EMN 2008-2009 Overview - Réseau Européen de la Microfinance

It is unclear in these instances whether a
lack of data means the lender does not finance
a particular client group or whether the lender
simply does not track this sort of information.
The above graph shows the percentage of
institutions that responded that they targeted
one or more of these groups as potential clients.
As can been seen in Spain, 90% of institutions
targeted immigrants as clients, 80% women and
60% youth. However, it is important to treat this
data with caution as it refers to the institutional
objective and not the total number of at-risk
clients in the overall portfolio – this information
can be found in Graphs 17 to 22. Moreover, the
institutions could respond that they had more
than one at-risk group as a target. Finally, it is
important to note that in Switzerland, Latvia,
Finland, Croatia and Estonia, only one institution
reported data.
4.4 Marketing
In the EU, 17% of the population is at risk of
poverty and it is revealed that two in 10 adults in
EU-15 and almost half in EU-10 (47%) do not have
a bank account while many more have no savings
and lack access to credit (Eurostat, 2009). These
numbers demonstrate that the proportion of the
population that may benefit from microcredit in
the EU is smaller than in developing countries.
In addition, these prospective clients may be
harder to reach as potential microloan clients
Graph 24: Marketing methods
Referrals
Community
outreach
Public
Relations
Mass Media
advertising
Targeted
advertising
other
are geographically dispersed and excluded
from mainstream communication due to years
of unemployment or activity in the informal
economy. As a result, significant outreach and
marketing is needed to reach these prospective
clients in the EU.
In this section of the survey, institutions were
asked which marketing methods were utilized,
comparing those commonly used by lenders to
those that they consider to have a greater success
rate. Lenders surveyed often employ several
marketing strategies simultaneously. Over 70%
of respondents stated that referrals were used
most commonly to attract loan clients and that
they were also the most successful medium used.
This result implies that lenders should emphasise
communication with referring agencies such
as business support services, employment
services and community aid groups, as these
groups would be beneficial for the microfinance
institution. Community outreach is the next most
commonly utilized medium, followed by public
relations, mass media advertising, and finally,
targeted advertising. Contrary to the previous
survey, mass media is now being used more
than targeted advertising, in spite of mass media
being a more expensive medium. This change
could be due to the incorporation of traditional
banks and savings banks that can dedicate part
of their publicity portfolio to the microcredit
product, reaching a broader audience. Graph 24
summarizes this information.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Methods used Most succesful methods
39