Marketing Lessons for the E/M-Banking Sector from India's Corporate Giants

This note presents examples of successful marketing efforts of various industries in India that serve the rural poor, and discusses how these experiences could be applied to marketing of electronic/mobile-banking (e/m-banking) products and services across the world.

Much of the e/m-banking sector does not have extensive experience of conducting strategic marketing efforts, unlike established industries such as fast moving consumer goods, insurance, mobile airtime and agri-business. These industries and the e/m-banking industry face common challenges, such as geographical and demographic variability, and illiterate customers with unpredictable cash flows. The industries above have invested in designing marketing strategies and an appropriate marketing mix, to cope with these challenges. They have come up with effective marketing campaigns that have successfully unlocked the latent purchasing power of the rural poor.

Important lessons from these Indian industries that the wider e/m-banking sector could use to design marketing plans include:

• Identifying gaps in rural markets;
• Keeping the message and the product simple;
• Ensuring personal contact with the customer;
• Educating customers about how the financial services fulfil an existing need.