Is your credit union ready for a new website?

If you’re about to invest six months to a year of effort and tens of thousands of dollars on your new Credit Union website, you want to be sure the results will move the needle for you on the key metrics that matter most.

The last thing you want to do is pull leaders and staff through a drawn-out process, only to be disappointed with an end result that’s just a slightly better version of the site you have now.

There is an alternative. Take advantage of the requirement to redevelop your site and use it to start leading with your brand. This way, instead of adding another layer to a vague or outdated brand that isn’t serving you or your members, breathe fresh air into every aspect of your Credit Union, through your brand.

Do you really need this?

Does your brand:

• increase your perceived value among current members?
• attract new members?
• increase staff engagement?
• strengthen your governance communication?
• guide your strategic decision-making?
• stake your unique position in the communities where you do business?
• let people know and love what you stand for?

People aren’t loyal to organizations, they’re loyal to brands. Is it your branches they love? The attitude of your people? Your community commitment? Your service offerings? Your interest rates? Brand, brand, brand, brand and brand.

All of these factors and more should align with your cohesive, unique and meaningful brand story.

Your marketing team (or person) is probably jumping for joy right now. If you’re like most, your visual brand (logo, etc) could use a refresh and some fine-tuning. But when leading with your brand, you don’t start with marketing, you start with leadership.

You start (with our help) by thinking about, talking about and working through the reasons you do this work, the opportunities, and the problems that keep you up at night. You get clear about what’s important and why, what fits in and what doesn’t, and how you do things around here.

We use conversations like this to build out your brand – and we apply it to your new website (because we also have deep expertise with Celero’s Umbraco system). And you determine how far you want to apply your new brand beyond your website, across your branches and in your marketing.

If all you do is that, things will get better. You’ll have a brand you love, your website will look great, you may attract more members and you’ll have some bragging rights.

But if you want to squeeze every ounce of value out of your brand investment, then you double down. While that brand is being developed, and certainly before you take that brand out for a walk, you work through what it means to live that brand in every nook and cranny.

If your brand is strong on quality and integrity, how does that sound when you speak? What does it mean when there’s a dispute with a member? How do you hire through that lens? What’s it like for people every day?

When done well, your brand is all about the values you agree on at your core, and people’s shared expectations – yours, your members’ and the people who work for you. When that’s clear, communication is simpler and decisions are made with the right intention behind them.

If you’ve had a brand refresh on your mind, it only makes sense to make that happen before you open your next new branch: your updated website.

Leading with your brand means knowing who you are, where you’re going and why, and assessing every aspect of your business through that lens.

Are you ready?