Standing out in the financial services industry isn’t easy. Credit unions, banks, and fintechs are all vying for the same eyes and wallets, often with similar product offerings, similar interest rates, and sometimes, similar marketing messages.
So, how do you break through the noise and achieve your campaign goals? How do you grow your credit union membership, boost auto and mortgage loans, and build brand awareness when everyone else is trying to do the same thing, too?
At a banking conference earlier this year, Claritas and First Service Credit Union ($1.4B, Houston, TX) answered that question with clarity and data-backed confidence. Their joint session, “How to Outperform Your Competitors in 3 $teps” served up a clear, practical roadmap for financial services marketers who want to do more than just maintain. The session showed exactly how to win. Keep reading to replicate how First Service Credit Union leveraged Claritas data to outsmart, outmarket, and outperform.
Step 1: Know Exactly Who You’re Talking To
Most marketers think they know their audience. But here’s the kicker: many are guessing and guessing means waste — wasted impressions, wasted spend, and worse of all, missed opportunities.
With the help of Claritas P$YCLE® Premier, a proprietary segmentation model specific to financial services, First Service Credit Union uncovered powerful truths about its current member base. One big “a-ha” moment from a round of member focus groups? A sizable chunk of its members didn’t even realize they were members. It was a painful but enlightening lesson. The credit union wasn’t fully leveraging its marketing segmentation to the best of its ability.
Learning that there was potentially a lapse in emotional connection to the credit union meaning, low brand awareness, engagement, and loyalty, First Service looked at what others might consider a setback as an opportunity.
The credit union worked with Claritas to dive into its marketing segmentation data — including demographics, lifestyles, financial behaviors, and more — to pinpoint who its ideal members really are. Think: who’s most likely to engage, refer friends, refinance loans, or open new accounts? These insights became the foundation of its strategy.
Pro Tip: If you aren’t currently using a financial-services-specific segmentation model to personify the audiences that make up your membership, it’s time. But you need to go far beyond basic demographics. Paint the full picture with insights that include psychographics, life stages, and financial behaviors and attitudes. If your current marketing segmentation model doesn’t go that deep, consider evaluating other solutions.
Step 2: Deliver The Right Message, In The Right Channels, At The Right Time
Once First Service Credit Union knew more about its current and thereby future potential members, it needed to boldly reintroduce itself to the market. Enter the “Bank Like You Own The Place” campaign. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill promo. It was a confident and empowering brand statement. A reminder that credit union members literally own the place. The campaign spoke to independence, ownership, and belonging, which are values that resonated with the credit union’s members and prospects.
That said, creative alone doesn’t drive results, execution does. Claritas and First Service rolled out a multichannel media strategy that included:
- Digital display ads with lifestyle-based targeting.
- Email marketing personalized to member segments.
- Social media campaigns built for engagement.
- Direct mail that echoed the campaign theme in tactile, memorable ways.
Thanks in part to segmentation, First Service knew where its audience spent time, both online and offline. This meant it didn’t waste ad dollars guessing with a mass market approach. It delivered messages with precision. The results?
- $105 ROAS on an acquisition campaign that ran for three months.
- Cost per new member of just $30.
- Highest monthly new member growth in the credit union’s history.
Let that sink in. In an industry where acquisition costs of more than $300 per member are common, First Service cut through at a tenth of the cost because its message and media were in perfect alignment.
Marketing Takeaway: As counterintuitive as it might sound, don’t just be everywhere. Be where it matters, with the message that matters. Segmentation is your compass. Data is your fuel.
Step 3: Measure. Optimize. Repeat.
Too often, financial marketers launch a campaign, get a few surface-level metrics, and move on. First Service and Claritas flipped that script. The campaigns weren’t static; they were living systems built to evolve. Leveraging the latest measurement and attribution tools in the market, First Service Credit Union could see which channels were driving real account opens, what messages converted best, and which member segments brought the highest lifetime value. Feedback loops like this make it easy to shift budgets dynamically, refine creatives, and double down on what works.
In addition to the member acquisition campaign, Claritas and First Service further teamed up on an ongoing auto refinance campaign that netted results like:
- 1 million+ impressions per month.
- 1,500+ attributable refinances.
Those results are a far cry from what you can expect from a “spray and pray” approach, because First Service took a data-driven marketing approach that performs like a machine. Since every click and conversion was tied back to the original audience segments and media source, the team could prove marketing’s impact on revenue, which is something every CMO dreams of.
ROI Tip: Don’t just report impressions and CTRs. Tie campaigns to outcomes, whether that’s accounts opened, loans refinanced, members retained, or otherwise. Attribution is your bridge to the boardroom.
The Real Win? A Marketing Strategy That Scales.
First Service Credit Union didn’t just pull off a great campaign, it built a repeatable model. The magic isn’t in a single tagline or a clever ad. It’s in the three-step system:
- Segment smart — Know your ideal audience inside and out.
- Market meaningfully — Align message + channel + timing.
- Measure accurately — Optimize based on what actually works.
This is a scalable, data-first marketing blueprint for any credit union looking to grow in 2025 and beyond. Why does this approach work? It’s grounded in behavior, not guesswork.
Final Thoughts: It’s Time To Play Offense
Too often, financial institutions play defense in marketing. They wait, watch, and react. This case study shows what happens when you go on the offense, using data to identify your edge, deliver with precision, and optimize every move.
Claritas and First Service Credit Union didn’t just “do marketing.” They engineered it, and the results speak volumes. So, ask yourself:
- Is your credit union spending its marketing budget where it makes the most impact?
- Are you building real relationships with your best prospects?
- Are you connecting campaigns to outcomes that your leadership cares about?
If the answer is “maybe” or “not yet,” it might be time to steal a page from this playbook because outperforming your competitors isn’t about outspending them, it’s about outsmarting them.
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Monique Ruiz is the director of marketing at Claritas. Contact her at marketing@claritas.com.