Client: Fonkoze/Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
Overview:
If there is one client of ours that believes in the promotion of social justice and economic development, then that is Fonkoze. Fonkoze is a microfinance organization that provides the people of Haiti a way out of poverty through entrepreneurship, economic self-sufficiency, and education. The organization works within rural communities of Haiti to help them start up small businesses from everything including a local food market to farming. Essentially, Fonkoze is a bank for the poor in Haiti.
Objective:
Grow Fonkoze’s foreign remittance business and increase investment activity among Haiti’s poor particularly in late of Haiti’s 2010 devastating earthquake.
Challenge:
How does Fonkoze introduce card-based technology targeted to the U.S.-based Haiti Diaspora to send remittances to Haiti despite the challenges of impacting, influencing, and shaping a demographic of people typically non-responsive to traditional marketing and advertising tactics and who are also technologically adverse?
Approach:
- As a marketing consultant to Fonkoze, we developed a 24-month fully integrated US-based strategic marketing plan to serve as a blueprint for launching Fonkoze’s Pre-paid Debit Card to the Diaspora living in the U.S.
- Gathered qualitative marketing data to gauge sentiments and understanding for a new financial product virtually non-existent within this demographic.
- Micro-segmented target markets into primary and secondary targets based on adoptability and usage of product and developed key messaging per segment, key customer touch points, and a tactical roll out plan.
- Community outreach approach to establishing target market baseline through partnerships with key centers of influences.
- Deployed localized grassroots educational media campaign that outreached through community workshops, financial literacy education, and publicity.
- Utilized measurement and monitoring tools to track project’s progress as part of customer adoption and retention strategy.
