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GSMA MOBILE MONEY FOR THE UNBANKED & CONNECTED WOMEN REACHING HALF OF THE MARKET: WOMEN AND MOBILE MONEY



Effective tactics to increase mobile money penetration amongst women



Mobile money operators can use a number of tactics to overcome barriers to adoption, particularly changing their approaches to marketing,
distribution, and user experience. It is important to note that mobile money operators do not necessarily need to design a new service,
marketing campaign, or distribution model to attract more female customers to their services. In most cases, tweaking existing products
and services and the way they are marketed and distributed is enough to ensure greater uptake by women as well as men. This section
features examples of successful tactics used by pioneering mobile money operators that can be easily replicated in other markets.

Insight 1: Successful ATL campaigns include women

Above-the-line (ATL) marketing campaigns are important to raising customers’ awareness of a mobile money service and its potential
value to them. Ensuring that women can relate to an ATL campaign is an important step in increasing uptake of the service. It is not
necessary to create a dedicated ATL campaign — only half of the mobile money operators interviewed by MMU had rolled out ATL
campaigns specifically targeting women. The rest reported that women were featured in their regular marketing campaigns.


In many cases, featuring women in ATL campaigns is enough to make the service appealing to the female market. For instance, Telesom
in Somaliland developed TV advertisements showing women using its mobile money service ZAAD for merchant payments and savings
— the two use cases it thought would be most appealing to women.






















IMAGES FROM A TV ADVERTISEMENT FOR
TELESOM’S MOBILE MONEY SERVICE ZAAD


It is also important to ensure that ATL campaigns are visible in locations frequented most often by women and/or at times when women
are most likely to see them. For example, in Sri Lanka, where women account for 30% of Dialog’s eZ Cash customers, the company
featured eZ Cash ads in shopping malls, which women visit frequently.


Insight 2: Roving agents reduce barriers to access for women

From a logistical perspective, it tends to be more difficult to reach women with mobile money services than men. Recent studies have
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shown that in developing countries, especially in rural areas, women tend to be both time-poor and busy, looking after the house and
children and contributing to the household income as well. In more conservative countries, women are not allowed to run errands outside
the house on their own. It can therefore be challenging for women to visit a mobile money retailer to perform transactions.

Many of the mobile money operators interviewed by MMU identified these as barriers to access, and although deploying roving agents
may be expensive, six out of 10 operators considered this an effective way to address these issues and reach more women with their
mobile money service.


13. GSMA mWomen Programme, 2012, “Unlocking the Potential: Women and Mobile Financial Services in Emerging Markets”,
http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/GSMA-mWomen-Visa_Unlocking-the-Potential_Feb-2013.pdf, p. 11.

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