‘Making customers think is the best thing that a marketing team can do’

FinTech is a category that has seen an unprecedented boom in the last few months of the pandemic. With people being largely at home during lockdowns, it became necessary for players in the BFSI sector to provide services digitally. 

Vignesh M, Head – Marketing, Brand and Corporate Communication, Equitas Small Finance Bank says that from the traditional way of advertising, the world has completely moved to digital. 

He adds “With the coming of the pandemic, the digital channels of marketing had no other option than to buckle up with the strategies and go all out to get in touch with their target segments. With many Fintechs entering this space, the world has started to take digital more seriously and Equitas is a perfect example of this. Since the onset of the pandemic, our whole acquisition journey had moved into digital and today we are acquiring 2 lakh accounts on Selfe per month.” 

The Selfe product feature offered by Equitas is a savings account that can be opened online with a selfie and was launched during the pandemic. While it opens a half KYC account that requires the customer to complete the KYC by visiting the nearest branch within a year, the bank also launched VKYC to sort this issue out. 

Complete adoption of digital banking was a necessity but has worked well for the bank. Says Vignesh M, “With no contact banking and social distancing in place, opening an account was made simpler by empowering the customers to start saving in 5 minutes, sitting at home. Addressing the need of the hour is what we believe in and all our products and marketing campaigns are made around this theme. Opening a Full KYC account through a video call took our product to the next level. We also had exclusive videos in line with our IPL-CSK partnership for VKYC.” 

Leveraging Communication To Elevate Consumer Experience 

Equitas Small Finance Bank is banking heavily on personalised messaging and segmented communication to reach its target audience. Vignesh M explains, “For your mail to get picked from 100 mails, there should be something that will hook the customer to open it. That is where our marketing team plays a crucial role. Sending the same communication to all is never going to do the magic for us. For every product, we have segmented our communications based on the customer personas and we use local lingos to build that connect with the customers through relatable messaging.” 

Most digital brands today leverage Big Data and AI to make the consumer experience seamless and Equitas is no exception. Sharing insights on the same, he adds “Big Data is used to formulate our communication strategy. Each line that goes out from the marketing team, aims to address the pain points of the customers and the specific products. Making the customer think is the best thing that a marketing team can do.” 

However, apart from big data and analytics, a lot goes into ensuring the right kind of experience for every customer. Vignesh M adds, “One of the major initiatives we have taken is building a robust CLCM (Customer Lifecycle Management). From the first day of acquiring a customer, we have a focused 30-day engagement plan where we touch base with the customer in multiple ways to provide an omnichannel experience to the customer. Building a robust customer onboarding journey is necessary and we believe that we are on it. The engagement and offer strategies are planned based on lifestyle and life-stage. We address the specific needs at a particular age and one such example is our Alserv partnership for Senior citizens.” 

Marketing Plans & Challenges Faced 

Further commenting on the challenges faced in marketing Equitas, he shares “Email has become a crowded space. To be that lucky mail, which gets that open click, is not easy. Reachability and getting in touch with the right audience is another pain point. We are using AI, big data analytics etc. to address this. Based on the customer behaviour and data, we are running our campaigns. It’s all about testing and trying and figuring out the persona of every customer and then channelizing campaigns accordingly.” 

In today’s digital age and space, Gen-Z and millennials are much more financially aware than ever before. Since the younger generation is now taking active participation in banking and financial services, Vignesh M shares how that changes the dynamics of marketing, “It is a very important demographic as today’s youth are tomorrow’s future. The entire boom that we see today in the digital space is only because of the youth as they are all used to getting things done at their fingertips in a tap. The attention of the youth needs to be caught at a very young age as once they experience the best service, they will not want to switch. If they don’t get a hang of your service or product, then there is no future.” 

From a marketing standpoint, the brand is putting its money where its mouth is with the biggest focus on digital. The bank has run marketing campaigns like ‘One India One Bank’ in collaboration with famous singers across India to create an anthem, uniting the various states of India. 

The anthem was done in different languages and crossed 1million views on YouTube. The bank has also associated with Chennai Super Kings and gained a lot of traction on its communication channels.

Sharing further marketing plans says Vignesh M “Digital-first is going to be our new mantra because of the pandemic. In few locations, phygital is still relevant. We will invest equally in digital and phygital. We will go all out to reach the public in a maximum way and will be strengthening our services in the rural areas through BC (Business Correspondent) channels. When it comes to hoardings and other physical creatives, we will continue to invest in a 5km radius of the bank. We will do activities to have a good amount of footfalls on the premises, as at the end of the day, branch visits are important.” 

Currently, the bank is focusing on brand repositioning and the communication is in tandem. Shares Vignesh M, “We are repositioning to ‘Beyond Banking’. Right from the inception of the organisation, we have tried our best to give back to society but we were not vocal about it. With the new positioning, we are running campaigns to tell the world about it. When we say, “When you bank with us, you contribute towards a better society”, we mean it.”