on our hands if we developed a way of simplifying the process of filling out a member’s name over and over again, online. So we built the product in 2003, and now have more than 170 credit unions using it.

Part of the reason TJ wrote up our case study is that he understands how much power there is in developing a targeted product to a specific niche audience. Here are my takeaways from this journey (which you can apply to your own business):

• Decide on your niche, and get to know as much possible about it, especially the the people and happenings therein
• Go out and meet them where they are (in this case, their conferences, but it can also be their place of work, or where they live or socialize)
• Pay close attention to their needs and what resonates with them
• Figure out how you can help make their own lives (or their customers’ lives, if it’s B-to-B), easier. If they don’t even know they have a problem or pain-point yet, so much the better.
• Create the product that solves or eases this problem or pain-point.
• When you do all of these things, word will spread amongst that community.

Thanks, TJ, for a stellar write-up of the product!

Publicity for EverythingCU

A nice article about EverythingCU was just published in our local business magazine, Business West. HUGE thanks to Jaclyn Stevenson for conducting a great interview and doing an outstanding job capturing the ongoing evolution of EverythingCU. I am looking forward to working with Jaclyn and Tish Grier to create the PodCampWesternMass event scheduled for March 1, 2008.