by Ron Daly

With upwards of 63 million adult Americans handling their personal finances online, this is the ideal time to make the leap to more targeted eMarketing. Fort Belvoir Federal Credit Union, Woodbridge, Va., made the leap. The credit union made a strategic decision to refit its eMarketing strategy to better reach its members who regularly use online services.

“Our primary reason for moving to a one-to-one marketing approach was to get the right message to the right person at the right time,” said Jacque Connor, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, at Fort Belvoir FCU. “We were looking at ways to target more specifically. We knew we wanted to have more than just a generic set of banners through the usual channels on our Web site.”

According to Connor, an important step in shifting the credit union’s marketing strategies was getting member feedback, which was gathered through focus groups. “What we heard was, ‘We know you know us. We want you to tell us what we need. Make suggestions for using the services that would be beneficial to our needs."

The feedback reinforced Fort Belvoir FCU’s decision to further develop its online marketing strategies. To further develop its eMarketing efforts, Fort Belvoir FCU turned to DigitalMailer and AdeptMedia, which teamed up in 2006 to offer multi-channel targeting capabilities. Connor said DigitalMailer’s email marketing tools and AdeptMedia’s “DeepTarget” data-mining and tracking tools made for the right combination: a system that would be responsive to members’ needs. As a result, Fort Belvoir can now reach members across all online channels – Web site, online banking service, eStatements and eLerts – with information tailored to individual requests and needs.

So how does it work? Essentially, says Connor, Fort Belvoir FCU creates various stacks of offers to share with members and determines which stack to send to which members, based on their MCIF data. The data is forwarded to DeepTarget, which sets up the ad and pulls the groups to receive a particular offer; the credit union delivers these individualized offers to members using their online systems.

Connor says she likes the fact that the stacked offers are constantly running in the background. “When staff get busy they might not have time to suggest other products or services, but DeepTarget always asks. Once it’s in the computer, based on the pre-set conditions, it will ask.”

“Now we’re able to be fairly precise in getting the right offers to the right markets,” said Connor. “Members sign up for eLerts using their account numbers, so the system can identify the appropriate stack of ads. And once they’re logged on to the web site with their username and password, members who have car loans with us won’t see car-loan offers appear. Similarly, if a member has a checking account, he won’t see checking account promos, but may see bill-payment banners, or other offers. Members receive information about products they don’t have with us instead of those they already use.”