Marketing Plan Online Tutoring on Meridian Financial

The following assignment is a Marketing plan on Meridian Finance, which was done for one of our clients. The marketing plan is an in detailed plan that was done in order to give a clear overview about the company, it’s structure, market opportunity, strategies, pricing and so on.

marketing plan poster

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Marketing Plan

Introduction to the company

Meridian is a financial institution that provides exceptional banking, feature, services, security, and advice Canadians to help them to get everything that they want from their money, and their lives. They do not have any public shareholders while being a not-for-profit, focused on community financial institutions. At Meridian their members are their owners.

Meridian Credit Union is a company that provides banking services. It offers financial products and services including loans, line of credit, mortgages, insurance, credit cards, savings and checking accounts, as well as investments.

Organization Structure

marketing plan meridian

SWOT Analysis

Their strength lies in being the largest credit union with strong assets and team. They have an excellent team management which builds the company stronger. Apart from this, there are strong investments in IT and technological innovations by the company which provide these with a competitive advantage.

Their weakness is that they have geographical restrictions as they operate in Ontario only with only a limited number of branches. This hinders their marketing plan goals as they are unable to reach their target customers more effectively.

The have an opportunity as small businesses tend to choose credit unions and attract mortgage lending market.

Threats face by Meridian is the cyber attacks with affect their security and pressure on rate as power of customers require to for higher rates of profit.

Major Competitors

Currently they have some competitors like:

  • Tangerine: Tangerine is regarded as a competitor to Meridian credit union because it is on the top in regards to customer service provided. Also, it is a federal level bank (available in all of the provinces of Canada). They target 27-64-year-old people.
  • TD Bank: TD Bank is a competitor to Meridian credit union as it is the bank which has the highest digital reach to the audiences among the other banks. TD doesn’t have any specific target in terms of demographics, but mainly the millennials are the audiences to the bank.
  • Alterna Savings and Credit Union: After Meridian, Alterna is the second largest credit union in Ontario. That serves as the primary reason why it competes with Meridian. Also, Alterna is the number one credit union among the other competitors in terms of website maintenance. Same as TD Bank, there is no specific target market in terms of age for Alterna.
  • Scotia Bank: Scotia Bank targets mostly on the Millennials as they are 27% of Canada’s population as of 2019. The bank provides the best interest on investment, especially in the shares. They position themselves as the bank who is friendly, provides guidance and rewards its customers through programs like SCENE Card.

but Meridian tries to surpass them all.

Marketing Plan Opportunity

  1. According to the data provided by Statistics Canada, each year, Ottawa welcomes 7,528 International Students, 10,930 Permanent Residency Card holders by Express Entry, and 6,000 New Immigrants.
  2. Meridian has the best interest rate by 0.5% for savings accounts that may make them preferable compared to the competitors’ for newcomers. As our targeted market is between the ages of 20 and 30, Meridian may invest in technological innovations to take the millennials’ attention and to provide the services and/or products “desired to use” for them.
  3. Tangerine has no options to be offered for 18-27 years old customers that are exactly the target audience for Meridian. Scotia Bank is below the fastest growing players in the industry if the matter is Investment and Research that may be conducted as Meridian as an opportunity to attract the millennials interest. None of the competitors is offering any financial options for the newcomers because of the deficiency of credit score. Some financial support programs may be offered by Meridian to help newcomers about the management of their funds.
  4. Meridian attracts many customers from different demographics that will make them much more preferable for the newcomers from all around the world. Strong digital banking is a differentiator nowadays and Meridian is focusing on developing their digital banking world.
  5. The size of the market that we provide for Meridian is approximately 24,458 newcomers / year but if we consider the IRRC’s data of “60% of the international students prefer to stay in Canada after their graduation” and the average industry growth for Colleges and Universities in Canada is 2.9% provided by IBISWorld the expected target size is 29,816 for 2020-2021 and 34,467 for 2021-2022.

Target Market to implement Marketing Plan

  • The coverage strategy is relevant to your client market opportunity. The marketing plan of helping the newcomers to Canada in the aspect of credit score, the concentrated strategy is the best among the all coverage strategies. This type of strategy will focus all of the marketing efforts of Meridian to the newcomers/international people. Also, because of keeping the efforts to one segment, it is less costly and helps in keeping up on the budget for the marketing opportunity.
  • Target market will focus on International Students, PR holders by Express Entry, New Immigrants who will come to suburban and urban areas in Ottawa. These people are looking for credit options and financial support based on their credit scores in original countries or some other financial support that will facilitate their lives by paying for their expenses on a monthly basis instead of buying them as cash.
  • The key elements of your target market and the relationship of target market to Meridian ‘s market opportunity:
  • International Students that study and live in Ottawa ≈ 7,528
  • According to the article it is shown that 60% of the students prefer to stay in Canada after their graduation ≈ 4517
  • PR Card Holders by Express Entry that live in Ottawa ≈ 10,930
  • New Immigrants that live in Ottawa ≈ 6,000

Areas that need to be conducted by primary research:

  • Conducting a survey that indicates the number of international students between the ages of 20-30 in the colleges/university in order to access the students.
  • For PR express entry and PR holders who are international, we can access them through the IRCC (Immigrants, Refugees and Citizenship Canada), facebook pages.

Marketing and Positioning

Positioning for Meridian is based on their prestigious technological innovations and high-interest rates for savings. In comparison to other competitors, Meridian has even been awarded for Best Credit Union of the Year at the 2019 Canadian FinTech & AI Awards. This award was given to Meridian for being a leader in innovative technology and implementing these technologies to provide better service to its customers (Meridian, 2020). In addition to having great technological capabilities, Meridian has obtained many intellectual property rights which secures their innovations and sustains its position within the market. Therefore, competitors will have a difficult time trying to replicate some of Meridian’s award-winning innovative technologies.

Positioning Statement:

Meridian Credit Union is a caring, innovative financial institution that wants to financially better each of its members and their communities with award-winning technological services and great money-saving interest rates. Especially international students and newcomers who are between the ages of 20-30, are tech-savvy, and are looking to improve their finance.

The perceptual maps are aligned with our two main points of positioning. As displayed, Meridian is located in advantageous spots as opposed to competitors. Again, since Meridian is capable of achieving award-winning technologies, it can outrun competing brands with innovation. Moreover, Meridian’s high interest rates for savings accounts are also what differentiates itself from its competitors. A High Interest Savings Account (HISA), offered by Meridian, can let customers earn 0.50% for every dollar invested (Meridian, 2020). Tangerine is placed near Meridian in terms of interest rates on savings accounts with 0.25%. The rest of the competitors are not near the high levels of interest that Meridian and Tangerine are at.

marketing plan, assignment

Pricing Strategy

  • 0.50% interest rate on every dollar
  • $0 monthly fee
  • Unlimited free transactions
  • Applicable for TFSA’s and RRSP’s
  • E-transfers applied for additional fee.

Meridian should increase their high interest savings rate from 0.50% to 0.55% to compete with TD’s rate. Similar to Tangerine’s promotion tactic, Meridian should also offer a promotion to newcomers and international students who can receive a 2.20% interest rate on the first 6 months if they apply before December 2020.

IMC Strategies (Digital Marketing)

  • Advertising We will be using Social Media Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
    While reaching our targeted newcomers such as international students and immigrants by using Facebook Platform, Meridian will be posting their social media ads to the Algonquin College’s Facebook Page, uOttawa’s Facebook Page, and Carleton University’s Facebook Page after getting the approval from their Institution Administration. Furthermore, Meridian will keep posting to the other Facebook Pages where newcomers are interested to take their attention related to Meridian’s new service offer. Additionally, Meridian will be posting their new offers’ ads to their Facebook Page. While reaching our targeted newcomers such as international students and immigrants by using Instagram Platform, Meridian will focus to share the most attractive visual ads to inform them about their new products that are helping newcomers to get loans and to build their credit scores.While reaching our targeted newcomers such as international students, new immigrants, and Permanent Residency Card holders by Express Entry by using Twitter Platform, Meridian will focus to create the most striking short messages and hashtags to inform them about their new products that are helping newcomers to get loans and to build their credit scores and to get their attention.

    While reaching our targeted newcomers such as international students, new immigrants, and Permanent Residency Card holders by Express Entry by using LinkedIn Platform, Meridian will focus to publish the most important parts of their new services by using a proper business language in their videos, ads, and articles to inform them about their new products that are helping newcomers to get loans and to build their credit scores and to get their attention. Social media ads will be made and published by third parties’ marketing channels such as Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads to reach our targeted market. As there are 4 terms and the most populated one is the fall term, the schedule for social media ads will be implemented to reach maximum newcomers during a year.

  • Sales Promotion
    ATM receipts: can be included a link and reference code to take part in customer review surveys to make customers have a chance to win an award such as $1,000.Simulation game: On its website and social media platforms, Meridian can create a simulation game to attract the audience to play financial games and keep scores against themselves. They can earn points, honors, discounts for credit score improvements in the future.Waiving fees: chequing account fees may be expensive to many customers. Offering new customers or premium account members with monthly waiving fee can attract them to use Meridian’s services.

    Random selection for credit/debit card activities: It is to stimulate the audience to use credit or debit cards for their purchases to have a chance to win some fun prizes such as $50 or $100 monthly.

  • Sponsorships and events
    Meridian will be partnering with Algonquin College, or uOttawa, and Carleton University to reach new international students and current domestic and international students. Starting by the Academic Calendar of 2020/2021, Meridian will be partnering or sponsoring them with organizing new events for their first week of academic calendar and Meridian will continue to promote their new services for Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer Terms.
  • Website Improvement
    On Website Grader, security on motusbank’s website is graded with 5/10 while cyber-attacks are increasing recently especially during Covid-19 pandemic. Meridian should invest more on security system. Page speed should be improved because it is just 14.3 seconds which is 10 seconds longer than the recommended speed. Links and buttons on mobile web pages are smaller compared to some of their competitors, making it hard for some individuals to see. It is suggested these links and buttons should be fixed to make them bigger.
  • SEO
    Meridian Credit Union will add new services for international students and newcomers to Canada in their website and social media platforms. Then, keyword planner will be used to drive the target audience to their websites by searching keywords and phrases. To maximize the online visibility of Meridian to customers, some strategies such as local map listings, business review sites, and marketing content will be added to Meridian website to reach more target audiences and engage with customers.See Appendix 10.3 for more details

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