Challenge

Goal

Solution

Result

Challenges they faced:

The team at 1st Choice Savings and Credit Union have been faced with the challenge of effectively engaging with their cardholders via email campaigns.

Goals they Set:

The credit union aimed to increase their open rates, click-through rates, approved applications and overall engagement for their email campaigns.

Solutions that worked for them:

The credit union successfully engaged with their cardholders with the Q2 email campaigns by identifying what worked for their cardholders by trial and error and using test methods such as A/B testing, analyzing industry benchmarks, and ensuring they implement a balance of promotional and informational emails to their email list. They were able to exceed their goals by increasing their open rates, click-through rates and approved applications for their email campaigns.

The following are techniques that the team at 1st Choice Savings and Credit Union have implemented to achieve their results and tackle the challenges they faced. We encourage other partners to follow in this credit union’s “footsteps” and implement these practices when executing email campaigns!

• Balance: They sent out a balanced amount of informational and promotional emails, to avoid cardholders from feeling overwhelmed with too many promotions.


• Personalize digital assets: They reached out to us to personalize certain aspects of their digital assets to ensure they are best suited to their cardholders. They also take what we provide them and add their own personal touch to ensure they are catering to their cardholders.


• Benchmarks: Using industry benchmarks for open and click-through rates allows the credit union to measure the results of their email campaigns. By doing this, they are able to observe how well they are doing compared to the financial industry.


• Right Time & Right Place: The credit union conducted secondary research to find the most optimal time to send their promotional emails. They concluded that Thursday mornings are the most suitable time to send emails to their cardholders. Since the preferred time to send promotional emails is around 10-11 am on Thursdays, they ensure that their subject lines resonate well with their cardholders who are at work at that time.


• A/B testing^*: The credit union has implemented this unique approach to test out different subject lines for their emails; they used this technique for the 5.9% Balance Transfer email. The credit union tested 2 different subject lines for their email; they used the subject lines provided from Collabria and they created one themselves. They sent the two emails to a test sample (4% of their email list) and evaluated which subject lines had the highest open and click-through rates within the first hour the email was sent. The email with the subject line that had the highest responses (open and click-through rates) is then sent out to the rest of their email list.

Promising Results

Grocery Spend Promotion Email:

On May 7th, the credit union sent out the Grocery Spend Promo email campaign to their cardholders. Although they did not use the A/B testing approach to optimize this email, they were still able to achieve great results from their email campaign. They used the email template and subject line provided by Collabria and included their own content to address their cardholders.

They were the results without the A/B testing:

• 36% open rate
• 4% click-through rate (48 people clicked a link)
• 2 approved applications within the first 24 hours the email was sent!
• 21 people clicked their microsites link
• 24 people clicked the card application link

5.9% Balance Transfer Email:

On May 21st, the credit union sent out the 5.9% Balance Transfer email and used the A/B testing approach to compare and improve their overall performance in relation to their Grocery Spend Promo email campaign.

A/B Testing:

They tested two subject lines, one provided by Collabria, “Consolidate Balances and Save” and they also created their own, “What Are Your Credit Cards Costing You”. They kept the majority of the script provided by Collabria, while also changing a few things around to accommodate their cardholders. The two subject lines were sent to 4% of their email list. The subject line that they created (“What Are Your Credit Cards Costing You”) had the highest open rate, so they used that to execute their email campaign.

By using an appropriate subject line that resonates well with their cardholders, they saw an improvement in their overall performance:

• 48.8% open rate
• 3.72% click-through rate (66 people clicked a link)
• 2 applications within the first 24 hours and 1 the next day!
• 25 people clicked the balance transfer link
• 40 people clicked the card application link

Thank you for sharing with us!

The team at Collabria appreciates 1st Choice Savings and Credit Union efforts in going the extra mile to determine how to best engage with their cardholders with their email campaigns.

Thanks to their efforts to inform and support their cardholders with their email promotions, 1st Choice Savings and Credit Union was able to exceed their goals by effectively engaging with their cardholders and increasing their open rates, click-through rates and approved applications for their email campaigns. The credit union has done a great job at addressing their cardholder’s unique needs.

We want to thank the credit union for sharing their success story with us and allowing us to share this story to inspire other partners who may be faced with similar challenges of effectively engaging their cardholders via email campaigns.

Take a peak at their email campaigns!

Here are examples of what 1st Choice Savings and Credit Union's email campaigns looked like visually. 

Grocery Spend Promotion Email:

5.9% Balance Transfer Campaign:

We encourage all of our partners to share their stories with us!

Reach out to our EIP team and tell us about your email campaigns, your conversations with members, your remote-working teams and how you're supporting one-another.