NAFCU Services Blog

The importance of consistency in marketing is often overlooked as a way to strengthen your credit union branding and to make a great first impression with potential members. We always remember to keep the big things in our marketing consistent, such as making sure the website and advertising have a uniform look and messaging, but it is all-too easy to forget that the little things matter too.

In Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide (which, by the way, is a great read), John Jantsch writes, “Any time that a client or a potential client comes into contact with your firm, they are experiencing your firm’s brand or style. If you accept that definition, then you quickly see that any list of elements must also include: stationary, forms, telephone manner, delivery vehicles, printed materials, office facility, smells, business cards, invoices, customer service, salespeople, signage, employee attitudes, sounds, attire, fax cover, advertising, email format, website, vendors and tastes.”

While obviously a lot of those elements are not relevant to credit unions, the takeaway here is that every type of contact or interaction you have with your members and potential members, no matter how small, helps develop the overall impression of your brand.

Allow me to provide an example that pertains specifically to consistency in colors for branding. Do you use financial calculators on your site to help members manage their finances? If you do, these calculators are part of your overall brand impression. Do they match the rest of your credit union branding? Even the small things, like the style or the color of calculators you use, affects your members’ perception of your credit union.

With this in mind, CULookup.com calculators (free to NAFCU Members) recently rolled out a new customization feature- the ability to match calculator colors to your credit union branding. Making sure that your financial calculators match your credit union colors may seem like a small thing to do, but it goes a long way as far as branding is concerned as it helps keep everything consistent.

We’ve already had a few credit unions implement new color options. Joseph Mecca from Coastal Federal Credit Union told us about the benefits: “Having the custom colors option available to us has helped to make the calculators feel like a fully integrated part of Coastal's website. Our web presence is a quilt of third-party solutions; being able to bring them together with cohesive branding is essential in creating a seamless experience for our members."

Here are some other examples of how credit unions using CULookup.com calculators have implemented customized color schemes that match their credit union’s branding: