Credit Union Leasing of America (CULA) is the 30-year leader in indirect vehicle leasing for credit unions—a program that enables credit unions to offer vehicle leasing financing. With the largest number of credit union partners and the longest standing tenure with credit unions, CULA is committed to maintaining its strong reputation of excellence.
With new marketing goals on the horizon, CULA relies on Delivra to bring top-quality and consistent communication to two main audiences: their credit union partners and the auto dealers that those credit unions work with during the vehicle leasing process.
We sat down with Marketing Manager Lindsay Ball—CULA’s one-woman marketing team with more than 20 years of experience—to discuss Delivra’s role as an extension of her team, and how she gets the most out of her daily use of the tool.
From the best-kept secret to the known leader in the industry
With the implementation of Delivra, CULA can use its brand to set the tone and distribute more consistent messaging allowing them to grow awareness and build relationships with credit unions and vehicle dealerships across the United States.
Ball said, “One of the main goals for the organization as a whole is to implement more consistent communications. In the past, this wasn’t something we were focused on, but with Delivra, we are laying a foundation for what our communication looks like and what our audiences can expect from us.”
When it comes to email marketing, Ball focuses on two types of emails to maintain a consistent connection with their audiences. Single-send announcements to both their credit union partners and auto dealership audiences to update both groups on changes in the industry such as in laws regarding leasing in certain states or new updates to the CULA program. And the monthly newsletter sent to prospect credit unions allows CULA to offer thought leadership about the industry and the business’ indirect vehicle leasing program allowing them to establish a sense of familiarity with the audience so when they’re ready to expand their financing portfolio, they’ll think of CULA.
And email as a relationship builder has worked. Since Ball started the newsletter ten months ago, she’s been able to increase the list size by 60.5%, from 889 subscribers to 1,427, while also increasing the open rate from 11.4% to 15.7%—all while during a global pandemic when marketers felt the pressure of no face-to-face interactions and fighting for attention in the inbox.
Easy reporting makes for more calculated decisions
As a one-woman marketing team, Ball relies on the user friendliness and the straightforward approach to the Delivra analytics dashboard. The reporting offers everything that Ball needs to successfully track her benchmarks and make data-backed decisions, plus more reporting insights that she hopes to dig into over time.
Ball relies on the Delivra analytics dashboard for two main functions: to track trends happening over a longer period of time with prospect clients and the ability to dig into why certain actions are happening in order to make more informed decisions on the content included.
“By using the Delivra analytics dashboard, I was quickly able to notice that every time we feature an article with industry statistics and data, people are highly engaged. Which allowed me to then go to my team and show proof on what our audience is interested in and push us to figure out a way to generate our own data to share and continue to prove ourselves as industry leaders,” said Ball.
One way this is done is by using the Delivra heatmap, where Ball can see the links within each email that received the highest engagement. The Delivra email forwarding feature also does this by offering insight into when subscribers are forwarding any CULA newsletters. And although this isn’t a traditional engagement stat to track, Ball uses this as an opportunity to understand which types of content subscribers find interesting enough to share with others.
Doubling open rates with segmentation and Salesforce
With Delivra’s Salesforce integration Ball is able to use a variety of criteria to segment contacts into specific groups such as state or dealer franchise. With Salesforce, she can swiftly create these lists and quickly import them into Delivra before an email send.
By taking the extra step to segment an email send, CULA is able to double its open rates. For example, on a typical non-segmented email CULA averages a 20% open rate, but with segmentation they’ve been able to reach as high as 41%.
“The integration with Salesforce is so helpful because it allows me to do the segmentation that I need to do both quickly and easily. And the implementation process was so simple I was able to set it up myself without any help,” said Ball.
From a one-person department to a full marketing team
As a one-person marketing team, it’s crucial that Ball utilizes a platform that will act as an extension of her team, rather than a hindrance or a time constraint. With Delivra, Ball has all the tools she needs to be successful, without feeling totally bogged down or overwhelmed by a variety of different features that don’t apply to her role or the organization’s goals. All in all, Delivra allows Ball to accomplish her mission, leaving her enough time to accomplish the other marketing to-dos on her list.
“I would absolutely, without a doubt, recommend Delivra to other marketers because it makes my job much easier to do. I’ve used a wide spectrum of email services providers, but Delivra is my favorite. Switching to Delivra was the best decision I’ve made in my current role. Other email service providers are also easy to use, but they don’t come with the same kind of customization that I prefer,” said Ball.
