Member Stories. Meaningful Connections.

When a credit union has had a positive impact on the financial wellbeing of a member, allowing them to tell their story in their own words is a profound way to illustrate the credit union difference. Video testimonials are easier than ever to produce, and ubiquitous social media channels make videos easier than ever to share.

With the click of a “like” button, everyone from total strangers to high-value members, front-line staff to board members, can engage with the credit union and its market or even send kudos across the operation itself.

That’s the case at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union ($4.1B, Saint Paul, MN), where capturing and telling member stories is an integral part of a brand refresh now in its fourth year.

“It’s sometimes difficult to bring to life a brand differentiator,” says Joel Swanson, the cooperative’s senior vice president of marketing. “Video content — with real people and impact stories — is visual, so people tend to see a version of themselves in the story.”

Affinity Plus leans on its employees, primarily front-line folks, to originate stories based on their own experience as people helping people.

“Member stories typically start as celebrations for our employees shared on our intranet by staff as well as weekly news for leaders and staff,” Swanson says. “We then create more polished versions to spark deeper connections with our members through our newsletter, web homepage, and social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, in particular.”

The credit union also shows some of the member testimonials on in-branch video screens with closed captioning and at fundraising events for the credit union’s foundation.

These stories are inspiring for members and potential members, but they also are having a positive impact on the credit union’s operation, Swanson says.

“Since we started using the videos, we see employees sharing more internally and rallying around one another’s successes.”

From The Mouths Of Members

The first of the professionally produced member testimonials are now posted in the “What Members Are Saying” section on Affinity Plus’s homepage. These are the videos on which the credit union’s branch and marketing teams collaborated to produce as part of the brand refresh, and they feature members recruited by Affinity Plus.

“We paid them a modest amount and gave them the movie star treatment — makeup, wardrobe, etc. — to let us shoot them individually and as groups in a studio over several days,” Swanson says. “We ended up with hundreds of photos and clips.”

The marketing team now plans to produce at least one new video a quarter, varying the content to encompass member services, specific products, or community engagement.

The engagement of front-line operations people is critical to the process, Swanson says. After all, it’s easier to book a studio than identify stories. To that end, the credit union relies on several avenues to identify its stories. It encourages member advisors and branch leaders to share impact stories on the Affinity Plus intranet, making it as easy as possible to share by providing video software tools, such as Webex and Panopto, that enables them to create simple videos at their desk.

Marketing team members also ask for stories when they meet with Affinity Plus branch personnel across the state. And, of course, the credit union solicits stories through social media, sometimes including a small reward or prize drawing.

“International Credit Union Day has typically been a good timeframe for that,” Swanson says.

Sourcing these videos from different people and places has given Affinity Plus a range of new stories to tell. For example, after opening a branch to serve a neighborhood where English is not the primary language spoken, the credit union identified a story about helping a long-term member secure better financing for a car.

“We created a video in Spanish with English subtitles of a member and her Affinity Plus advisor,” Swanson says. “We used it in a paid media and social media buy in Spanish-language media. The video is a lot more powerful than an ad — and it sends a strong message that they can bank in their native language.”

Powerful And Memorable

When Affinity Plus initiated its brand refresh, it new it needed compelling content that supported its aggressive growth goals.

“Video is significantly more memorable and forges a stronger emotional connection than copy alone,” the marketing chief says. “A HubSpot study we use shows 80% of people remember a video they watched in the past 30 days. Brand recall for copy alone is around 10%.”

Indeed, the success of its video efforts has been both anecdotal and measurable. Swanson says social media posts that have videos garner significantly higher engagement. And Spanish-speaking media in its market has given the credit union shout-outs in non-paid content for supporting the community.

The metrics, meanwhile, provides some granular proof of effectiveness.

“As we create product-specific videos, we’ll look at the adoption funnel next steps and click throughs,” Swanson says.

UTM codes inserted in the content reveal where people go after viewing these videos and whether they eventually complete an application for a product or service.

A Team Effort

Finding good stories to share is where it all begins, but doing so isn’t easy.

“It’s the story gathering that’s often the most difficult barrier,” Swanson says. “Start an editorial group or listserv to get staff from across the organization to share their stories and reach out to gauge the member’s willingness to share.”

He says Affinity Plus has cross-functional editorial groups for social media and financial education content along with regular meetings with product and branch leaders.

He also advises against making perfection the priority. Real stories with real operations staff can be really effective.

“Don’t worry about being too polished for every video,” Swanson says. “Some of our favorites happen in the branches. Some iPhone shots we got surprising a member with a scholarship they won from the Affinity Plus Foundation led to a powerful story we made into a more polished YouTube video.”

Finally, Swanson also stresses that it’s OK to fail, a lesson the credit union learned when using local celebrities instead of real members to tell the credit union’s story.

“In 2020, we tried to leverage two paid spokespersons for a series of social media videos that illustrated the Affinity Plus difference in fun, short, TikTok-type videos,” the Affinity Plus executive says. “They fell flat, and then the pandemic hit and changed what consumers were looking for. They’re still on our YouTube channel — just sitting there, not being watched.”

Benchmark Your Performance With Ease

Find out how much value your credit union returns to its members and how you rank against peers. Callahan’s credit union advisors will walk you through your score, and you’ll get to keep your report free of charge.
Request ROM Scorecard