Free Digital Tools That Every Credit Union Marketer Should Know About
- Alicia Disantis
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
Guest Editorial by Alicia Disantis, Owner and Chief Brand Strategist at 38th & Kip
Credit union marketers are the quintessential Swiss-army-knives of the business community. Call them what you will: “wearer of many hats,” “wizard,” “ninja,” “guru,” or “unicorn.” The list of metaphors is seemingly endless, with my least favorite being “rockstar.” Regardless of what your favorite (or least favorite) phrase is to describe yourself, you rely on digital tools to make your life easier.
Yet some of the most valuable and efficient tools I utilize are not well known in the credit union community. What’s more, many of them are free to use, great for credit unions on a budget. In this article, I am going to share my favorite marketing and design tools that make my job as a credit union and CUSO marketing agency owner more efficient.
While the fervor and lawsuits surrounding ADA compliant websites has lessened, having an easy-to-use tool that checks the color combinations you use in your digital media for readability is invaluable. This free accessibility checker allows you to plug in your digital foreground and background colors, which can be used to test fonts, icons, and buttons, and provides an accessibility score. You can also test the size of your text as it relates to the color of your text – because certain colors are less legible when small. Brilliant, right?
This free tool packs a real punch in value, allowing you to review details about your site health at a broad or granular level. SEM Rush provides a site score based on your overall website health, gleaned from hundreds of data points. The tool will scan the content of every page on your website, listing errors, warnings, and recommendations. It’s a powerful tool to monitor the health of your website, find broken links, and improve your site’s performance without a web development team at your disposal.
I’m no SEO expert, but I do know that the amount, and quality, of backlinks your website has is important to your website health and search rankings. What’s a backlink? It’s a link on another site that links to a page on your website. You see backlinks often in directories, guest blog posts, or anywhere else that another website creates a link to a page on your site. Backlinks are critical to your site’s reputation and discoverability.
Ahrefs (funny name, awesome product) provides a free tool which scans the internet to find all the places your website is being referenced. It also provides a website score and allows you to search and compare your score to competitors.
Google Lens
Google Lens is a little-known tool which allows you to right click on any image on the internet and find where else it resides. As you can imagine, the use-cases for this tool are plenty. It’s a quick way to see who is using one of your photos or using a stock photo you might be interested in purchasing.
To use Google Lens, simply right-click on any photo using Chrome, scroll down, and select “search image with Google.” You’ll then see a column appear on the right-hand side that shows you all the places the image exists. In the screenshot below, you’ll see this sunny family photo exists in dozens of unique places on the internet. Google Lens is a great tool to protect your brand and monitor the photos you are using. You’d be shocked at how many banks and credit unions, sometimes competitors, use the same photos!
Unless you are a seasoned video editor, managing your credit union’s video content can be a real pain. EZgif is a free tool that allows you seamlessly convert GIFs to MP4s (and every other imaginable media format) and back. You can adjust speed, frames, resolution, and more, allowing you to create the perfectly sized media for your social or content needs. Don’t be fooled by its ancient looking layout – I’ve been using EZgif for years to manage my video content, even when I have access to expensive Adobe video editing software. It’s just that easy.
I hope this article was helpful to all credit union marketers tight on time and tight on budget. I recommend exploring these tools and seeing how they can help you or your team save money and improve efficiency in your marketing and creative processes.
Alicia Disantis is the Founder of 38th & Kip, a data-driven branding and design studio who helps credit unions and CUSOs tell their unique stories and connect with their audience. A traditional fine artist turned designer, brand strategist, and marketer, she walks the line between right- and left-brained. She has a passion for furthering the CU movement and volunteering within education and the arts. Connect with Alicia at 38andkip.com or on Instagram at @38andkip