A study from the Louisville, Ky.-based digital signage firmCodigo showed that credit unions are staffing up their marketingdepartments, and those employees are sticking around longer thanemployees in the rest of the labor market are.

According to the study, 36% of credit unions said they increasedtheir marketing departments' headcounts this year, compared to 26%of banks. Credit union marketing departments are still small,however. Three years ago, they had a weighted average of 3.1employees; that's risen to 3.9 today and is expected to grow to4.42, the study said. Responding credit unions with departments offour or more employees said they were especially poised forheadcount growth, Codigo noted.

Turnover is relatively low in credit union marketing departmentsas well. The average American stays on the job for 4.6 years,according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but the averageweighted tenure in a credit union marketing department is 5.58years, according to Codigo.

“The data shows a large difference between bank and credit uniontenures – 35% of credit union employees had tenure longer than sixyears, compared to 62% of banks,” Codigo noted.

Titles vary in credit union marketing departments – respondentsreported more than 20. “Marketing specialist” was the most commontitle listed in the survey, but it also indicated more employeesare specializing: Twenty percent of credit unions now have socialmedia managers and 36% have graphic designers.

Titles aside, credit union marketing employees are busy figuringout how to make more auto loans, according to the survey:Fifty-four percent said that was their primary product push for2015.

They're also working with budgets that are smaller than thosesimilarly sized banks have, however. The average weighted marketingbudget for credit unions in the survey was $463,319, which is about$20,000 less than the same measure for banks ($486,574), the surveysaid.

Credit union marketing departments usually do their web, socialmedia, public relations, digital signage and branch merchandisingwork in-house, the study said, although about two thirds saidthey also use an agency.

“The most frequently outsourced marketing activity was printmarketing with 40% saying they used a marketing agency to fulfillthis task,” the report said.

Most institutions allocate less than 15% of their marketingbudgets to agencies, it noted.

The majority of credit union marketing executives came from thefinancial industry (60%), although about one quarter are from otherindustries such as education, government, health care ormanufacturing, the study found. Only 13% are from the marketing,advertising, media or telecom industries.

Technology expertise is an essential part of today's creditunion marketing jobs, according to Codigo. Being savvy with socialmedia is the most important requirement in hiring for credit unionmarketing, respondents reported. A college degree and experience infinancial marketing strategy were ranked the next highest, whileprior experience in the financial industry and with complianceranked lower.

“When asked what other characteristics were important in thehiring process, the highest response was having a team-mindedpersonality with 11%, followed closely by design skills with 8%,and rounding out the top five were creative problem solving,communication, and online or tech skills,” the study noted.

The study also highlighted a significant gender gap in marketingdepartments at credit unions and banks – just 23% of the respondents were male.

Of the 255 U.S. financial institutions surveyed, 55% were creditunions. Seventy percent of the surveyed institutions had $250million to $5 billion in total assets and five to 50 branches.Credit unions in the survey had a weighted average of 8.6 branchesand a weighted average of $809,239,130 in assets.