How Capital Credit Union Uses Data to Drive Personalized Growth

Jim Marous (00:10):

Welcome to the FIsionaries Podcast, sponsored by Alkami, I'm your host, Jim Marous. The FIsionaries Podcast shines a light on financial institutions at the cutting edge of digital transformation, providing you with the tools to elevate your digital game, no matter your organization size.

Jim Marous (00:29):

Financial institutions of all sizes face mounting pressures to deliver personalized experiences that rival tech giants and fintech disruptors. As consumers increasingly expect tailored financial services that anticipate their needs and preferences, credit unions must evolve beyond traditional relationship banking.

Jim Marous (00:51):

We're joined today by Steve Zich, Chief Marketing Officer of Green Bay’s Capital Credit Union on the FIsionaries Podcast. Steve has spearheaded remarkable transformation in how his institution is leveraging data to enhance member relationships while maintaining the personal touch that credit unions are known for.

Jim Marous (01:13):

We explore Capital successful integration of advanced analytics with traditional relationship banking, examining specific opportunities and challenges that organizations of all sizes will face along their journey.

Jim Marous (01:27):

Capital Credit Union offers a blueprint for financial institutions looking to enhance member engagement while navigating interest rates, increased competition, and changing consumer behaviors.

Jim Marous (01:39):

Through targeted technology investments, strategic data utilization, and a commitment to maintaining personal relationships, Capital really can showcase how credit unions can thrive in an increasingly digital first financial world.

Jim Marous (01:54):

So, Steve, before we begin, can you share a bit about your career journey and how Capital Credit Union's marketing efforts have evolved over the last several years?

Steve Zich (02:04):

Yeah, so great. Well, it's great to be here, Jim. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to share and talk a little bit about marketing with you all. My journey began about 20 some years ago, and actually, I didn't start out in the financial industry.

Steve Zich (02:18):

I started out in telecom, so I started my career with Time Warner Cable, that's a great story in itself. I started off an intern and I kind of worked my way up the ladder with them. After that, that's when I kind of transitioned into that financial space.

Steve Zich (02:32):

I had a great relationship with another credit union leader in the area, and I hooked up with them, and I spent about two years with them. I left that and I went into retail did some retail marketing led Goodwill industries of North Central Wisconsin and the retail side of that and human services side. So, that was really interesting.

Steve Zich (02:52):

And then I came back into the credit union space and led the digital marketing for another financial in our area before hooking back up with Capital Credit Union as their Chief Marketing Officer. So, kind of went around a little, bit different verticals but with that, been able to bring a different type of marketing, I want to say to Capital than what it has in the past.

Steve Zich (03:15):

Really expanded on that idea of how do we really meet the member where they're at and to be able to meet the member where they're at, there's a little bit of personalization that has to be involved in that, but how much do we do and how much do we ingest and infuse that type of marketing into it? So, it's been a learning experience and I have a great team that's been able to do it, and a great organization that's really open to that.

Jim Marous (03:41):

So, it's interesting, my background is, I came from financial institutions. I was also in the marketing area, and we were discussing yesterday on another podcast, the fact that one-to-one marketing came from a book Don Peppers and Martha Rogers probably 30 years ago, and they focused on how they believe that one-to-one marketing, the ability to precise experiences would pretty much start in the banking industry.

Jim Marous (04:05):

Well, we've talked a good game for decades, and Lord knows we try very hard to do better around offering what customers or members want, but we don't do very well in that. And as you've worked at Capital Credit Union, how have you moved from what I'll call traditional financial marketing to data-driven member engagement? What sparked this transformation?

Steve Zich (04:30):

It's really interesting that you start with one-to-one marketing. There's a philosophy that someone on my team, she's new and I'm going to give her all the credit in the world with this one that I really like, because I think it's important for marketers to kind of view marketing holistically and to do that, you have to start with what every marketer in every organization thinks that you have to do and that's the marketing to the one to all.

Steve Zich (04:58):

And from there, we take it from four approaches. It's one to all, one to many, one to few, and then one to one. So, there's different aspects and different touch points within that marketing journey that we're trying to meet the member where they're at.

Steve Zich (05:14):

Because the member or the prospective member, they are in each of those categories, and we want to be able to move them along depending on the stage of life that they might be in. It might be good for one-to-one, or you might have to start at the one to all, but in any one of those facets, we really use personalization when it gets down to that one to few and that one-to-one.

Steve Zich (05:38):

Because it's at that point that we probably have already established some type of relationship, or at least if you look at from a funnel perspective they're in that consideration stage. So, that's when we really got to get granular in our messaging and how we approach that.

Steve Zich (05:55):

One area that we've started to use and working with Alkami on this is that marketing suite that they're able to provide. When I started, it was called Segmint, I know it's called something else now today.

Steve Zich (06:09):

But being able to use that tool, to be able to kind of dive a little bit deeper into understanding our members' behaviors how they might interact with our products, how they use our products, and then building journeys, and that's an important word, building journeys to be able to execute on that, meeting the member where they're at and then being able to build that personalization, that's one piece that we do.

Steve Zich (06:36):

The second piece that we do that we're in our infancy stages, and we're truly trying to get better at and I think it stems around this idea that we're a big, indirect dealer financial institutions so we do a lot of indirect. And some financials love it, some financials hate it but the one part to it is that with every financial, it's one of those struggles of really establishing that relationship.

Steve Zich (07:04):

So, we have gone a little bit further in that approach by really creating an onboarding process for these members. And not just those members, but any member that comes through our doors, whether it's through the indirect channel or the direct channel, however you want to look at it.

Steve Zich (07:18):

But really creating an onboarding process that is very personalized, very welcoming, understanding that we are meeting the member where they’re at, we're learning about them, we want to know more about them so that we can serve them better serve. So, that's part of that build that we're trying to do from a personalization standpoint.

Jim Marous (07:35):

It's interesting that you mentioned the indirect business because my familiarity with the indirect business is a lot of organizations talk about, "Well, we want to build a relationship around the indirect," but it ends up being just the indirect relationship, which is really, it's not like you make a ton of money on that indirect, the money is made when you can expand beyond the one service relationship.

Jim Marous (07:59):

How do you identify the data points that are most valuable in understanding and predicting member needs? Can you share a success story where maybe data insights led to a significant improvement in either member experience or in your sales goals?

Steve Zich (08:15):

Yeah, sure. So, I think one, I'll use the inject side of things and one insight that we've learned and I think this goes back to a lot of members and understanding their behaviors but for us, it's starting from an indirect standpoint. You're right, they come in, they don't necessarily always know what financial institution they took their loan out with, they just know they got a loan.

Steve Zich (08:38):

And that's the first thing, is really establishing that relationship and letting them know that "Hey, you just got your auto loan with Capital Credit Union, and we want to let you know who we are, why we exist and what we can do for you," because you know nothing about us, so that's the first part.

Steve Zich (08:55):

The second part is understanding, and we learn these insights based off of behaviors of our current members, is what helps a member become stickier. And one of the insights that we learned is our digital banking.

Steve Zich (09:10):

Once you get them engaged with the digital banking, whether it's downloading the app or setting up their account that begins the journey down that stronger loyalty and relationship with that member. So, once we’re able to do that … so we started to implement that communication, that messaging, one of the first pieces that they get is activate or set up your digital banking, download your app.

Jim Marous (09:35):

And once they do that, we know that they're beginning that engagement and they're beginning to become engaged so that we can start introducing other products or other services that might align with their need and we also learn that through some of the data points that we get from the Segmint product through Alkami.

Jim Marous (09:55):

So, it's interesting Steve, that organizations of all size doesn't matter how big or small you are, we kind of struggle with legacy systems and siloed data. At 2.5 billion, I think your assets are, how did Capital Credit Union overcome these internal challenges to create a unified view of your members' behavior?

Steve Zich (10:19):

I'll be honest and completely transparent; we haven't mastered it yet. Because one of the things with financial industries that I've learned in my 20 plus year career in marketing and around data, is that you could get a lot of data and when you have a lot of data, it can really create this idea of analysis by paralysis.

Steve Zich (10:42):

And in the financial industry, we get a ton of data, we have a ton of data at our fingertips, and how do we kind of peel back the onion, as I like to say, to really get at what we need to know. And we're still learning how to do that the right way so that we have the right data at the right time. And in no way have we been perfect at that but I do believe that the systems and the processes that we've begun to set up has allowed us to get better at it and stronger at it.

Steve Zich (11:14):

And I think 2025 for Capital Credit Union, it's going to be an area where we get even better at it. I do want to say on that point for any organization, if they really want to become strong and good at what they do and how they manage their data, they need to have a strong relationship with their IT team.

Steve Zich (11:34):

IT and marketing in this day of age may need to walk in lockstep, just like marketing and finance in all stages, always had to walk in lockstep. So, the three, finance, marketing, and IT, marketing needs to have strong relationships with both those entities within the organization to be able to move forward.

Jim Marous (11:57):

It's interesting, when I talk to organizations, a lot of organizations who have been successful have realized that they don't have to start from a standing stop. You mentioned earlier, using Segmint from Alkami and the benefits that that provides because they can help you with case studies and ideas that have happened from their whole wide array of customers at different size to different types of organizations because a lot of low hanging fruit in the marketing world.

Jim Marous (12:29):

But if you don't use a partner like this, what I'll call crowdsource marketing, you really are starting from a beginning point that you don't need to start from, because some people have already traveled this journey or in the journey currently.

Jim Marous (12:43):

How much do you rely on Alkami and Segmint to actually help you develop new initiatives, new strategies that will make it so you can build success stories that can answer those questions that finance continually asked around, "Okay, but how did it do? Are you a cost center or are you a revenue center?"

Steve Zich (13:03):

Right. Helped quite a bit and we use it quite a bit as well. And sometimes it's not so much just to set up a campaign either which is what we do use it for primarily to help generate that revenue and growth, but we also use it to research.

Steve Zich (13:24):

So, within there, it's has a great tool to allow us to, again, I think I mentioned this before, dig in a little bit more on the member, on their behavior to understand a little bit of, "Okay, this group of member might be spending money at Home Depot a lot or looking at different home improvement stores, they might be doing a lot of that."

Steve Zich (13:50):

So, what is that telling us that the stage of life they might be in, and then being able to use that type of data and that insight not just to deepen the relationship with our member, but also begin to use that data insight to also try to acquire new members and that's a lot harder.

Steve Zich (14:10):

And that's harder for any marketer because it's more expensive, obviously. But how do you kind of lessen that expense by using your own first party data, I'm going to call it, and leverage that to allow you to use those insights to allow you to be better and more strategic in the acquisition side. I think that's the part that I want to really implore in marketers today to kind of use what you have and really use it to build those audiences to try to acquire a new one.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (14:48):

So, let's take a short break to recognize the sponsors this podcast, Alkami Technologies.

Jim Marous (14:58):

Welcome back to the FIsionaries Podcast, sponsored by Alkami Technologies. It's interesting, there's no discussion that goes on in the marketing world, in the banking world right now that doesn't at least reference artificial intelligence and that can and could prevent some help in the whole personalization strategy.

Jim Marous (15:17):

Has Capital at all looked at or are you going to be looking at leveraging artificial intelligence in any level in your personalization strategy? And if you do, how do you make sure these tools, or even your regular data tools, how do you make sure they enhance rather than replace human relationships?

Steve Zich (15:39):

I think I'm going to start right there with the enhance versus replace. When it comes to AI and Capital Credit Union is dabbling a little bit in how AI can support our efforts and not replace anything. Because I think what's important to understand is that in today's state, and this is completely my opinion, to use AI well, and use AI to its benefit, you need to identify where AI can fill a gap.

Steve Zich (16:11):

And I think right now, today we're in a place where we're trying to figure out where the gaps exist and where can AI help us be better and stronger, faster, more efficient to be able to, again, go back to that statement of meeting the member where they're at.

Steve Zich (16:29):

So, Capital Credit Union isn't fully engulfed in AI technology or AI software or anything like that. I think we're still in the infancy stages of really trying to understand where AI exists that to help and fill gaps and that's kind of where we're at.

Steve Zich (16:47):

Even from a marketing team perspective, I think, AI comes in and it says, "Okay, where can AI help a marketing team be more efficient,”especially for a marketing team that might not be very large or smaller, how can they help a marketing team piece faster the market.

Jim Marous (17:04):

So, Steve, when you look at what you're doing, and it's funny, when we have conversations with marketing people, I in my mind, visualize where I was in my career, what I was looking at doing, actually the desk I was sitting at, and the challenge that I had with finance and IT, and asking for paper reports, for programs that I ran months ago, hoping to build better marketing programs going forward.

Jim Marous (17:31):

But the whole cycle of change in communication and flow of data was so much slower then. How do you measure your ROI and your personalization marketing efforts? What metrics have proven to be valuable in tracking your success?

Steve Zich (17:47):

That's interesting that you asked that. I just had a meeting earlier this week when we started talking about what are those KPIs that we want to start looking at that say, "Okay, are we winning or losing?"

Steve Zich (18:02):

There's the standard everyday KPIs that every marketer uses, which are still important. Your clicks, your click throughs, your open rates, the vanity metrics, so to speak, which I don't want to put no disregard to them because they are critically important, but at the end of the day, how do we take those particular metrics and bump them up against are we meeting our business goals and challenges.

Steve Zich (18:27):

So, some of the ROI that we look at, I like to look at one, are we spending our marketing dollars wisely? Are we being efficient in our spend? So, the return on advertising spend is a big one for me that I like to make sure that are we meeting the number or the ratio that we set and if we are, that's a first indication that, yeah, our ads or our advertising that's in market is getting good engagement.

Steve Zich (18:58):

On the second flip side of that, then I look at what have we done from a conversion standpoint? And this is a little bit harder, I think, at least for us. And I think it's hard for many organizations in the financial space to really understand, “Okay, where's that one-to-one relationship that exists between my ad and that person taking an auto loan?”

Steve Zich (19:21):

And what I like to do is really look at, can I dig deeper into that journey of the person taking out the application, filling out the application, and then completion of the application, and at what point can I tie it back to whatever ad that might be out there and then tie it back to that again, that efficiency of the spend to say, "Okay, are we winning or losing? Is our marketing moving the needle in some respect?"

Steve Zich (19:47):

We put something in place last year a little bit that helped us kind of understand that. And this year I really want to be able to dig a little deeper with some of the enhancements that we have on our plate to do on the front end to help that member experience that's going to help us on the back end really, really put a number to the ROI.

Jim Marous (20:07):

It's interesting, Steve, everything we're trying to do, we're moving forward, and you never seem to have enough hands to do everything that you want to do or you actually need to do in many ways. Being in charge of marketing, what is your biggest challenge that you have today as you're trying to move forward and improve the way you generate member engagement and improve their experiences?

Steve Zich (20:36):

My biggest challenge today, I think, it's about keeping up with a pace and I'm going to put that in perspective of saying as marketers, sometimes we're tasked with how fast can we be with speed to market, whether it's with a product, whether it's with a campaign, whether it's with meeting the latest hot trend that's on social, how do we take advantage of that?

Steve Zich (21:06):

So, I think for me as a marketer it's that idea of how do we pace ourselves appropriately to not get into a place of being stuck in a whirlwind but how do we get into a pace where we can still slow down and be fast at the same time?

Steve Zich (21:25):

Sometimes you have to be slow to go fast, and I think that's an area where us as marketers as fast as things turn, as fast as things speed up sometimes as fast as we need to get to something to market, we just need to slow down a little bit and control that pace. So, I think that's the biggest struggle as a leader and marketer of an organization that I face.

Jim Marous (21:49):

It's interesting too, Steve, that as we look at member engagement and moving forward more and more personalization, people sometimes push back and say, "Yeah, but do people really want you to know them that well?” They talk about the big brother that knows too much about you.

Jim Marous (22:09):

Have you seen any pushback from your members as to the personalization you've driven? And do members ever say, "Why are you offering me this? Do you know too much about me?" Or do they really look forward to the fact that they can rely on you to talk to them on a one-to-one basis?

Steve Zich (22:29):

Yeah, that's an interesting question, and now I look at it from two perspectives. One is, we haven't received really any pushback on personalization or you know me too well, or how did you know this? On the other side, I think personalization can be tricky if you don't do it right, because if you give the wrong message to the wrong person, then they’ll be like, "I don't know why you're telling me this."

Steve Zich (22:55):

I think that to kind of find balance between those two of you're sending me too much to I don't know why you're sending me this is really understanding, again, going back to the data, understanding your data, having a good understanding of your member's behavior, having a good understanding of where your member is probably at and what they're looking for, understanding those learnings that you're picking up from website traffic or visits or even Google searches that are happening out there.

Steve Zich (23:31):

Putting all that together to understand kind of where the need is, and then creating that messaging and that's another important part is making sure that you're creating a message that really speaks to that person at that point in time, really that alleviates that struggle of big brother or missing the mark.

Jim Marous (23:53):

As you look ahead and I know markers we always aspire to be someplace else, some further down the road and everything that's going on in, and as you mentioned earlier, the marketplace is changing so quickly and the opportunities are so great out there. What, as you look forward, do you think will have the biggest impact on credit union marketing and the engagement of members?

Steve Zich (24:19):

I think what will have the biggest impact for credit union and marketers and this is just from a credit union as a whole and that is the understanding of what our credit union purposes. That idea of the credit union philosophy of people helping people, that's for all, that stretches across all the credit unions across the country.

Steve Zich (24:43):

I think the big thing with that is really adhering to that and understanding how your credit union fits that, and then how your credit union fits that mold of people helping people, how do you tell that story?

Steve Zich (24:59):

If credit unions are going to really, truly differentiate themselves from other financials, whether it's the techs, the SoFis of the world, or the big banks, Chase or whatnot, or even the community banks or even your other competition that might be in market, whatever that might be.

Steve Zich (25:18):

We need to be able to tell our story and how our story fits within that idea of people helping people, that's where the differentiation is created and that's how we differentiate ourselves with every other financial that's out there.

Jim Marous (25:34):

So, taking that to the personal level, you have banks on every corner around you. You have a lot of big banks, you have smaller organizations, you have credit unions, you have traditional banks, you have organizations that each want to try to personalize their customers or members' experiences.

Jim Marous (25:51):

How do you, as Capital Credit Union differentiate your organization from all the others out there that all say they're customer centric, they want to personalize, they want to be the customer's only financial institution, they can serve all their needs, how are you doing it at Capital?

Steve Zich (26:11):

Great question, great question. I want to say at Capital, we're doing that, and I'm going to start back by saying we're telling our story through this idea of financial wellbeing. Our vision as a Capital Credit Union inspire financial wellbeing for all through access, care and collaboration.

Steve Zich (26:32):

And for us to be able to do that, we at Capital Credit Union really feel strongly about we want to put our, I guess, plant our flag in the ground around that idea of financial education, the importance of financial literacy, the importance of what that means to strive to have strong financial wellbeing, and that means different things to different people.

Steve Zich (26:57):

But we do that through our partnerships. Partnership marketing is very big for us, who we partner with to be able to help provide that access and also be able to collaborate, to be able to really reach that vision that we have. So, we really wrap ourselves around that idea of building that bridge for members and connecting them to that idea.

Steve Zich (27:24):

So, if we feel that we're able to connect them to that idea of having financial wellbeing and being stronger in that, whatever that might mean, at whatever stage of life you're in, we could differentiate ourselves. And we do that through our partnerships and through other marketing and just that member experience, it all comes together.

Jim Marous (27:42):

Finally, Steve, what advice would you give to other credit union leaders who are just beginning their journey towards more data-driven personalization?

Steve Zich (27:53):

The one advice I would give other credit union leaders, credit union marketers, is to really spend time with your member data. And I just don't mean the data that's in your core, I mean, spend time with your members on the front line.

Steve Zich (28:12):

Get to know your members, understand their struggles, understand what makes them happy, what makes them excited, why did they get excited about taking out that auto loan? Or why did they get excited about getting that first home or their second home or third home?

Steve Zich (28:28):

Really get into the weeds a little bit of that frontline team use them they spend more time with our members than what we as marketers who are in the back office do on a daily basis. So, when I talk about spending time with data, it's all data.

Steve Zich (28:47):

It's the data that's in your core, it's the data that walks them through your doors. When you put those together to really get insights and learn those behaviors, you'll position yourself to be able to create those inspiring messages, inspiring ads and really connect and engage with your members.

Jim Marous (29:11):

Boy, and that is so basic but yet so insightful in that basically you got to get closer to your members and use your team to help you define what they want, what they're doing, how they're feeling. And we sometimes forget the easiest ways to connect is through the people that are front facing to these members on a regular basis.

Jim Marous (29:34):

But you're right, it's key and the job's never done, it is very key to, it doesn't matter if I'm talking to a Chase bank or I'm talking to a Capital Credit Union, the reality is, it's a never-ending battle to try to deliver a better level of service and better engagement that the customers and members want.

Jim Marous (29:56):

Steve, I really appreciate you being on the podcast today, you shared a lot of really good ideas. It also is clear that it's not the size of the organization, but the focus that you can drive. It's not the size of the budget, but what you do with that budget, you brought that up earlier in the podcast. So, I really appreciate your time today.

Steve Zich (30:16):

Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate being here and sharing some thoughts. I hope I left a nugget or two for the listeners to walk away with.

Jim Marous (30:26):

Thanks for listening to the FIsionaries Podcast sponsored by Alkami. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into all the tips and tricks you can use to help elevate your digital game. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share with others, post it on social media, or simply leave a thumbs up and a comment.

Jim Marous (30:49):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts, a special thank you to our senior producer Leah Haslage, and audio and video engineer Chris Fafalios.