Best Public Relations Practices for Credit Unions: A Conversation with Joe Mecca of Coastal FCU

By Bill Prichard, APR

Years ago I authored a lengthy white paper on best practices for credit unions carrying out public relations programs. I wanted to approach the subject again – but in smaller bites.

One way to start is to find a leading practitioner in our movement and gather their counsel. I know of just such a person – Joe Mecca , Vice President, Communication at Coastal FCU, based in Raleigh, N.C. Mecca has more than 25 years of experience in public relations, including the last 20 years with Coastal.

We should start by defining public relations. According to the Public Relations Society of America, “Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Very well, then. I had a chance to speak with Joe on six topics tied to the art and science of public relations. Here are some takeaways for those of us engaged in bringing together organizations with their key stakeholders.

Media Relations

Mecca describes his media outreach as about equally divided between credit union trades and local general interest news and business outlets. “If it directly impacts our members, I’m going to lead with the local first,” he said. “If it has value sharing with the industry, the trades will take my priority. I do try to include both, but you have to carefully consider the relevance of the message to the audience.”

When pitching stories, Mecca says, first and foremost, know the reporter and the audience the publication serves. You can often reference a previous story they wrote when pitching a trend story. “If you're going to do a direct pitch, you have to understand your audience and understand who their audience is and who you are both trying to reach,” he said.

It boils down to asking yourself a series of questions before you pitch: “I always like to start with what is our objective? What is our strategy around communication? What is the plan for whatever particular thing that we're putting together? I need to understand why we're pitching something. What Is it? Why is it relevant? What happens if we're successful in getting that story covered? What do I want the end result to be?”

Timing is another key consideration: “Some of our local publications have pretty set editorial calendars and they like to write about certain topics at certain times of the year. So, you’ve got to have the timing of your story aligned with that. For instance, if they are covering home buying trends, we can then talk to them about what we are seeing with our lending products.”

One best practice that helps Mecca determine a good story is to ask his internal colleagues the same questions that a reporter would ask him. “Our business areas may request a news release or a social media post,” he said. “I like to ask them why they think it is newsworthy. Why would someone outside our four walls find it interesting.”

The author has found that to be a good rule of thumb also. I have a sales colleague who will sometimes approach me about doing a news release. I know he is a good sales person because he always makes the sale with me. He tells me what I most need to know – why the story is important and why it’s interesting.

Mecca characterizes media relations as “like the tip of an iceberg.” Communicating to the media via a news release, for instance, is only one “public.” There are other key publics to consider – employees and members. “If something ultimately is important enough to issue a news release on, then I am definitely going to make sure I have communicated the information to our employees and members as well,” he said. “At least half of my communication efforts are internal for the simple reason that if its going external, internal communication has to be included in that.”

Community Relations

Mecca said that Coastal’s community relations or Foundation programs are not part of the public relations or marketing departments, but it is highly synergistic.

“Our philanthropic efforts are a great way to continue sharing our messaging to the local community,” said Mecca. “Our initiatives – for instance, to facilitate access to technology or financial education – come back to us in the form of great success stories that I can tell the media and certainly let our members know about. We can also share these with our employees, which motivates them as volunteers and enhances their pride in working for Coastal. It also feeds into our work in recruiting employees and members.”

Return on Investment

Quantifying the value of public relations is a frequently visited topic by both seasoned professionals and learned academics. For Mecca, “The only way to put an exact dollar amount on it is to isolate it – equivalent ad value, for instance. But it is really about effectiveness. It is impossible to do public relations in a vacuum. It has to compliment the other things that you’re doing. I often say its true value is proven in the absence of it. You definitely notice when it’s not there. It's tough to quantify the value of the communication, but when you don't have it, you quickly find out where things are going wrong.”

Third-Party Earned vs. Self-Published

One of the trends that has revolutionized the public relations profession is the rise of website blogs and social media postings. Public relations people are now themselves “publishers” every bit as the third-party media platforms they are pitching. What is the mix? As with the blend of general interest and trade media outreach, both should be in the practitioner’s toolbox.

“Between earned media and ‘self-publishing’ through social media, blogs and direct communication to members, the mix is definitely shifting toward the latter,” said Mecca. “Today, you don’t have to just reach out to the media and hope for coverage and hope that members see it. I can take steps to ensure that my members are going to see it, or at least increase the odds that they are going to see it.”

“But then, earned media is great,” he continued. “It is an add-on for brand recognition and reaching new members and new audiences. It strengthens relationships with our community and business partners and, since it is an independent platform, it provides a value add. Also, if we do get earned media, that ends up being a good story that we then share through those self-publishing channels. So, it’s all a big self-feeding loop. We want to make sure we get our message out as many times as possible because you never know at what point it's going to resonate with somebody.”

Listening as Well as Communicating

Essential to the practice of public relations is listening as well as speaking. It is absolutely a two-way form of communication. Mecca employs a variety of methods, both direct and indirect, to ensure this happens, including close ties with internal colleagues and monitoring the media.

“I use a platform to track what's being said about us, what's being said about the industry and some of our local competition as well,” said Mecca. “This helps me determine what the public is interested in at any time and maybe identify some opportunities where we can insert ourselves into the conversation. This also helps us to know what it is that we may want to consider talking about with our members, even if we're not able to get involved directly with a media story.”

There can be no more important “public” than the credit union’s members and, says Mecca, “We’ve got a lot of member feedback channels that we use. I work closely with our marketing team and our contact center to hear what they’re hearing. We keep close track of what members are saying directly to us via in-coming calls or in feedback from our Net Promoter surveys. Additionally, we have a chatbot on our website and I'll work with our call center or marketing to get at the bottom of a concern. In this way, we can address an issue – make operational adjustments or something more – and begin to change perceptions.”

Social media is also a key means of listening, through comments and feedback from both members and the general public. Coastal’s social media accounts are managed by marketing, which keeps Mecca looped in. “Social media helps us identify what people are talking about; fraud is always a hot topic,” he said.

Mecca also spends time listening internally. “Many people don’t think of P.R. as internal listening, but it is key,” he said. “I spot a lot of our P.R. communication opportunities just by paying attention to what my peers are talking about. Often the conversation will begin in an almost off-handed way – ‘Oh, we should put out a memo’ – and it soon becomes obvious that a broader plan is needed. There is frequently an opportunity to speak to our members and the media beyond the small thing that was originally identified.”

And, just from a workflow standpoint, “Having eyes open for communications needs can help stagger things out a little bit and keep things running smoothly.”

Crisis Communications

Public relations people are on the front lines when a crisis occurs, but for Mecca the key once again is planning. “I like to treat things as though they could become a crisis and have that set of eyes on them so that we are thinking ahead. You want to consider what could go wrong and how. And, then, how would you handle it? You need to plan so that when any kind of incident pops up you can be fast and factual with your communication. People want to know what's happening. You need to get your stakeholders aligned pretty quickly, both internally for decision making and maybe even doing some process workarounds, and then communicate to who's impacted – whether it's our frontline employees or our membership.”

Fast, factual and accurate – “Even if we don’t know everything, you have to acknowledge what the impact is, what you do in fact know and what solutions you are pursuing.” Mecca maintains a guidebook that outlines different scenarios so that should something occur the credit union has a template for action – “So, it becomes a matter of assessing the situation, plugging in the details and getting the communication out.”

Mecca recommends that public relations professionals look beyond their own institutions – to businesses that might not even be in the financial services industry – for likely scenarios to be considered. And, even if an exact scenario never arises, the preparation is still well worth doing. “The benefit is that it raises our awareness of how to prepare for a crisis and think about what we would do and need,” said Mecca.

There is preparing for the crisis; there is the crisis itself; and there is also the post-crisis phase. Here, a review of what happened can lead to institutional changes that may help reduce the chances of it happening again, or ensure an even more effective response.

And, a final word from the author – thank you, Joe, for sharing insights with me and everyone engaged in the important work of organizational, two-way strategic communications.