The Perfect Network Connection is...

Emotional connection is the key to building trust, loyalty, and engagement with your audience. But how do you achieve it in your marketing communication? Here are some tips to help you craft messages that resonate with your audience's feelings, values, and needs.

Know your audience.

The first step to emotionally connect with your audience is to understand who they are, what they care about, and what problems they face. You can use tools like personas, surveys, interviews, or social media listening to gather insights about your audience's demographics, psychographics, and behavior.

Choose the right tone.

The tone of your communication is how you express your attitude, personality, and emotion. It can be formal or informal, friendly or professional, humorous or serious, depending on your brand voice and your audience's expectations. The right tone can help you establish rapport, credibility, and empathy with your audience.

Use storytelling.

Storytelling is a powerful way to emotionally connect with your audience because it appeals to their imagination, curiosity, and emotions. Stories can help you illustrate your brand values, showcase your customer success stories, or explain your product benefits in a memorable and engaging way.

Show empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It can help you emotionally connect with your audience by showing that you care about their needs, challenges, and aspirations. You can show empathy by using words like "you", "we", or "us" to create a sense of connection and belonging.

Adding value.

Adding value is the act of providing something useful, relevant, or beneficial to your audience. It can help you emotionally connect with your audience by demonstrating your expertise, generosity, and trustworthiness. You can add value by sharing valuable content, such as tips, insights, resources, or recommendations.

Why the Healthcare Industry Loves Credit Unions

As the baby boomers are growing older, so grows the need to provide healthcare for this aging population. The number of US healthcare jobs recently surpassed those in manufacturing and retail for the first time in history.?According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 5 of the top 10 fastest growing jobs are in healthcare related fields, with employment rates projected to grow as much as 18 percent from 2016 to 2026. This is much faster than the average for all occupations, adding about 2.3 million new jobs in that time frame.?

Contributing to this industry's surge in growth is the aging, but still very much active, workforce. By 2025 a quarter of the workforce will be older than 55 — a number that will have doubled over 30 years. With retirement ages pushing back, and couples waiting to start families later, it seems the idea of taking early retirement is for the few and far between. Instead, people are having to plan for life events that occur after 55, impacting their financial planning and requiring them to work later into life, during what would have been considered at one time, their retirement years.?

While this population trend can be traced back to many causes, the results are still the same. People are living longer, working later in life and needing more healthcare. If you are a credit union with its member base in the health care industry, you better start preparing for the influx of health care professionals that need financial services. It's time to hone your marketing skills and develop a healthy marketing strategy that appeals to as many members as possible before they are snatched up by another financial institution.

One thing you have going for yourself is the fact that you are a credit union, with a unique affinity attached to your name. While your credit union's health care affiliation alone will put you at the top of their list of choices, it's up to you to further set yourself apart from the rest by showcasing what makes you unique.?

Consider this: Health care professionals often have non-traditional hours, and they may find themselves trying to check their balance at 3 a.m. in a hospital break room. Build into your marketing strategy all the conveniences you offer, such as the agility of your mobile banking apps, remote deposit capture, eSignatures, and instant balance information. Market your bill pays capabilities, and how they can be automated, which can be helpful especially when their work schedules change at a moment's notice. Highlight your ability to offer fraud alerts instantly and temporarily freeze their accounts, providing them some control in an uncertain situation, when they likely can't step away to fully investigate. Additionally, you might also let them know you provide 24-7-member service, the ability to check their credit card, and assistance in building a budget in order to save for that long-awaited, and deserved, vacation.?

The ability to offer all of these member services will ensure you are at the top of their list and ultimately become their number one choice and primary financial institution. Knowing they can easily manage their finances will give them peace of mind and allow them to focus on their important job of caring for their patients.