By Ann Thompson
Website Coordinator

Over 48 credit union Marketing and Business Development Professionals from Georgia and South Carolina attended the Georgia Marketing Council's latest meeting held in Stone Mountain, Georgia, on Friday, October 1, 2004. Complete with a beautiful view, wonderful accommodations, great friends and speaker, the meeting proved to be a huge success!

The annual fall meeting began the night before as many of the council members met for dinner at the Waterside restaurant located inside of the Evergreen Resort. Waterside offers a beautiful lakeside setting for any dining occasion.

Georgia Marketing Council President Kelly Garmon opened the official meeting on Friday morning with a welcome and introduction of the GMC Board of Directors. John O’Hare then led attendees in a game of Make-A-Date to "break the ice." This game required that the attendees make a clock with a paper plate. On each hour, they had to make a date with someone they didn’t know or had never met. During their date, they had to ask the question assigned to that particular hour. For example, during the eleven o’clock hour, participants had to tell their date who their favorite movie star was and why. This game was a lot of fun and helped us to get to know our peers even better. After the ice breaker, our guest speaker Paul J. Lucas, consultant and founder of www.PaulJLucas.com, began his discussion entitled “Marketing Your Credit Union Today – What Works and What You Must Do to Succeed.”

Paul J. Lucas is a seasoned senior executive turned consultant with a proven record of aggressive marketing and sales goal achievements. Currently he provides marketing strategies covering all phases of delivery systems including e-strategies for numerous financial and retail organizations.

An accomplished national speaker and promoter of the credit union philosophy within the credit union and financial services industry, Mr. Lucas is well known for his strong leadership abilities, work ethic and outspoken views. He is skilled at the use of multi-media and new technologies to penetrate multiple target groups nationally and internationally.

He is known as a self-motivated performer, highly organized, effective decision-maker and troubleshooter. This national leader in credit union marketing is highly skilled at total brand development.

In " Marketing Your Credit Union Today – What Works and What You Must Do to Succeed," Mr. Lucas focused our discussions on branding, e-strategy, culture building, business development and management.

Mr. Lucas began the meeting with defining credit union marketing today. Here are eleven points to remember:

1. Remember “marketing” MUST be viewed from the member’s point of view to be a success!

2. “Perception is everything”! Members can only act based on what they see.

3. Marketing must make something happen!

4. Marketing should also not be confused with sales or advertising.

5. Marketing is the ability of the credit union/CUSO to bring the market to want its products. In other words, the ability to create a competitive edge!

6. Marketing is a general term for the deliberate efforts one executes to effect specific objectives. These objectives can be pretty diverse, ranging from selling product to branding to making people feel good about something. Methods used to conduct marketing are also diverse, extending across various media, events promotion, direct mail, inbound/outbound telephone service campaigns, and so on.

7. Marketing defines your products & services, articulates the positioning and creates all the sales tools. Once marketing has created opportunities for sales efforts (x-sells, sales-culture) to succeed by defining the product and creating the sales tools, it’s up to sales to drive the success or failure of such efforts. Marketing leads – sales follows!

8. Marketing is... all promotional activities, including advertising, image building (branding) and prospect (SEG business development), that take place in advance of a sale or the making of a deal (member PFI or C/MRM).

9. Advertising is... an announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor. The presentation or promotion by an identified sponsor. The presentation or promotion by an organization of its products and services to existing member or persuasive members. It is a single component of the marketing process.

10. Sales is... everything you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract.

11. Marketing + Sales + increased growth*

*If your efforts are unbalanced it can hinder growth and make the other non-effective.

In addition to the marketing definitions, he also discussed the importance of branding, brand-extensions, tag-lines, usage of colors, e-marketing, direct mail, SEG processes, PR/media and marketing for Community Chartered credit unions.

For more information like the above, feel free to visit Mr. Lucas’ website at www.PaulJLucas.com or email him at paul@pauljlucas.com.

We would also like to say a special thanks to our first lunch sponsor MSI – Marketing Solutions, Inc. and Trent McCool, Account Executive for his participation in our Fall Meeting. For more information about MSI, please visit www.marketingsolutionsinc.com, or feel free to contact Trent at 205-991-5900 ext.473 or tmccool@my-msi.com.

The Georgia Marketing Council was established to assist credit union marketing professionals in Georgia by offering the latest insight into the industry's business development, marketing and technological advancements. Meetings are held twice a year. If you would like to become a Georgia Marketing Council member or to receive additional information, please contact Leatrice Dooley, GMC Treasurer/Secretary, at (404) 658-6544, leatriced@cuatlanta.org.

Click here to see more photos from the meeting.

Be on the lookout for details of the next GMC Meeting at the Hampton Inn in Savannah, Georgia.

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