How to Nurture Positive Growth

​Personalization is the key to portfolio development growth – create an impactful member experience with tiers that empower relevant offers and campaigns. 

by Phil Seely, Senior Director of Portfolio Development for Envisant

Personalization is the key to portfolio development growth. According to Salesforce, 66% of consumers believe a company should know their individual needs and 52% expect personalized offers. While personalization can take many forms, its core attributes for portfolio development are tiers and time.

Tiers
Impactful member experiences depend on creating tiers, or segments, that empower the creation of relevant offers and engagement campaigns.

Low, medium, and high users—Card use has an important impact on building revenue and building a strong portfolio of loyal cardholders. Dividing cardholders by how much they use their cards is an important part of planning promotion and communication strategies. Promotions like limited time rewards, for example, can help encourage low frequency card users to utilize their cards for more purchases. Communications should target each group with the promotions and educational materials most suited to them; for example, high-level card users might benefit from offers, tools, and articles that help them manage their debt.

ACH vs. card use—Do you know when your members are using ACH vs cards for their payments? Analyze ACH activity from share drafts to gain insights into members who use ACH instead of cards, or a mix of both, for payments like cable bills, cell phones, insurance, utilities, etc. These present opportunities for turning ACH into debit or credit transactions.

Transactors and revolvers—Knowing how many of your cardholders pay off their entire credit card debt every billing period (transactors) versus those who carry a balance (revolvers) helps build a credit program that meets their needs. Revolvers, for example, would be attracted to offers like rate reductions or balance transfer specials while transactors would find reward offers more relevant.

New and long-term accounts—New account holders need to be managed differently than long-term users. Newer cardholders may have more questions, need more instruction, and require more encouragement to make the most of their cards. Meanwhile, rewards for different spending levels can encourage long-term cardholders to utilize their cards more often. Long-term users can also benefit from promotions that reward them for transferring balances on third-party cards to their credit union account.

Time
Once you have your tiers clearly defined, well-timed promotions and messaging can help you reach cardholders when they are the most likely to take action.

A strong start—Regularly reviewing new accounts at the start of the month can help you find cardholders who may benefit from some additional communications. Reach out to them to see if they have any questions or remind them of promotions they can take advantage of before the end of the month.
 
Well-timed loyalty incentives—Loyalty programs are important to driving long-term relationships, but it’s crucial to tie the biggest rewards to anniversary timeframes. Other loyalty-building promotions, like rewards for spending levels can be enhanced by connecting them with holidays or other times when people are spending more money like in the summertime when travel increases.

By knowing who your cardholders are, your credit union can better plan a card strategy that meets their needs and helps you communicate effectively at the right time to bring positive results.

At Envisant, our mission is to help credit unions compete and to provide credit unions with a favorable operating environment and quality information, products and services, which have value, and which enable credit unions to exist, compete and prosper in the financial marketplace. Visit our website to learn more. Envisant is a DakCU Senior CAP preferred partner. Contact George McDonald, DakCU's Chief Officer of Strategic Services with any questions.