Act-On Software Helps Truity Credit Union Connect with Customers

Cooperative financial institution Truity Credit Union, which has branches in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and Arkansas, has been competitive with larger financial institutions by offering its customers better rates, fewer fees, and more personal attention. But until recently, Truity's approach to email marketing was leaving the organization in the dark.

Truity was relying on ad-hoc promotional emails, text-only messages, and manual member tracking, all of which were managed by the company's e-commerce team. This approach proved time-consuming and inefficient and did not capitalize on opportunities for gathering customer information. "We were sending a lot of emails out from our core operating system, and that didn't have all the tracking functionality," says Kyle Dahlgren, assistant vice president of e-commerce at Truity Credit Union.

So the credit union enlisted Act-On Software's marketing automation platform, which enabled Truity to segment its subscriber lists, personalize emails, and provide prospects with worthwhile content. Armed with these tools, the institution has seen impressive results: Email open rates have climbed as high as 54 percent, with an average of 36 percent—a marked improvement in comparison to the previously maintained range of 18 to 25 percent. Conversion rates have also increased, with one campaign closing 17 percent of leads generated. According to Dahlgren, the increase in open rate is hugely important in terms of connecting with customers: "We are now interacting with—as opposed to just pushing emails at—our members," he says. "By using Act-On's platform, we have been able to gain a lot more knowledge about what truly is happening."

Act-On enables Truity to custom-design emails for notifications and promotional offers based on recipient behavior, and the credit union can now allow subscribers to self-select products such as home loans, auto loans, and credit cards using Act-On Forms. This information can then be automatically entered into email campaigns, saving marketers time and ensuring that customers receive the most relevant information at the right time.

According to Dahlgren, Act-On's segmentation tool has proven particularly valuable, as it has enabled Truity to delve deeper into its customers' preferences—and improve its customer relationships. "We have been able to find out more about how our members are behaving, and what interactions they have with us, from Act-On than we could with just running reports out of our core system," he says. "A lot of that has to do with the segmentation engine they have—we can query off the various fields in our data set."

In addition to marketing automation, Act-On provides clients with integration to all major CRM systems and connectors to third-party applications. According to Paige Musto, director of communications at Act-On, the software will enable Truity to continue to compete at a high level despite its small size: "The beauty and the simplicity of a platform like Act-On allows Truity to compete with big banking firms and…deliver [their customers] an experience that companies of their size may not be able to do with the resources they have," she says.

The Payoff 

Since implementing Act-On Software's marketing automation platform, Truity Credit Union has seen:

• an increase in email open rates from 18 percent to 36 percent;
• an increase in conversion rates, with one campaign closing 17 percent of leads generated; and
• an increase in campaign response rates—within one week of implementation, Truity had received hundreds of new credit card applications.