Originally posted in Anthem by NWCUA
Most credit unions still love their business development table days. And why not? Whether at a SEG, sponsoring community events or setting up at schools, table days are yet another channel to build relationships and trust.
The goals are two-fold.
One is to get people to come to your table. To be interesting enough that they want to engage with you.
The second, is lead generation.
This face-to-face time is a unique opportunity to capture what matters most to that person in front of you. Make it count. The information gathered allows you to deliver more value when following up.
What usually happens is someone stops by the table, you chat, then wrap it up with something along the lines of, “We’re happy to help you. Please reach out to us when ready.”
This leaves the busy member or potential member in the driver’s seat.
With a little creativity, these table days can be another channel of growth, providing an opportunity to stay top of mind and steer ongoing, relevant conversations. It can effectively fill the sales funnel for new members and help find new ways to better serve your existing members.
One way to accomplish this is to bring along a tablet and have every person who stops by fill out a short survey to enter a drawing for a prize. There should be no more than five questions. Keep survey questions short and interesting.
Fields should include first name, and email. Pose questions that emotionally resonate and showcase the value your credit union provides. Here are few examples:
1- Are you a member?
- You bet!
- Not yet.
2. I would be living my best life if….
- The monthly payments for my sweet ride were less.
- I could save money without sacrificing my daily coffee or chocolate fix.
- My money worked harder, so I won’t have to for much longer.
3. My favorite greens are
- Avocados
- Spinach
- Broccoli
- A money mix of Franklin, Grant and Jackson
Use Survey Monkey or some other CRM survey solution to populate the data on a spreadsheet. On the backend, reference the information to personalize follow-up calls and position credit union outreach efforts as a helpful resource.
For four hours, Lewis Clark Credit Union, based in Lewiston, Idaho, used tablets to engage students during a Welcome Walk at a local community college. Their “Welcome to the Sweet Life” table, overflowing with an assortment of candy treats was hard to resist!
The table day resulted in 57 solid credit union leads, many of which said, “We bank with Chase but are interested in making a switch.”
Truly sweet rewards for LCCU.
Think of table days as an opportunity to humanize that connection with potential and existing members through the value your credit union can provide.
Start brainstorming. How can you attract as many people as possible and find out what’s important to them? What are you doing that’s engaging?
This is your chance to be creative, personable and most importantly, memorable.