Our company will be the only company in Montreal who will provide financial literacy not only to the residents living in Montreal but we will provide guidance to all the foreigners who want information on financial issues through electronic highways. We believe in making a long-term client relationship, guiding customers throughout the financial affairs and helping our clients to set their financial goals. Budgeting, saving, investing, credit and how preventing frauds are the main services that we will provide. Customers will receive services in both English, French and Spanish.

Positioning statement

For non-citizens aged between 16 and 65 years old, our organization delivers the best financial literacy service due to we provide an accompaniment by trained staff via all communication networks. Our organization sets apart from other financial literacy institutes with work commitment to guide our clients when they arrive to Montreal and prevent them from frauds.

Customers

Your top three personas

	PERSONA 1	PERSONA 2	PERSONA 3
What is their demographic profile? Age, sex, profession, income, social status, education, etc.	Individuals and Families in the process of migration to the Greater Montréal Area. Aged between 16 and 65 years old. Female and Male, Profession: High School or Professionals, Income CAD 15.000 - 42.000. Social Status: Medium - High	Individuals and Families residing in the Greater Montréal Area, aged 16 to 65 years old, with a focus on newcomers Female and Male, Profession: High School or Professionals, Income CAD 15.000 - 42.000. Social Status: Medium - High	Immigrants who have received citizenship in Canada and reside in the Greater Montréal Area, aged primarily between 16 * and 65 years old, Female and Male, Profession: High School or Professionals, Income CAD 15.000 - 42.000. Social Status: Medium - High
What are their values, attitudes, interests, needs and lifestyle choices? What is important to them?	Financial Education System. Interest: Identify rights and responsibilities, know the legal institutions. Determines the advantages and disadvantages to choose an option. Budget	Financial Access System. Interest: Identify rights and responsibilities, know the legal institutions. Determines the advantages and disadvantages to choose an option. It is important to pay low rates and fees. Access to Credit Card.	Financial Loans System. Interest: Identify rights and responsibilities, know the legal institutions. Determines the advantages and disadvantages to choose an option. Pay low rates and fees. Determine eligibility for credit. Risk involved using Credits
How do they like to do business? Online or face-to-face? How much do they spend? What kind of products do they buy? What do they want in terms of features, functionality and cost?	Online. Spend in Migration Process. Pay Studies in a Foreign Country. They want information cheap and fast to learn	Online and face-to-face. Spend in Food, accommodation, mobilization and Education. Migration Process. They want information cheap and fast to learn	Online and face-to-face. Spend in Food, housing, mobilization, entertainment and Education. They want information easy to learn.
Where are they located?	Foreign Countries	Great Montreal Area	Great Montreal Area
Why would this person buy your product or service	People need to be orientated before their arrival	People need to open accounts in banks and begin their bills payment and transactions.	People need to request banks loans to buy houses, invest in business, buy car, study, travel.

Competitors

	Direct Competitor 1	Direct Competitor 2	Indirect Competitor 3	Direct Competitor 4
Where are they located?	Information and Referral Centre of Greater Montreal. 3155 Hochelaga, bureau 101 Montréal, Québec H1W 1G4	FINCA canada 1124 Marie-Anne street east, suite 33. Montreal QC H2J 2B7	ALPA 2030, boulevard Pie IX Bureau 309 Montréal (QC) H1V 2C8	Tesaffaires.com. Contact only by email: info@tesaffaires.com
How long have they been in business?	Since 1952 in Toronto. 1956 in Vancouver and 1970 in Montreal.	Since 1985	Since 1984	Information is not given.
What are their target markets?	18-50 years old. Since college students, single and couples workers looking for better jobs and lives.	15-65 years old. Women’s empowerment, economic inclusion of poor and marginalized individuals.	13-75 years old. All kinds of immigrants, like families, singles and students.	18-50 years old. They concentrate on students and workers who desire to start financial projects and teachers who need support with his financial classes at secondary school.
What are their unique selling points, competitive differentiators?	They count with their own collection of books, with more than 5 publications	Provide critical financial services to excluded populations. Help clients earn business income and create jobs. Empower clients to achieve their personal goals.	Setting In and getting all your paperwork done. Personal guidance, job search techniques, get involved and social.	Tesaffaires.com reward financial education in class, has many contests such as Bourstad 2016: More than $30,000 in prizes and Financial Literacy Video Contest.
What are their strengths and weaknesses?	S: They have activities to get closer so people get to know them, events and 5 decades of experience. W: They just help by offering information; Just manage english and french speaking cast and many books are out of print.	S: Focus in women and poor people. With their own bank, they gave loans, insurance and savings accounts. W: Lack of search in criminal records. Focus just in excluded population.	S: Learning french. Workshop: Parenting in a immigration context. Cultural activities, coaching for job interviews, facility on schedule. W: Lack of information in other languages than french. Lack of information in general. Lack of public testimony.	S: They specialize in projects such as: buy a car, get a credit card, pay for my education, rent my own apartment, manage my finances and avoid financial fraud. W: lack of client service and it does not have a location where people can be received and serviced.

SWOT analysis

Strengths

Our business has specialized and trained professionals capable to understand and recognize the needs of each of our clients.
We recognize in our clients the importance of understanding their language. That is why we handle the three main languages of our target (Spanish, French, English).
Understanding that our target ranges from 16 to 65 years old, we adopt consultancy strategies not only in physical offices but also through digital media networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, linkedIn). We adapt to our clients’ needs.

Weaknesses

Some competitors have specialized personnel in approaching clients through visits and events. They offer permanent monitoring to people who have already become their clients. A closer experience with the client.
We do not have a mobile application that allows the user a direct interaction with the company.

Opportunities

Between 2020 and 2021, Canada expects to receive between 341,000 and 350,000 immigrants. Which means that thanks to these potential customers we can expand our target.
There will be 40,000 additional immigrants (per year by 2021) throughout Canada. What could represent an opportunity to expand our business to major cities in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary).
Expand our target not only to non-citizens but also to the rest of the Canadian population (Canadian citizens).

Threats

There are some competitors that have more than 15 year of experience. Which means that we have to create new and innovative strategies to gain new customers.
There are numerous organizations in the public, private and non-profit sectors are already providing financial education and support to those wanting to learn more about managing their personal and family finances.
Immigration laws and conditions constantly change. What it means to be always at the forefront and constantly updated (new knowledge about immigration laws). This means more economic resources.

USP

We are the only company in Montreal that offer accompaniment in updated financial literacy to all non-citizens before and during their residence with trained staff and via all communication networks.

Elevator Pitch

It is incredibly stressful to move to another country and do not know how much is needed to rent a house or buy a car; the best schools in terms of quality and price; the necessary documents before opening a new bank account or getting a credit card, or even the quantity of money for buying groceries or getting the transportation card, isn’t? We are the only company in Montreal that offer accompaniment in updated financial literacy to all non-citizens before and during their residence with trained staff and via all communication networks. This means, our team will support all foreigners with their financial doubts no matter where they are. Unlike other similar companies, we will offer our service in three different languages: English, French and Spanish. Foreigners will receive free e-brochures and e-learning videos to know the benefits of gaining financial skills, steps to be a smart consumer or even how to protect themselves from frauds in Montreal.

Customer’s journey

Persona 1

We will be active on social media. We engage and interact with our potential customers outside Canada through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Focused on Facebook which allows to create a community to speak directly with them and share our different packages and services in financial literacy.
We will expand our communication channels abroad. We will have a group of representatives who participate in international immigration fairs. We have a stand, merchandising material and POP (point-of-purchase) material.

Persona 2 and 3

We will create a website that includes a blog with quality and relevant content that is updated frequently. For the blog we use infographics, videos and articles from experts in the field (example: http://tiny.cc/uh1i9y)
We will make a package with merchandising material (brochures, pens, book notes, USB) that includes our brand. Special branding made the material seem like a gift for our customers
Through our social networks we will create content based on the experiences of our clients. Useful content that allows the customer to know our services and packages.
We will create new alliances with local newspapers or magazines to share our services and attract new clients.
We will offer a discount percentage to customers who access to certain services.

Marketing budget

Based on a time frame of 12 months our total budget would be initially $2000 per month divided in different and important items:

SEO ($600): Company will invest more money in SEO because this effective strategy will help to increase traffic to the website, reach more customers and increase conversions and revenue. It is important to mention company will mix on-page SEO and off-page SEO to get better results, which means the plan will be focused on content creation, page speed optimization, social media marketing, keyword targeting and implementation and email marketing.
Local SEO ($500): As business will operate in multiple locations it is important to make an investment in local SEO to rank the service over competitors and make a huge difference.
Shopping Feeds ($350): It is important for the business to reach the audience interested in purchasing the service of literacy finance efficient and effectively.
PPC - PPC Ad Spend ($625): Pay per click advertising will allow the company to gain more customers, go beyond its competitors and increase brand significatively into the market.

Marketing team

Responsibilities

Supply Chain (Maria Fernanda Gil): she will be responsible for communicating with prospective customers ,she will be planning the appropriate strategies for delivering the services to the customer.

Financial Department (Manjot Kaur Manjot):she will be responsible for collecting,interpreting and reviewing financial information along with developing strategies that will help the company to minimize financial risk.

Marketing (Ivonne Soleiby Ortiz):Ivonne will be responsible for determining the target customers to whom the services will be delivered,Identifying competitors and potential markets,developing marketing strategies for advertising in order to increase brand awareness.

Customer Service (Diana Sierra): Diana Sierra will be responsible for handling and supervising day to day operations in customer service department,respond to customer service issues in a timely manner and will be responsible for developing customer satisfaction goals.

Sales(JuanDanieRodriguez):He will be responsible for determining the trends and results of the services provided,for managing,developing and controlling and monitoring the sales along with assessing the weaknesses and strengths of sales team and for taking corrective measures for more efficiency .

Pricing strategy

Our organisation will follow value-based pricing.The process of value based pricing involves:-

Assess customer needs and value perceptions.
Set target price to match customer perceived value.
Determine costs that can be incurred.
Design service to deliver desired value at target price.

How will you distribute your goods or services?

Direct Marketing Channel will be the main channel to be used. The company will not have intermediaries and the contact with customers will be:

Direct on Internet, Personalized service, web page, email, social media in facebook, instagram and twitter and by phone. other ways to let the company be direct with customers are:
Participation in fairs in Montreal such as Salon de L’immigration et de L’intégration au Québec
Involve the company in Canadian Immigrant Fair

Website

Design

Firstly, it is important to focus on colors, typography and balance as these are factors that evoke emotions in customers at psychological level. Therefore, the principal color for the website will be “blue” in order to transmit trust and dependable strength and the font “Sans Serif” to convey modernity, streamlined feel and facilitates

Secondly, we think less is more. This means our website will have less text and more images as we believe customers like when they see large and responsive hero images, for example, because it encourages them to scroll down and be more interested in visualizing all the information is shown in the website.

Thirdly, we do not want to be monotonous. Therefore, we will have background videos that show and explain to customers how our service works in a dynamic and more entertaining way as the main idea is to educate them in financial terms.

Finally, our website must be consistent and mobile friendly to be effective. Customer must have the opportunity to consult our website in any device and without spending more than three seconds loading our content.

CONTENT (Further reading: 10 tips for attracting customers with great online content)

What kind of content will you produce? Who will be responsible for regularly producing and managing it?

The content we consider important for our website is:

Information about the company (who we are, what makes us different, our goals)
Explanation about how our service works and benefits customers will gain with us
Customer’s experiences

For the production and management of the website is necessary to hire a professional in Marketing Strategies, as we need a positive impact and convey the best information to our customers in order to engage term.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (Further reading: SEO basics for entrepreneurs)

How will you optimize your site so your content ranks high on search engine results?

In order to be one of customers first options and have more opportunities over our competitors is essential to choose keywords that people are most likely to use when they start a new search in Google, Yahoo or Bing. Likewise, we will need to think about the keywords for the page title and content to catch the attention of users and with a fast reading they feel interested in click on it.

Social media strategy

Further reading: 7 ways to turn social media fans into customers and our free social medhia eBook

What platforms make sense for your business? Who will plan and manage your communities and respond to questions?

Social media promotion through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: through these social networks we seek to attract the largest number of foreigners who want to come to Montreal or are already living in the city. Subsequently and according to the results of the strategy, improvement actions will be taken to give greater scope (broaden or reduce the public, focus on other interests, age segmentation, etc.) by a teamwork that will be focused just on our social medias in order to answer any doubt, make updates, post events or informative content to catch more users and keep those who already trust us.

Email strategy

We are going to structure our email strategy using the advice for planning a successful email marketing strategy that Megan Hendrickson, who is the content manager at Bluehost, recommends.

Start With Great Content: our emails will offer financial services, but we desire to present at the top of our messages the “ extras” that make us unique in contrast of competitors. For example our awareness campaigns in favor financial literacy, our client service in different languages and our advertisers to help improve financial behaviour.

We are going to keep in mind these suggestions that Hendrickson provides in order to get people open our emails.

Create a compelling subject line that doesn’t sound like spam: We are going to mention what are the possible problems and challenges that our target market may face in terms of financial literacy

Personalize the email: Our emails will address people by their names and we are going to write relevant information for each person.

Write an attention-grabbing hook: We are going to give special attention to opening lines because we want to capture the reader's attention and that they are going to read our whole articles and news.

Include your contact details in the email signature: As Hendrickson advice, we are going to include our personal job emails in order to earn the trust of our customers.

Build Relationships

We want to support people who contact us for financial services and create healthy relationships rather than just offering our facilities.

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Picture are for many people a wonderful form of communication, so as a way to better explain financial concepts we thought to put very significant images. Moreover, Hendrickson emphasizes this point : “ Infographics, photos, linked video clips, and other visual elements respect your subscribers’ time.”

End With a Strong CTA

At the end of our emails, there going to be links to further information. This call to action button allows our readers to feel more engaged.

What is your advertising strategy?

PAY-PER-CLICK (Further reading: Learn to win with pay-per-click advertising)

We are going to advertise the business by using online advertising which allow us more digital options such as pay-per-click, google analytics, and google ads. Online advertising needs more management and monitoring in comparison to traditional advertising, but you obtain better results. Pay-per-click offers the advantage in terms of advertising costs because you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Google analytics will show us what is the performance and efficiency of our posters. It allows to know how many people are visiting our website. Moreover, analytics provides specific information about if our goals are being accomplished. For example, you can know whether you are increasing sales or not. Google ads expands our possibilities to reach more segments of target market. In fact, 90% of researches use google as browser in canada.. We want to reach people who need financial literacy service and are in our target range. We want people know though our abs the service that we offer.

PRINT/TV/RADIO (Further reading: How to avoid pitfalls in advertising your business)

What is your public relations strategy?

Further reading: 7 low-cost marketing strategies to implement now

Public relations includes efforts to woo editors or journalists to cover your business, and also having an action plan to protect your brand in a crisis scenario.

what we plan to build strong relations with editors and journalists is to highlight the benefits of financial literacy. We know that journalists often look for compelling stories, so we are going to send them articles that explain who we are, what are our objectives and what makes our financial service different from other services. As we grow, we are going to try to be in public events and in the radio. One aspect important for us is to maintain healthy relationships with employees. Employees stand for our services and may have contacts that could help us.

What is your after-the-sale strategy?

Further reading: 6 easy steps to create a customer loyalty program

Customer service will be offered to our customers before, during and after their migration process, target customers will receive emails with news-letters and in social media will find special posts. The information will include updates from the financial literacy in Montreal, Quebec. As soon as the process with our customers will finish we will send them an email showing our interest on continue being their best supplier and receiving feedback.

The company needs to invest in a CRM program to set the times that customers will require our services per year to increase our sales each quarter.

For the second semester the company will have a database of customers which will allow the company to decide which customers will be target after sale. The decisions will be based on Volume of services taken, speed of payment and customer profitability. Each step will depend on the migration process that each customer is involved.

The company offers excellent customer service