How content is helping mutual fund brands catch their investors young

BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) is one category for which content marketing has been of utmost importance. But a sub-category, mutual funds, is acing the game to tap the largest section of mutual fund investors—the youth—by creating content that is way cooler, sassy and yet educating and informative.

According to CAMS (the registrar and transfer agency of most mutual fund houses) data of 2019, around 16 lakh new mutual fund investors were millennials, falling in the age bracket of 20 and 35 years. The youngsters accounted for 47% of the new investors in mutual funds. Therefore, mutual fund brands leave no stone unturned to tap the enormous business potential of this age group.

Kailash Kulkarni

Kailash Kulkarni, CEO, L&T Mutual Fund, said, "In many cases, the youth are aware of mutual funds but not sure which fund/product to invest in, or why they should invest in them. This is where content marketing plays a role."

While the role of content marketing in the mutual fund category is to educate and inform the consumers, one can't get away by just blatantly putting out information overload, which bores the youth that has a less attention span and can access a plethora of content.

Kulkarni said brands need quick and simple communication strategies. "One has to be sharp, quick and relevant when one educates them about investing in mutual funds," he added.

MVS Murthy

MVS Murthy, Head of Marketing and Digital Communications, Tata Mutual Fund, seconded, "The world has converged on to the mobiles. And the youth are mobile and on mobile. Studies show that roughly more than four hours are spent on mobile devices by Gen Z. The point is that content is being unstoppably consumed, the medium is also in control of the audience and has no time-bands. 'My-time' is 'prime-time' and hence brands must lock into this ecosystem through innovative content which will intrude into the intense see, scroll, skim and share cycles. If you don't have content and are not mobile-first, a brand is gone to the back of beyond for any semblance of recall."

Although the mutual fund category sees a massive potential among the youth, there is still a long way to go. According to PGIM India Retirement Survey 2020, it is noticed that working youngsters (23-35-year age group) usually spend a major chunk of their income on current expenses and save less for their future.

Sakshi Dalela

Sakshi Dalela, Head, Marketing and Communications, PGIM India Mutual Fund, commented, "Our category does not enjoy deep penetration as some other traditional financial products. This difference becomes even starker when we look at the penetration among our young millennial population. Given all these reasons, we at PGIM India Mutual Fund feel there is a huge opportunity for content, especially digital content, to drive category awareness, demystify jargons and help our youth to start investing early in their life."

Recently, PGIM India Mutual Fund launched two-minute stand-up poetry to address the youth.

The video to the PGIM stand-up poetry:

Interactive and entertaining content formats used by brands to lure the youth

Using mobile and social media marketing and blogs are imperative to educate customers on the benefits of investing in MF products.

But Kulkarni of L&T pointed out, "Some mutual fund houses talk about products using a great deal of technical jargon, which, in our view, does not work for the youth. The youth need more uncomplicated communication on their preferred platforms — which is digital — so that they can understand the messaging quickly.”

Kulkarni further mentioned that the topics mutual fund brands pick, which are more relatable to the youth, include a secured future, stress-free retirement, love for travel and owning a car.. These goals are indirectly related to mutual fund investments, which could be reached mainly through SIPs. 

In a very interesting format, L&T Mutual Fund runs an Instagram page 'The Finance Magazine', which doesn't even mention the brand name as the primary text. The page is all about travel, fashion and lifestyle.

"These are the categories in which today's youth are most interested in. Everyone likes to travel the world and savour some delicious food. We have achieved great success by being one of the industry brands that talk about mutual funds in a different yet extremely relatable way.  We do not sell products here, but create investor awareness in a visually appealing manner", added Kulkarni.

According to Tata Mutual Fund's Murthy, video, voice and vernacular are the three variables which independently or as a combo will help connect with the youth.

"Videos are important as cheap data allows us to move away from the light text; besides visuals allow ease of understanding. Voice is a fast emerging way of engagement as it plays in the background, and the youth draw a lot of their knowledge through podcasts and the ubiquity of text being changed to voice. The upside of clicking the voice icon is that even those who can’t read can hear and understand. Thus, we cover more audiences. Finally, particularly in India, we are a nation within many nations, being an amalgamation of cultures, languages, etc. And any brand which can deliver ‘mother-tongue’ content will build legions of fans in our country."

Tata Mutual Fund is one of the few brands in India which has tried hands on podcast content. Its Hindi Podcast' Ishq bhi, risk bhi' has over 250K listens. Its investor education films starring Prof. Simply Simple and Suppandi, in association with Amar Chitra Katha, is a nine-language multi-episode series.

Murthy said that all these initiatives have helped TMF increase user traffic by seven times in the last 18 months and the business through channels attributed to marketing is up by 2X and by the end of the FY, it could be signing off at 3.5X.

Dalela of PGIM added, "Interactive content that resonates with the audience's mindset, their problems, causes and aspirations is likely to foster a brand community and boost the sales. Millennials don't just buy products randomly but prefer knowing in detail about the products they buy. Moreover, credible content, reviews or trusted social media influencers play a key role in shaping the buyer's behaviour."

Should mutual fund brands invest in expensive formats like web series?

The Viral Fever has produced some clutter-breaking viral-worthy web series for mutual fund brands in the past, including AMFI's 'Aam Aadmi Family' and 'Yeh Meri Family'. The content platform also created two web series ‘Cubicles’ and ‘#Breakthebias’ for DSP Mutual Fund in the last two years.

Because web series are long, expensive and time-taking formats, not many MF brands have tested waters in this medium.

Kulkarni of L&T Mutual Fund said he believes that it is not a bad idea to invest in advertising through web series. But it is expensive. "It may give us good returns when we are talking about our TG being youth. Web series is most watched by India's youth, so, plugging in the right way may get good viewership. But the fact remains that there are much better and engaging ways in the digital space to attract that kind of viewership when you compare costs."

According to Murthy, depending on the brand's budget, one can experiment with the web series format. Although he said, "The balance to strike is whether to go with web series, which has a content style of its own, which takes into consideration the attitude of the youth to many things in life. Now, this may not be the way a brand sees itself. The other alternative is to self-create a series that espouses and endorses the brand's value. This would, however, mean setting aside a considerable sum from the budgets from production and promotion. Other short-format alternatives are competing for the same budgets."

Mutual Fund brands testing waters with Quora and influencer marketing

It is also seen that Quora and influencer usage has gained momentum among the MF brands to target the youth.

Quora is a platform where people seek answers about anything; therefore, several mutual fund brands are ensuring that they are present on the platform when the consumers have doubts about mutual funds.

While Kulkarni is a firm believer of using Quora as a medium for content marketing, TMF's Murthy holds a very different view. He said, "Platforms like Quora in case of mutual funds may have limited use since most of the doubts are cleared by AMCs or by MFDs. In the case of Tata Mutual Fund, our BoT Mr Simple has responded to over 400k+ queries in the last five months."

Relying heavily on influencer marketing is one such brand, Angel Broking. It believes in influencers' power to the extent that it launched its own influencer marketing platform Amplifiers last year. The platform enables the influencers to pick curated offers, use its content library, receive brand briefs and easy-to-use platform-based templates. The agency route is also circumvented in this approach, and its direct financial benefits are extended to the on-boarded amplifiers.

Prabhakar Tiwari

"We started our content marketing journey almost more than a year back, and we are doing full-fledged content in every possible format. The idea is to make it bigger as we move along. Amplifiers will complement our content marketing efforts," said Prabhakar Tiwari, CMO, Angel Broking. "Every influencer is either an entertainer or a teacher, and they have their unique way of giving a spin to the content. They can make our messaging more entertaining and hence, content creation in collaboration with influencers is a scalable phenomenon for us."

To conclude, Murthy said, "The ability to share and track responses is the biggest endorsement of youth likability. And great content can make them likeable."