What Balaji Vaidyanathan teaches about AI in marketing

Technology is the way in which you're going to partner to deliver better and optimal engaged clients. What are the three don'ts in digital marketing when it comes to financial services marketing? I think the most important don't and while we are talking about digital marketing for financial services, it's a challenge which most of us have faced when we are aggressively overselling. So the first don't, don't oversell. Engage with your consumer. The challenge which most of the mutual fund marketers have been unfortunately communicating

to the client is talking about short-term performance, about how funds are doing well or about how they're given a certain amount of dividends or about how certain funds have got certain ratings or rankings. The problem with this approach, I fundamentally feel, is that you're expecting the client to think therefore very short-term. But considering the fact that mutual funds are a long-term goal-oriented solution where people should be investing for 10, 15 or even 20 years if not more, by pushing this mentality

of overselling with short-term performance, you're getting the client to come out as soon as the fund stops performing. Right. So that's my first don't. Right. If I look at my second don't, I think one of the biggest challenges which marketers in the digital space and financial services have faced is they've been very shy or scared of adopting technology. So my second don't is don't be shy of actually adopting technology because technology is the way in which you're going to partner to deliver better and optimal engaged clients.

And third thing perhaps which I'd like to say is digital may be important, but don't think digital is the holy grail. Right. Which means don't only live digital. The fact is today, while a consumer is out there looking for data online, still majority of transactions are happening offline, either through a brick and mortar platform, via a distributor, a financial intermediary or at the branch office. So you need to ensure that you're not just going digital, but actually taking a full marketing mix. Often digital is a very integral part. That's right.

So what are your current challenges when it comes to marketing mutual funds? Investor education is obviously the biggest challenge. And I think where it stems from is the fact that awareness of mutual funds is still very low today. Right. Just to give you a small example, only probably around one and a half percent of the Indian population is actually invested into mutual funds. So while awareness is one thing, under penetration is a second thing. If you look at why, and that's where the challenge comes in, Indians are used to assured return products.

Right. When we've been growing up, I know parents, uncles, aunts, all have invested in bank fixed deposits, which usually give you 12%, 16% assured rates. Right. Unfortunately, that mentality has been imbibed in people like us. Thankfully, with the newer generation, perhaps they're not so much used to it because we've seen the era of assured returns actually slip down. But that traditional challenge still holds. So if you look at it, my father or my relatives are very difficult for me to convince them to

look at mutual funds because there is no assurity on the principle coming back to you. Yet at the same time, every one of those people have invested in an insurance product, or at least most of them have, thinking insurance as an investment rather than protection. So the way the misconception of the sale of mutual funds has been also over the years has been another big challenge. And then I think there are just too many products. I don't think product communication is easy.

While the regulator itself has put in a lot of challenges with the way you can communicate out. So no celebrities, no endorsements, performance disclosures. You can't talk about certain things about the fund. You can't talk about awards. There are a lot of restrictions in the way we can communicate about mutual funds. I mentioned this perhaps a couple of times earlier also in other forums. The way we communicate is all about short-term mentalities. So people are going to think short-term and then you're trying to sell them a long-term product.

Then they look at saying, oh, I didn't get my returns or I'm not being given what I thought I should get. And then they walk out. I think these are some of the challenges and preconceived notions which we as marketers, especially in the investment management industry, need to address to try and get the consumer more committed to a long-term mutual fund process with us. As a marketer, how do you equip yourself to deal with changing technology from artificial intelligence to voice isolated in terms of digital to lead digital consumption today?

So what is your approach to technology which is changing every day? So let me tell you one fact straight away. When it comes to adoption of technology, probably the mutual fund industry is one of the slowest. Okay. And it's something which is going to continue to stay that way. And it's a fact. But you must understand the fact of the matter is it is money. You're taking monies from the investor, using it to invest according to a particular objective and give it back to them after a certain point of time. So we've gone with all the hygiene.

If you look at most of these mutual fund companies, you know, the responsive sites, the mobile apps, whether it's voice bots, so voice chats and all. Right. These have already started coming. A lot of people, including us, have also started investing over the last couple of years into data science and analysis. But if I were to ask about saying that is AI really getting used, I think we're still to go up that curve as far as the industry is concerned. We have not yet innovated so much. But are we doing it slow and steady? Yes.

I think the idea is for us to also ensure that because we are handling a little more sensitive things with compared to the client's money, we'd rather take it slow and steady and ensure that the consumer at any point of time is open to be able to reach out to us directly, either through the intermediary or to us directly, in a far more efficient manner, then build up a series of networks or pipelines which takes him a little more time to go through. Tell us about yourself outside of work. So the Balaji outside work loves traveling.

He loves exploring different countries and cuisines. And while that's one part of it, I also love to do something a little different. Probably a lot of marketers may not know. And that's I love to teach as well as dance. Latin ballroom dance forms like salsa, bachata, cha-cha, tango. So whenever I get the free time, I'm either learning or I take classes and teach a lot of new students. The other thing about me which most people won't know is I'm a very ardent PUBG fan. And PUBG is an online game. Yes. Last one year, it's got a lot of fame, notoriously.

But I'm hooked onto it, addicted. At least a couple of hours a day is my mojo. So these are a couple of things I don't think a lot of people would know about me. I don't think a lot of people would know about me.