Building an email marketing engine for credit union growth

About the project

As a CDFI serving more than 26,000 people across Louisiana and Mississippi, email is an extremely important channel for Firemen's Federal Credit Union.

When the organization canceled its existing email vendor contract, Mission Brands Consulting assumed responsibility for email marketing as part of its holistic management of the credit union's marketing and member engagement (which has also included a new website).

In just three months, Mission Brands helped Firemen’s Federal select and implement a new email platform, migrated a nearly 30,000-member email audience, and built the segmentation and automation needed to support targeted campaigns and member journeys.

Background

The challenge

For several years, Firemen’s Federal had paid a premium for a sophisticated email marketing platform but had under-utilized it. There was no email strategy, no logic or action-driven member journeys designed to move members through the funnel, and no data structure or governance to track how the platform performed.

Mission Brands was tasked with not only replacing the technology, but also building the strategy, data processes, journeys, and measurement framework needed to use email as a true growth channel:

Use member data more effectively

Organize membership, product, and loan data into reliable segments that are continuously refreshed for targeted campaigns and personalization.

Communicate beyond promotions

Create useful member journeys tied to onboarding, product ownership, financial milestones, interests, and previous email engagement.

Connect engagement to growth

Track how members respond, connect email clicks to website behavior, and know how email influences applications, funded loans, and revenue.

"We are HUGE fans of Mission Brands! They take the time to understand who you are and how you serve your members through an individualized approach instead of generic marketing campaigns. We couldn't be happier!"
Judy DeLucca
President & CEO

Our approach

Mission Brands operates as an extension of the Firemen’s Federal team, providing the strategy and hands-on support needed to build and manage the credit union’s email marketing engine. The work covered platform selection, data preparation, audience segmentation, member journeys, campaign development, testing, reporting, and ongoing optimization.

Phase 1: Platform and data foundation

A targeted email program needed the right platform, clean and usable data, and a repeatable process for keeping the audience current.

Mission Brands guided the move to Mailchimp Premium and worked with the credit union team to establish a nearly 30,000-member email audience, weekly data uploads, tagging rules, and quality-control processes. Member data was organized to distinguish membership origination dates, product endorsements and product acquisition opportunities to support a more email segmentation strategy. Member data security was also an important consideration. Mailchimp is owned by Intuit and provides a secure, trusted platform for managing member data and email communications. Mailchimp provided documented credentials to Firemen’s Federals IT and compliance teams to evaluate as part of the credit union’s own due-diligence process.

Phase 2: Member journeys and engagement

Mission Brands launched a six-week New Member Welcome journey that introduces the credit union, highlights useful services, and helps new members get more from their relationship with Firemen’s Federal. Rather than receiving a single welcome email, new members are guided through a coordinated series of communications during their first weeks of membership.

From there, Mission Brands began building journeys around meaningful stages in the member relationship: welcoming a new auto-loan borrower, reaching members as an auto loan nears payoff, reconnecting after payoff, supporting first-mortgage needs, and presenting relevant credit-card balance-transfer opportunities. Engagement paths use opens and clicks to shape follow-up communications. Targeted resends and next-step content allow Firemen’s Federal to continue the conversation with interested members instead of letting engagement end after the first email.

Phase 3: Warming, testing, and measuring the engine

Mission Brands moved Firemen’s Federal from implementation to targeted member marketing in three months.

The team used a deliberate warm-up process before scaling sends across the nearly 30,000-member audience, monitoring deliverability, engagement, and list health along the way. Mission Brands then introduced segmented campaigns, targeted resends, subject-line testing, link tracking, and a consistent UTM structure. GA4 was also implemented so member engagement could be tracked to see how members engaged with product web pages and promotions after clicking an email. This created the first measurable connection between email activity and website behavior while laying the groundwork for reporting on applications and funded loans.

Impact and outcomes

In just a few months, Firemen’s Federal has moved from one-off email sends to targeted campaigns and automated journeys built to support members and deepen their relatinoships with the credit union.

360k

emails sent in the first four months

50.2%

average open rate

2X

loan origination, quarter-over-quarter

318%

increase in web traffic from email (QoQ)

What's next?

Streamlined core connection and data updates

Firemen’s Federal’s upcoming core implementation is expected to create the next major opportunity for their email marketing program: connecting core and loan data with the email platform in near real time. With the right integrations and data governance in place, Mission Brands will be able to refine segments as member relationships change, respond more quickly to product and loan activity, and develop reporting that connects an email campaign with applications, loans initiated, funded loans, and revenue. Combined with the UTM framework and GA4 tracking already in place, this will move the program closer to closed-loop measurement from the first email click through origination.

Need email marketing support?

We partner with credit unions of all sizes to develop and execute more effective email marketing strategies. Get flexible support, from campaign consultation to creative services to full platform  management.

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