How we Helped a Credit Union Improve the Return on their Investment

In 1951, in the boiler shop of the Canadian National Railway's Transcona Shops, a credit union was born. It was founded on the vision of 10 tradespeople who invested $5 each for an opportunity to save and borrow money. Since then, Transcona Credit Union has changed its name to Casera Credit Union, becoming one of Winnipeg's leading providers of innovative financial services.

Over the years, mergers and acquisitions have led to a decrease in the number of credit unions across North America. As they diversify and grow, these financial institutions face increased risk and stiffer competition from large banking brands that are saturating the marketplace. Casera Credit Union wanted to position and differentiate themselves in market, so they engaged Metric Marketing for assistance.

We worked closely with Casera to research and identify the credit union’s strengths, differentiators and opportunities, to position them favourably within the Canadian financial services market. We did this by first undertaking a comprehensive brand and competitive assessment and then developing a Brand Platform for them.

We began by developing a marketing structure—a clear and scalable brand architecture that could communicate the brand’s eco-system in a way that would resonate with Casera ’s various audiences. We crafted an “elevator story,” a concise explanation of the organization and its purpose, and we described Casera’s mission, vision and values.

Next, we articulated Casera’s brand essence, “Own Your Outcome,” and brand narrative, which tells the story of how customers are empowered to flexibly manage their money on their own terms, whether in person or online.

Finally, we defined Casera’s competitive advantage, value proposition, brand personality and communication pillars,  which would serve as the basis for any web or campaign work that followed.

To communicate Casera’s unique value proposition, we used two separate websites to reflect this messaging. We reskinned and redesigned the (in-branch) website, focusing on the look and content but not the navigation and functionality. This provided users with access to educational content. Then we developed and built a new site for Casera Financial, with the intent to optimize conversions (new member sign-ups).

With an enhanced online profile, we then executed a series of online, email and digital marketing campaigns to drive traffic to the two sites.

The first was a broad-based awareness campaign that promoted a personalized, in-branch experience. We utilized various tactics to brand Casera as a credit union that offers personalized, comprehensive, face-to-face service, backed by the belief that when their customers need to talk to someone in person, it’s their duty as financial stewards to be there. We also created quarterly, seasonal versions of the awareness campaign to highlight and promote specific banking products and services. The campaign’s creative work and copy were designed to scale across each season, establishing an overall brand consistency throughout the year.

The second campaign was targeted at financially savvy consumer money managers and promoted Casera Financial’s virtual offering, a self-service model that allows customers to manage their own finances whenever and wherever they want.

Each digital marketing campaign drove users to a product-specific landing page, which was used to encourage conversions.

Through ongoing targeting, measurement and adjustments, and guided by strong foundational research and brand development, we successfully connected more than 400 prospective members to Casera Financial’s application process, culminating in 100% growth in new account sign-ups.