Alaska USA’s continuous pursuit for growth

Alaska USA Federal Credit Union is one of the United States’ largest credit unions based on asset size, servicing over 760,000 members with an asset portfolio upwards of $12 billion, operating in Alaska, Arizona, California, Washington, and Idaho.

Alaska USA’s initial successes utilizing Optimizely’s Content Management in 2017 to power its marketing landing pages helped to build confidence in Optimizely’s ever-expanding digital experience capabilities and cemented the case to move the organization’s flagship website to Optimizely’s Digital Experience Platform.

Alaska USA’s goal has remained the same – to grow the organization by increasing its membership and demonstrating its value to members and prospects in all the regions it serves. 

The challenge of relevant and timely communication with members

Alaska USA’s previous website stood in the way of its goal for growth. Marketing Operations Manager, Heather Resh, shared that the previous website was unable scale to meet the organization’s goals. The on-premise hosted, IT-owned and managed website had restricted internal access, making it difficult for the marketing team to deliver updates to customers in an agile manner. With the organization growing rapidly, Alaska USA needed a secure site that helped streamline internal workflows and approvals—without increasing the burden on IT.

The team was also aware of the importance of communicating Alaska USA’s wider presence to prospects through geo-targeted content to dispel the impression of being an Alaska-exclusive organization, despite its operating throughout the western United States—something the previous infrastructure could not support. 

Overhauling Alaska USA’s digital experience, inside out

Alaska USA surveyed and evaluated several top-tier CMS providers, including Sitecore and Adobe. The strategic acquisitions made by Optimizely to enhance customers’ DXP capabilities solidified Resh’s confidence in Optimizely’s capabilities and future as a holistic digital solutions provider, a key reason for the decision to renew with Optimizely.

Alaska USA partnered with Extractable as the project’s implementation partner for their expertise in user experience and digital strategy specific to the financial industry.

Extractable drove the content strategy and implementation on the Optimizely DXP while working closely with the Alaska USA team to ensure seamless and secure integrations with internal systems.

Resh shared that the marketing team now maintains full ownership of the site, allowing numerous content authors, reviewers, and publishers to expedite content updates and approvals. With Optimizely’s ability to support multiple authors with varying permission levels, the team is empowered to deliver content in a timely fashion, supporting the organization’s goal for growth.

In addition, Extractable also kicked off Alaska USA’s personalization and analytics roadmap by segmenting visitors into groups and setting up analytics dashboards that help the team gain a holistic understanding of site visitors and behavior using Optimizely’s AI-powered Recommendations.

The team leverages Recommendation’s Targeting and Visitor Groups to deliver geo-personalized messaging to site visitors supporting Alaska USA’s quest for growth across the west coast and Arizonan markets by showcasing content that speaks to their individual communities.

Alaska USA’s marketing team is building on the foundation that Extractable laid in Content Management’s Targeting to go one layer deeper and deliver personalized content based on previous site interactions.

With a strong foundation laid out for its website, it was important for Alaska USA to ensure that future decisions were based on real user feedback and data. The addition of Optimizely Web Experimentation allows the team to make data-informed decisions instead of relying on industry best practices, intuitional knowledge, and anecdotal feedback while evaluating future changes and enhancements.