By Fonda Semerjian
Marketing Account Executive, GCUA

If you didn't attend the Georgia Marketing Council's 2002 summer meeting held at The Partridge Inn in Augusta, Georgia on Friday, May 17, 2002, you missed a lot of fun! The Council brought 34 new and old faces together for a day of laughs and education.

Mickey Garland, President of the Georgia Marketing Council, is from The Southern FCU. Garland opened the Augusta meeting with his usual creative "ice-breaker" game!

Several of the meeting attendees met the night prior at the well-known Bambu for the ultimate dining experience! The sushi restaurant is located inside The Partridge Inn in the heart of "The Hill." Several marketers braved the sushi delicacies while others remained within the selections of entrée items including filet mignon, red snapper and rainbow trout.

Mary Olson, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Delta Employees Credit Union, led the morning session by offering attendees an informative presentation entitled "CRM: Customer Relationship Management - What It Is and What It Isn't." Mary defined CRM as "a business strategy that seeks to identify customers (members) uniquely and then develops sales and service strategies that are consistently executed across all delivery channels."

Randy Weed, President of University Health FCU and a newcomer to the GMC, revealed to the group how credit unions of all sizes can compete in the marketing environment by offering his many stuffer and poster ideas to the group.

Olson explained that because the needs of financial consumers are constantly changing, credit unions are forced to make tough strategic and operational decisions that will further distinguish these organizations from the corporate banks and grant credit unions a greater share of the consumer wallet.

Next, Mary delved into the strategies for implementing CRM into the credit union schemata. She explained that following the implementation process, each credit union should have developed a consistent message/brand across all communication channels and throughout the entire credit union ecosystem. Overall, Mary provided a comprehensive argument for incorporating effective Customer Relationship Management strategies into the credit union environment.

Angel Mefford of The Financial Marketing Group demonstrated the many advantages that the Connections technology can bring to a credit union's marketing strategy.

The second session of the day was led by Angel Mefford, Account Executive for the Financial Marketing Group, a subsidiary of the Alabama Credit Union League. Angel demonstrated the many capabilities of the company's new software, Connections. This leading-edge technology product provides credit unions with crucial decision-making capabilities that promote the acquisition of new accounts and the retention of existing accounts. The implementation of this software allows credit unions to target market to existing and potential membership bases. Further, this software can:

* Place accounts into households and automatically assign a value to each.
* Provide supplemental information about each member in order to build a comprehensive profile on each member.
* Predict the product each member is likely to purchase next. · Automatically deliver a wide variety of customized marketing letters to member households promoting the credit union's products in a systematic manner.
* Provide a sales referral and tracking program that enables a credit union to automatically track the recommendations and cross-selling efforts of their employees and provides a way to reward their efforts.
* Produce targeted household prospect lists that are used to conduct marketing campaigns to bring in new members to the credit union.
* Automatically measure the ROI for all campaigns in real-time via the Internet.

Mary Hancock of Fort Stewart Georgia FCU got the creative juices flowing as she introduced the loan panelists in her hat and homemade microphone.

All in all, the meeting attendees seemed enthusiastic about the new product and the possibilities it presented for making a credit union marketer's life a little easier!

The final presentation of the day was the GMC's loan panel, coordinated by Mary Hancock of Fort Stewart Georgia Federal Credit Union.

This was a time in which several credit union marketers offered their ideas and marketing materials for show, as they shared their strategies for overcoming the challenging economic conditions that credit unions have been presented with over the past year. Marketing ideas were shared by Sherrie Futch of MACO Educators Federal Credit Union, John O'Hare of Rich's Employees Credit Union, Randy Weed of University Health Federal Credit Union, Susan Miller of Georgia Federal Credit Union and Ann Teets of Gracewood Federal Credit Union.

The Georgia Marketing Council was formed to help and support Georgia marketing professionals and other credit union professionals responsible for the marketing in their credit unions.

Ann Teets of Gracewood FCU shared marketing ideas that have proven successful for her credit union.

Meetings are held three times a year. If you would like to become a Georgia Marketing Council member, contact Holly Dean, Northwest Georgia Credit Union, at (706) 291-9290, ext. 29, or send an e-mail to hdean@nwgacu.org.

Be on the lookout for details of the next GMC meeting, scheduled for Friday, October 11, 2002 in Savannah, Georgia. You definitely don't want to miss this one!

As part of the loan panel, Sherrie Futch of MACO Educators FCU shared her competitive home equity loan marketing ideas with the meeting attendees.