It’s hard to keep up with the growing number of available ways to communicate online – from social media, to online forums, blogs, mobile apps and more. It’s impossible to have a presence in them all (not even Google can!). So which channels should you focus your time and resources in when it comes to reaching your credit union members and potential members?

What do your members want?

The first thing to consider when evaluating how you communicate with your members is what their preferences are. You obviously want to be in the channels that your membership prefers, and looking at their demographics may offer some clues on where to start.

MarketingSherpa commissioned a study in January 2015 that asked 2,057 U.S. adults “in which ways, if any, would you prefer companies to communicate with you?” There were some clear trends based on age group.

• Email is the preferred channel of communications with companies by all generations.
• If you are targeting 18-34 year olds, you may want to start investing in your social media strategy.
• However, if a majority of your members are 34-54, text messaging is preferred over social.
• If your membership demographics tend to be on the older side, digital may be secondary to more traditional communications channels like postal mail and print ads.

Besides taking a look at general demographic trends, the best way to determine how your members prefer to be communicated with online is to simply ask them. Send an annual survey (email and postal mail to capture the non-digital bunch) or allow your members to select their preferences in their online user accounts.

What are your goals?

You should have clear objectives that don’t depend on any specific digital channel – goals always first, technology second. You’ll discover that once you have clear goals defined, certain digital channels will align better with certain messages or goals. There may be a balance you need to strike here between who your members are and who you want them to be, for example. If you have a goal of expanding your millennial membership, you’ll want to communicate that messaging more prominently on social media. If you are looking to increase engagement with retirement planning services, you might want to look at text message offers, email as well as print or postal mail, but leave that message out of the social media clutter.

What will your resources support?

As I mentioned, it’s impossible to be in every digital channel. You may need to further narrow your efforts based on the available resources you have. One way to do that is to evaluate where you might get the most bang for your buck. Whether it’s cutting back on costly print in favor of email or investing in setting up and maintaining a blog, it’s important that you fully evaluate the resources needed to successfully use a digital channel for your credit union. You get what you put in, so being in a bunch of digital channels halfway will produce mediocre results across the board. Devoting the needed time and resources in a few channels that support your goals, will yield much better results.

Article published in the May-June 2016 issue of The Federal Credit Union magazine from NAFCU.