AgenCU to Make World-Class Marketing Materials Available to Credit Unions of All Sizes
By John San Filippo
The Reseda Group, a wholly owned investment CUSO of Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU), held its second annual Reseda Summit Sept. 18-19, 2024. The purpose of the summit is to let Reseda’s portfolio companies – most of them technology providers – showcase products to an audience of credit union executives.
Among the handful of Reseda companies that are not strictly tech focused lies the M3 Group, a full-service marketing, advertising and public relations firm, headquartered in Lansing, Mich. At the Summit, M3 previewed an online subscription service called AgenCU, a portal that allows credit unions to download professionally designed, customized marketing assets and full campaigns. While the service won’t officially launch until November 2024, Finopotamus took the opportunity to speak with M3 President and CEO Tiffany Dowling at the Summit.
A Growing Credit Union Connection
Dowling founded the M3 Group in 2002 to serve a wide range of industries. To this day, the agency has customers in manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, state government and municipalities, among others. However, several years ago, M3 acquired MSUFCU as a customer. At the time, April Clobes, who currently serves as CEO for both MSUFCU and the Reseda Group, was running marketing operations for the credit union.
Over time, the relationship between both M3 and MSUFCU, and between Dowling and Clobes, continued to grow, and two years ago, the two concluded it made sense for the Reseda Group to acquire M3. According to Dowling, even now most of M3’s business is outside the credit union space. However, both Dowling and Clobes agree that AgenCU has the potential to be a real game-changer for small to mid-sized credit unions that may struggle to produce top-quality marketing materials.
How It Works
“AgenCU is an online subscription platform that gives credit unions access to monthly credits they can use to purchase different marketing materials or full campaigns based on their needs,” Dowling told Finopotamus. She explained that a credit union can customize the materials with its own logo, color palette, etc., within the platform to ensure the materials fit with that credit union’s branding.
“They should be able to download it and use it right away,” she added. “And if they need additional customization beyond what the platform supports, we’re always there to help.”
No Duplicates
Since it is important that two credit unions in the same region do not use the same campaigns, Dowling said a safeguard has been built into the platform. As part of the new subscriber onboarding process, the platform matches a credit union’s self-reported geographic reach to its corresponding Designated Marketing Areas, or DMAs, of which there are currently 210. Originally developed by Nielsen to segment the United States for television advertisers, AgenCU uses DMA data to block additional credit unions from deploying a campaign in a region where it’s already being used.
“The platform will make sure that if you've downloaded a campaign, it's going to prevent any other credit union in the same DMA from downloading that same campaign,” said Dowling. “It will gray out that campaign for any other credit union in the same DMA. There will be a lot of wonderful campaigns for people to choose from, but that particular campaign will not be available to a credit union in the same region.”
Subscription Levels
While AgenCU service will not officially launch until November, current plans call for the following three subscription levels:
Essential | Plus | Elite |
15 Credits | 30 Credits | 60 Credits |
Access to All Assets | Access to All Assets | Access to All Assets |
Customization of Assets | Customization of Assets | Customization of Assets |
1 User | 3 Users | 5 Users |
$850/Month | $1,500/Month | $2,100/Month |
“Fifteen credits may not get you a full campaign with every asset,” explained Dowling. “One credit could be a rack card or five credits could be a set of brochures for a particular product line. It just depends on what the product is.”
Dowling further clarified that unused credits do roll over. “Your credits will build up,” she said. “You've paid for those credits, so you can absolutely bank them for bigger projects.
Emphasis on Education
“One of the things that I think is particularly unique about AgenCU is that we're really bringing a lot of educational materials in,” Dowling told Finopotamus. “What makes a good blog? What types of video production do you really need? Here's a marketing plan template for someone who maybe hasn't written one before and they really just need to get some things on paper. We're hoping to bring not just some really great creative assets; we're hoping to also deliver important educational components, especially for that one-person or two-person marketing department.”