Marketing in Nicaragua

Marketing in Nicaragua

    This past week my friend and I worked with a foodstuff company called "Proleizam". Founded by a man named Erwin Antonio Leizam 3 years ago, Proleizam has been taking off in the city of Leon. When we arrived at the Proleizam cartoonish-looking warehouse, Erwin didn't hesitate to get straight to business by over-viewing his new products. He had a new type of ketchup, mustard, and vinegar, all of which had their own label. After 2 minutes of meeting him, I knew that he was on his A-game. He had all the basics; a warehouse, equipment, a logo, connections.. Erwin had everything together. He didn't even look like he wanted 2 young college students to tell him what to do. Not to mention he received a $20,000 reward to start his company  last year.

Proleizam headquarters

   So what did he want help with? Well, he had all these products ready, but with no traditional marketing strategy to guide his delivery. He had some ideas though, like driving a truck around town blasting commercials for his products through huge speakers (which is very common in Nicaragua).

   So, we put together a presentation and business card ideas to deliver to him. The presentation went over the 5 P's of marketing, and a specific example to follow each one:

Product: What?
Placement: Where?
People: To whom?
Price:  Maximum profitable price , prices you compete with ?
Promotion: How?

After Erwin was properly educated with western wisdom, we went into the "promotion" aspect specifically.

    I pulled up a picture of a business card I had spent hours preparing the day before only to find out  that he already had one! Once again, Erwin had it together. With a curve ball thrown at us, we had to go with plan B; pick at his marketing mistakes thus far.

The example business card I had created. A good business card is simple and to the point.  It has his basic contact info, his logo, and a Slogan to help convince his clients and customers that Proleizam is the right company to buy from.

   Labeled on his ketchup bottles were impressive but the Leizam logo wasn't nearly big enough to remind the customer who they were buying from. I pulled up a picture of a Heinz ketchup bottle just to show him that the logo was bigger than the word "ketchup". I told him that people should look at his bottle and already know that it is good ketchup just from the brand name. He nodded his head in agreement, finally giving me a look that made me feel relevant. Erwin is a smart entrepreneur who knows his business inside and out, he just needed some new approaches to marketing his products. I'm sure he will find success in his business. Good luck Erwin!
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