Trusted Marketing Experts
For Critical Missions

RC Strat is a performance marketing and strategic communications firm for government agencies, the military, and credit unions. We plan and run paid media, public outreach, and brand campaigns, and we build the marketing technology and governed AI behind them. Each program is measured on the result the client needs: qualified leads, applicants, members, deposits, or loans. RC Strat is an SBA 8(a) certified small business based in San Antonio and Phoenix.

Our clients include the Army National Guard in Georgia and Arkansas, NAVSEA, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and credit unions in the Southeast and Midwest. Commercial and nonprofit clients include Salesforce, USA Powerlifting, the NSCA, Fort Worth ISD, the University of Alaska Anchorage, United Way, and Assumable.

The Georgia Army National Guard program grew qualified digital leads 565% at $24.26 per qualified lead, with more than 2,300 qualified leads in nine months. NAVSEA's national recruiting campaign delivered 1,500+ applicants, 59% above the contracted target. A video-led campaign for the VA in Alaska produced 10,363 veteran applicants, more than double the prior year. One Southeast credit union went from 1% to 5% annual membership growth, and Assumable reached 200,000 users in eight months.

RC Strat uses governed AI for audience modeling, predictive scoring, and automated journeys for members and recruits. Client data is limited to what each use needs, runs in network-isolated environments, and stays under the client's control. For credit unions, the controls align to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework that NCUA references, with human review and a full audit trail for examiners and the board.

Credit unions grow when marketing, lending, and member experience work as one go-to-market system with shared goals measured in funded accounts. Most of the industry is shrinking: NCUA data shows 55% of federally insured credit unions ended 2025 with fewer members than a year earlier. In RC Strat's 2026 Voice of the Credit Union Leader survey of 350 executives, credit unions with mature go-to-market teams grew members 4.1 times faster than peers with the same assets and marketing spend.

Credit unions grow membership by targeting the field-of-membership segments most likely to join, running always-on digital advertising measured in funded accounts, fixing the account-opening steps where applicants quit on a phone, and adding direct deposit and a second product in each new member's first 90 days. A Southeast credit union with a two-person marketing team used this system to go from 1% to 5% annual membership growth without adding staff.

Credit unions reach Gen Z and millennials by telling them they can join, making account opening easy on a phone, and showing up in the short-form video and social channels they use. Awareness is the first gap. About 30% of Gen Z don't know they're eligible to join a credit union, and 60% to 70% of under-35 applicants apply from a phone. Credit unions' share of new under-35 primary banking relationships fell to 11% in 2026, according to Javelin, the lowest in ten years.

Digital account opening is where most credit unions lose new members, so it is the place to start. Cornerstone Advisors found institutions lost 3.36 digital checking applications for every one completed in 2025. Go through the application on a phone from product page to funded account, remove steps that don't need to be there, rewrite the eligibility and identity screens where people quit, and track completion by source. A Southeast credit union raised online account completion from 38% to 56% this way. Members also judge credit union apps more harshly than leaders do: in RC Strat's 2026 research, 64% of leaders said their app matched competitors, and 22% of members agreed.

Lasting deposit growth comes from checking accounts with direct deposit. Rate specials pull in money that tends to leave when the promotion ends, and existing members move balances into them, so the credit union pays more for deposits it already had. Pair certificate and money market offers with a checking and direct deposit offer, aim them at money held at other institutions, and start onboarding the day the account opens. Checking makes the difference at renewal: Curinos found certificate customers with checking renewed a second time at 92%, against 82% without.

Credit unions grow loans by reaching members when they're ready to borrow and following each application through to funding. Build segments from the signals that come before a loan, like repeat visits to auto or home equity rate pages, send the matching offer automatically, and match funded loans back to the campaign that produced them. Home equity is growing fastest. Credit union home equity balances rose 13.4% in the year to June 2026, against 0.4% for auto, per NCUA. A Midwest credit union generated $86.4 million in net new loans in under six months with a direct-response program built this way.

Credit unions compete with big banks and fintechs through precise targeting inside their field of membership, a fast mobile account opening, and onboarding that gets direct deposit set up in a member's first weeks. Outspending them isn't realistic. JPMorgan Chase spent $4.9 billion on marketing in 2024, and a typical billion-dollar credit union spends about $4.4 million. Speed and ease decide most switches: in RC Strat's 2026 research, 72% of members who considered switching decided on friction, fees, or speed, and only 4% on community.

Credit union member acquisition cost typically falls between $350 and $700 per member, depending on channel mix, market, and product. Cost per funded account is the more useful number, and it runs two to three times cost per lead because many applications are abandoned before they're funded. Few credit unions can measure it yet. In RC Strat's 2026 research, 36% of credit union leaders could attribute marketing spend to a single new member.

A credit union proves marketing ROI to its board by reporting funded results: cost per funded account by channel, member lifetime value by acquisition source, and the deposit and loan growth marketing produced. Getting there means connecting marketing platforms to the core banking and loan origination systems, so each application carries its campaign source through to funding. Most credit unions aren't connected yet. In RC Strat's 2026 research, 23% of leaders said their data is unified across core, CRM, and loan origination.

Look for credit union results reported in funded accounts and dollars, working knowledge of NCUA advertising rules, and a team that can take a member from first ad through account opening. The agency should also execute the plan it recommends and be able to present results to your board. Ask each finalist for the cost per funded member on a past credit union client. RC Strat works with credit unions between $250 million and $3 billion in assets and is measured on member, deposit, and loan growth.

Military recruiting marketing improves when spend goes to the small share of young people who are eligible and open to serving, and each prospect is followed through a decision that can take six to 18 months. Only about 23% of 17- to 24-year-olds qualify without a waiver. Strong programs combine geo-targeted paid media, career content matched to each prospect's interests, fast handoff to a recruiter, and attribution through to contracts. For the Georgia Army National Guard, RC Strat grew qualified digital leads 565% at $24.26 per qualified lead.

Military marketing leads stall because marketing and recruiting count success differently. Marketing reports form fills; recruiters need prospects who qualify and want to talk. Conversion also drops when nothing scores intent and when the handoff from web form to recruiter call takes days. A shared definition of a qualified lead, scoring based on engagement, and fast handoffs fix most of it. On RC Strat's Guard program, recruiters receive each prospect's interests, engagement history, and the career paths they explored before the first call.

Recruiting campaigns stall when broad demographic targeting burns through a small eligible audience in a few weeks and optimization chases clicks. Roughly 70% of a recruit's decision happens in places marketing can't track, such as group chats, Discord servers, and conversations with parents. Campaigns that keep producing use intent-based targeting, qualify prospects in stages, and attribute results through to accession.

Federal agencies measure marketing ROI by the mission result each program exists to produce, such as qualified applicants, accessions, or enrollments, and the cost of each one. GAO reported in November 2024 that DoD could not determine the return on its recruiting advertising. Agencies can close that gap by writing cost per mission outcome into the contract and requiring attribution from first ad to the system of record. RC Strat's NAVSEA campaign was tied into the client's applicant tracking system, so every applicant traced back to the campaign.

Agencies should score a federal marketing partner on government past performance with references they can call, results tied to mission outcomes, compliance and security fluency, commercial methods that work within FAR and DFARS rules, and fit with the mission. Past performance usually carries the most weight. GAO found it was the top-weighted factor in 10 of 14 best-value procurements it reviewed. The Georgia Army National Guard selected RC Strat from more than 30 competing firms.

Federal agencies buy marketing services through the SBA 8(a) program, small business set-asides, GSA Schedule orders, or full and open competition. The 8(a) program lets an agency award directly to a certified firm up to the sole-source threshold, which shortens the acquisition timeline. RC Strat is SBA 8(a) certified (CAGE 9GCC5), so agencies can award marketing, communications, and public outreach work to us through the 8(a) program or a small business set-aside.

Many federal modernization solicitations require stakeholder engagement, strategic communications, and public outreach, and evaluators score that work directly. Engineering-led primes usually team for it. They look for a small business with past performance in that scope, a certification that counts toward subcontracting goals, and proposal experience. RC Strat is an SBA 8(a) firm with prime contracts at NAVSEA and the Army National Guard, and we've contributed to multi-year DoD proposals worth more than $200 million. We provide past performance, key personnel resumes, and our capability statement.

Government programs reach dispersed or skeptical audiences through earned media, video, and local voices the audience already trusts, backed by targeted paid media and measured in applications or enrollments. Alaska has no concentrated media market. For the VA there, RC Strat ran a video-led earned media campaign that produced 10,363 veteran applicants for a critical support program, more than double the prior year, along with 9 million earned media impressions.

Police departments recruit more officers by managing hiring as a measured pipeline, from first ad through background check, academy, and swearing-in. More than 70% of agencies say recruiting is harder than it was five years ago (IACP, 2024). Most swear in 5 to 20 officers for every 100 applications, and the biggest losses come between application and written exam, during the background investigation, and in the academy. Lead scoring and follow-up between those steps keep more candidates in the process. RC Strat applies the method behind its Army National Guard program to law enforcement hiring.