Servus is Alberta’s largest credit union. With headquarters in Edmonton, the organization has served the entire province since 2008 when three separate credit unions merged to become one.
We were asked to look at how Servus communications and marketing teams were managing the creation and maintenance of content across traditional and digital channels.
To get started, CSI spent a day in Edmonton talking to people who work with various types of content in one-on-one conversations with managers as well as group interviews with staff. We followed up with an online survey, all in an effort to assess existing governance practices.
We also spent a couple of days in a large multipurpose training room at Servus headquarters in south Edmonton, facilitating workshops that dug into content processes and roles and responsibilities.
Why we loved this project
Amazing opportunities are possible for organizations that are transitioning from traditional, print-based marketing strategies to those that are digital. But these come with corresponding challenges.
Servus has a sophisticated system in place to target marketing efforts to defined customer groups. Adopting that same customer-first approach when creating content is a logical solution.
The smart, dedicated Servus employees were energetic participants and worked hard to come to a consensus on a framework that would help them be more efficient in their support of each other.
What we learned from this project
While it’s easy to make recommendations on how an organization can restructure teams to support efficient content practices, that’s only the first step. Because the best ideas in the world are no better than sand in the ocean if it’s not easy for clients to put those recommendations into practice.
With Servus, we needed to find ways to make our recommendations work within the context of the organization. Thankfully, there was an existing framework already in place that was a perfect metaphor for our thoughts on how to support stable and consistent content practices.
