Belvoir Federal Credit Union Marketing Scores Big with Website Game

Ron Daly
August 23, 2010 | COMMENTS

Looking for a creative way to increase members' awareness of its products and services, Belvoir Federal Credit Union put on its game face.

The Woodbridge, Virginia credit union had launched a “For Life” awareness campaign, aligning its products with the different life stages of its members – everything from buying a first car, to having a baby, to changing jobs, to entering retirement. To promote the campaign, the credit union realigned its website around this theme. But it needed an effective way to drive members to the site, where they could learn more about the credit union's products suited to their life stage. Belvoir Federal Credit Union found the solution through the interactive CU Web Hunt game.

Working with DigitalMailer and the credit union marketing technology company, Code Green, Belvoir Federal Credit Union launched the CU Web Hunt game this past spring. The contest encouraged members to explore the website, read about the credit union's products and find “slices of life” icons to complete a pie chart. Once members had navigated the website and found all nine pieces of the pie, they were entered in a prize drawing.

Belvoir turned to its Automatic Relationship Builder (ARB) e-mail program to help announce and promote the contest. Using the ARB, the credit union targeted its members with t ailored messages and measured the delivery and open-rate responses. Belvoir FCU members were sent a series of five customized e-mails to alert them to contest dates and prizes. Over the 45-day campaign, more than 70,000 messages were delivered, measuring above-average in click-through rates. On the first day alone, 95 visitors logged on and entered the contest.

The CU Web Hunt game system was developed by Code Green, which used the credit union's website as the “game board” for the Web Hunt. Code Green develops interactive web technologies specifically targeted to the challenges facing credit union marketers. Overall, the contest helped Belvoir Federal Credit Union surpass its marketing goals by 400 percent. “Our expectations were greatly exceeded when we saw the final numbers,” said Belvoir's Amy Shanks.

During the six-week contest, the credit union's website drew 134,380 viewers – nearly 40,000 more than during Belvoir FCU's new website launch the previous year. In addition, total page views almost doubled, and visitors spent an average of 12 minutes navigating through the web site. “That's a very sticky web site for us,” said Shanks.

And considering the original purpose of the “For Life” campaign was to increase members awareness of Belvoir Federal Credit Union's products and services, Shanks says there's no doubt of its success. “We definitely know our members are aware of what products and services we have now,” she said.

Ron Daly is president of DigitalMailer. Contact him at rdaly@digitalmailer.com. For more information on Code Green, visit www.codegreen.org.