--- title: "Learning & Insights from the MAC2026 Credit Union Conference" id: "53965" type: "post" slug: "mac2026" published_at: "2026-09-20T18:38:43+00:00" modified_at: "2026-09-20T19:31:44+00:00" url: "https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/mac2026/" markdown_url: "https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/mac2026.md" excerpt: "After 3 enjoyable days at the Marketing Association of Credit Unions 2026 Conference (MAC2026) in Scottsdale, Arizona, with its stunning desert and mountain backdrop, I thought I’d share some of the learnings and insights I brought back with me. If..." taxonomy_category: - "Banking & Finance" - "Thought Leadership" taxonomy_post_tag: - "Credit Union" - "Credit union marketing" - "Credit Unions" --- [Back to Articles](https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/) - [Banking & Finance](https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/category/banking-finance/) , [Thought Leadership](https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/category/thought-leadership/) # Learning & Insights from the MAC2026 Credit Union Conference Last Modified: 20/09/2026 **7 min read** [https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/author/peter-cunningham/](https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/author/peter-cunningham/) **Author:** [Peter Cunningham](https://www.buyapowa.com/blog/author/peter-cunningham/) - Marketing Director of Buyapowa After 3 enjoyable days at the [Marketing Association of Credit Unions 2026 Conference](https://www.macnetwork.org/mac-conference) (MAC2026) in Scottsdale, Arizona, with its stunning desert and mountain backdrop, I thought I’d share some of the learnings and insights I brought back with me. If you don’t know MAC, it’s where leading U.S. credit union marketers come together to share best practices and experiences. One interesting insight, was the wide variety of credit unions represented, from those with as few as 10,000–20,000 members and low hundreds of millions of dollars in assets under management (AUM), to larger institutions with hundreds of thousands of members and several billions of dollars in AUM. Here’s a quick summary, obviously based on the breakout sessions I attended. ## Keynotes The conference began with [Michael Hingson](https://michaelhingson.com/) sharing his emotional experience of leading people out of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, together with his guide dog. He explained how, as a visually impaired —or, in his words, “blind”— man, he always carefully researches every location before visiting and was well acquainted with the escape routes in the Towers before the event. He also explained that most people had no idea what was going on as they evacuated, whereas he was able to identify the smell of kerosene from an airplane. Noting that, unfortunately, 73% of visually impaired people are unemployed, he ended with a plea not to reject blind people for job interviews. [Sarita Maybin](https://www.saritamaybin.com/) gave a session stressing the importance of language and body language in communication, particularly how you begin a question or respond to a comment. Using less defensive wording, such as “help me understand” or “I’d like your help to…,” can defuse a situation and create a collaborative atmosphere. And when criticized, rather than immediately trying to defend yourself, you should “turn the other cheek” and ask for more details. ## Marketing to Gen Z A key concern for credit unions is ensuring that they can recruit and retain new members among younger generations, and, as a result, two breakout sessions were dedicated to that theme. Judging by the strong attendance at both sessions, this is clearly a topic that resonated with the audience. Both sessions highlighted the importance of youth accounts as a gateway to the credit union, although **Bryce Verlinden** and **John Lanza** of **Community Choice Credit Union** said that, while most credit unions have them, they often don’t give them much marketing attention because these accounts are not immediately profitable. Bryce and John gave some great examples of how a credit union can connect with youth audiences and their families, using cartoon-like characters, a dedicated family website or section, events in branches (complete with inflatables and stuffed toys) and at state fairs, and more. But this has to be an ongoing effort; otherwise, traffic will drop off. Interestingly, it doesn’t have to cost that much if you can reuse assets you already have (they decorated a Smart car that was left in the parking lot from a prior advertising campaign) or get freebies from partners, such as free kids tickets from zoos and local sports teams (of course, the accompanying adults need to buy a ticket!). Bryce encouraged credit unions to ask the question to partners and local venues, as you’d often be surprised at what they can give you for free. **James Dawson** of **Alta Vista Credit Union** and **Laurie Flanders** of **Strum** said that households are the best referrers of young people and that family members can enroll their children or grandchildren directly. They also noted that while youth accounts provide a great head start, getting a member at 15 doesn’t guarantee that they will stay with the credit union. The key to keeping these members is understanding what they want and remaining relevant to them throughout their lifecycle, so that the credit union becomes their primary financial institution. Although, given that the average American has five financial products and the average credit union member has just over 2.5, you are unlikely to be the only financial institution they deal with. Some characteristics of Gen Z members include higher adoption of digital banking (74%), paperless statements (64%), digital wallets, and direct deposit (19%). But Laurie said that instead of looking at these members by age, a credit union should look at life stage, as one person at 21 could be working, married, and have children, whereas another is still in college. It is not true that Gen Z doesn’t want to visit branches; it’s just that they don’t want to do so for day-to-day transactions but are happy to visit for important decisions such as mortgages. Laurie continued that, given that the oldest Gen Z members are 29, we need to stop thinking of them as kids. In fact, they advocated that each credit union should investigate: - What percentage of members are Gen Z? - What percentage of new members do they represent? - What percentage of lost members do they represent? - How long have they been members? - How many products do they have? As a comparison, at Alta Vista Credit Union, Gen Z represented a respectable 17.2% of all members, but fully one-third of all new members, while accounting for only 12.7% of lost members. The average Gen Z member had also been a member for more than five years. This showed that, if you can get them in the door, you can build a relationship with them. It was noted that many credit union staff members are Gen Z, and they can be a great source of information on how to connect with their generation. An interesting insight from the audience was that, while Gen Z cares a lot about CSR, one attendee said she didn’t know the difference between a credit union and a bank until she joined one. (Personally, I didn’t know at that age either!) It was said that this seemed like an old message —but that forgets that it’s a new message to someone who has never heard it before! ## Digital Strategies for Driving Growth **Erin Macasek** and **Lindsay Cielinski** from **BCU** ran through 10 different strategies they use to drive growth. While they stressed that there was no single strategy that worked on its own, and that it was the combination that drove results, some highlights were: - Out-of-home (OOH) worked well for location-based marketing, such as supporting branch openings. However, the creative needs to stand out, and you need to check the locations to ensure visibility isn’t obscured by trees etc. - Connected TV ads worked well as a low-cost tactic, including one ad filmed by a colleague in the BCU parking lot. - Targeting “gateway” products on paid search, such as auto loans, can work because of the later upsell opportunities that help cover the initial cost of the clicks. - Getting employees to act as brand ambassadors and create content for paid and unpaid social that is low cost and effective. - App push notifications worked really well with existing members, with interaction rates of 8–18% compared with around 1% for email. ## AEO As AI and clickless search are a concern for every business, not just credit unions, there was a lot of interest in the insights shared by the panel consisting of **Michelle Hyland** of **SELCO Credit Union**, **Jenn Wade** of **Copper State Credit Union**, **Corey Vilhauer** of **Blend Interactive**, **Vicky Roscoe Ericksen** of **Vertice AI**, and **Karan Bhalla** of **AIVantage**. Advice included making content easier to understand and more like FAQs, making sure there is a webpage for each branch, and using unique content such as member stories and reviews. The panel counseled against simply using AI to write content and emphasized that a human must be involved. In some ways, LLMs require content to be better written than it needs to be for traditional SEO. Karan mentioned that if you want to understand how younger audiences use LLMs, you only need to watch your children. ## MACQUEE Finalists While unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the award ceremony, we had the chance to see four very convincing candidates for the MACQUEE awards. In particular, what struck me was that these initiatives were often low-budget and quite agile. - **Heather Snyder** of **Fibre FCU** showcased how the credit union looked to get across its great member reviews without making them sound like member reviews. The reason being that most credit unions have great NPS and reviews—makes sense, as it’s all about service and member proximity – so they wanted to stand out as everyone uses their reviews in marketing. So they got their long-established radio voice to read snippets from reviews from an armchair, with a natural, dry sense of humor delivered by a familiar voice. This only cost $25K in production costs and $10K in media spend through the end of last year, and it smashed its targets by 400%. TBH, this almost got my vote! - **Teresa Cunningham** (plaudits for the surname!) of **Members 1st Credit Union** in Michigan showed a refreshing, feet-on-the-ground, non-tech case study. (Awards entries always seem to be tech-based these days?) After realizing that many of their staff were themselves under financial pressure, they embarked on an education and coaching program through which 98.6% of their staff became certified Credit Union Financial Counselors. They then extended the initiative to their membership with coaching sessions, education through apps and social media, and by creating libraries, improving financial well-being for both staff and members. - **Lewis Garvin** of **PenAir FCU** admitted that no one gets up in the morning and thinks about their credit union. (I’d say neither do we think about Nike or Apple Macs first thing in the morning! More like, where’s the coffee, or why’s there no paste left in the toothpaste tube?) Nor do people really care that PenAir has been around for 90 years. So they wanted to redefine time—not as “X years,” but as “since [your kids were born / you bought your car / you got your mortgage].”They did this with a series of humorous ads that put the member, not the credit union, front and center, achieving 2.7% membership growth. - And finally, **Katelynn Rowe** of **Signet FCU** presented her “Start the Kindness” campaign, where they encouraged members and the general public to write 500 motivational messages to breast cancer patients. The initiative was then extended to women’s refuges, food banks, and animal shelters. None of the messages carried any Signet branding, but they filmed testimonials from staff. This drove 452 new members—a significant number given total membership of around 20,000—and got my vote, given that Katelynn was the only marketer and that they had very little budget. 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