Making change, empowering possibilities

VSECU: Winner of a 2022 Davey Award

About VSECU

As a values-based financial cooperative, VSECU does things a little differently. Founded in 1947, it aims to improve the quality of life for all Vermonters. VSECU is now the second-largest credit union in Vermont and is a leader in sustainable and renewable energy lending.

Here’s a snapshot of the credit union at the time of the website launch in May 2022:

Asset size

Over $1 billion
Number of branches

Nine
Number of members

Over 70,000
Field of Membership

Anyone who lives or works in Vermont

“

The partnership, strategic work, customization, process and responsiveness has been amazing. The overall project management was outstanding.

— Jevonne R. McLaughlin, CSME, VP of Marketing

About the project

We worked closely with many VSECU internal stakeholders over a period of 13 months to build a new website that focused on human-centered design and prioritized these three strategic goals:

Lead with purpose

Instead of leading with products, VSECU’s new website leads with values and impact. The first section in its main navigation is “Empowering You” with a category focused on “People Helping People.” Its new homepage leads with an invitation to “join the movement,” and a robust “Why VSECU?” page further outlines the ways in which the credit union fuels impact, its results by the numbers, and the cooperative and values-based banking principles.

Optimize for conversion

An emotional connection is critical, but so are conversions. All of VSECU’s product pages are carefully written and designed to direct visitors toward the next step, whether that be opening an account, applying for a mortgage loan, or scheduling a retirement planning consultation. An integrated appointment scheduling tool lets visitors automatically book phone, video, or in-person appointments to learn more about a given product or service. PixelSpoke also designed a flexible landing page template to drive conversions from top-of-the-funnel campaigns.

Offer targeted and personalized experiences

The homepage is tailored to prospects and members, with the prospect version focused on VSECU’s unique value proposition. The member version includes common quicklinks as well as a goal-based guided selling tool to help current members reach their next financial milestone. Quiz tools and benefit-based selling tools on product pages also help guide visitors toward the best-fit product options, and interactive calculators automatically pull from the website’s rates tables to help inform buying decisions.