Coastal Credit Union

Serving North Carolina for over 50 years, Coastal Credit Union (Coastal) knew its website was due for a redesign so it could better meet the needs of its nearly 200,000 members. The mission was to demonstrate increased value to its membership by offering an updated interface, useful information, robust resources and personalized content. The new site also needed to communicate the overall credit union difference, while explaining to prospective members why Coastal is the premier choice over its local and national competition. To bring its vision to fruition, Coastal selected ZAG Interactive for a full suite of digital services.

A strategic focus

On site at Coastal’s Raleigh headquarters, ZAG conducted a discovery session to dive deeper into the credit union’s short and long-term vision for the site. Covering everything from brand messaging to site architecture, the credit union’s key stakeholders and our digital agency’s website experts planned for project success. ZAG’s digital strategists also performed an analysis of Coastal’s unique opportunity in the local marketplace. The charge was to portray Coastal as community-focused credit union that offers big-bank solutions. Armed with this invaluable input, ZAG devised the website architecture, starting with the comprehensive site map and segueing into design template strategy.

Design in every detail

To visualize the strategic direction, ZAG’s designers began with wireframing, delivering a workable blueprint for the key components of the site. When the foundational elements of the new site were established, the design team created two unique desktop design concepts that portrayed Coastal’s distinctive brand style, connected with target audiences through lifestyle photography and offered custom graphical elements and iconography. To gauge which design best met audience needs, ZAG performed usability testing. Armed with the results, ZAG then extended the chosen design to the remaining layouts, and used responsive design best practices to create mobile and tablet designs as well.

Empowered through development

Because of its secure, scalable and marketing-focused platform, ZAG developers built the new site on the Kentico CMS . This content management system allows Coastal’s administrators to make easy updates in the backend, including custom locations management tool and rates management tools. Importantly, the website is built for ADA website compliance, assuring that visitors with disabilities will be able to use Coastal’s new site with ease.

Content and tools focused on member needs

To empower its membership to feel more in control of their financial decisions, Coastal put an emphasis on providing useful information on its new site. Through a prominent solutions finder on the home page, users can self-select who they are and what they are looking to accomplish. Based on user selections, the custom tool generates tailored results, surfacing relevant articles, tools, products and other dynamic content.

Additionally, ZAG’s content team overhauled the site content through strategic web copywriting, custom crafting the text in the credit union’s unique tone of voice with product descriptions, community outreach, financial articles and more. Following best practices for search engine optimization, the website content focuses on guiding members and feels natural, while still infused with SEO-friendly keywords.

Members can also enjoy a mix of financial literacy content to help at key life stages, providing background on these major events, as well as bundles of relevant products and services. This content is additionally available contextually throughout the site, allowing users to tap into calculators, videos, apps and other helpful tools as they are exploring various products and solutions.

Made for marketing

While offering its members a wealth of information, Coastal’s new site also serves as a lead generation tool for the credit union. The new site presents multiple touchpoints for recommended products, relevant promotions, and cross-sell opportunities in a way that feels helpful, instead of overly pushy to the end user. To support campaign conversions, ZAG created a landing page design, providing a modifiable template for Coastal to use as a promotional destination. And, to help Coastal measure, monitor and adjust tactics, ZAG also devised an analytics and event tracking strategy with custom reporting that combines site and channel stats against pre-determined success metrics.

Now, Coastal Credit Union’s redesigned website performs as an online hub for all of the credit union’s solutions. Working together with ZAG, Coastal gives its members the knowledge necessary to make better financial decisions on its new site.