Prabhakar Tiwari, Chief Marketing Officer of Angel Broking, dons multiple hats as a business thought-leader and new-age storyteller. Under his leadership Angel Broking has seen rapid improvements in its digital maturity metrics and market share gains. Tiwari is highly networked in CMO/CXO peer group forums like AIMA, IAMAI, RMAI and DMAi. He regularly contributes to the business fraternity in many roles as jury member, panelist and keynote speaker.
In this exclusive interaction Prabhakar Tiwari speaks about the evolution of the BFSI sector in recent years, about Angel Broking’s role in it, the strategies Angel Broking has adopted to reach out to modern audiences and much more.
Your journey in the BFSI sector has been very significant, in these years how has the sector, and its marketers and consumers, evolved?
Today, Angel Broking Ltd (ABL) is one of the largest, digital-first retail broking houses in India. We manage ₹192,830mn in client assets and have 3mn operational broking accounts. The evolution of the market has been phenomenal with an ever-increasing inclination towards digital, touch-of-a-button services.
The net disposable income is rising and people are looking towards alternative investments beyond FDs and real estate. As an investment instrument, security and exchange give them superior returns and hence, are being tapped by more Indian investors.
At Angel Broking, we have observed a broad-based growth in the market with more retail participation from Tier II and Tier III cities in terms of category. The same holds for demographics as there is a growing footfall of young first-time investors.
These aspects have had an obvious impact on marketers as well. The customer outreach activities now include several layers comprising multiple tools and channels. It could be anything from a media publication to a social media post or the in-house content via an educational platform. The overall communication, nevertheless, needs to be aligned with the core messaging alongside added personalization for that particular format.
In terms of marketing and the core business operations at large, the need of the hour is to automate as many processes as possible. Only it can cater to the modern consumer demands while also ensuring scale with precision. And, it is what we have done at Angel Broking including marketing as well as our customer-facing business operations.
What part has Angel Broking played in changing this landscape?
Angel Broking has remained at the forefront of digital adoption in the BFSI sector. Our digital drive began as early as 2011 with the launch of our mobile application. We also introduced several customer-centric services including e-KYC and a completely digital client on-boarding process.
Such services have resulted in more than 5.7mn downloads of Angel Broking mobile application and over 1mn downloads of Angel BEE mobile application. Our customer outreach now spans 96.8% PIN codes in India.
In 2016, we developed ARQ, a rule-based investment engine that analyzes more than 1 billion data points before extending stock recommendation. Now upgraded to ARQ Prime, the investment engine has consistently outperformed benchmark indices even during the toughest market conditions. It is integrated into our digital platforms, including Angel Broking Mobile App, trade.angelbroking.com, Angel Speed Pro and Angel BEE.
To make investments easier and cost-effective, we further came up with Angel iTrade Prime Plan, that charges Rs.0 for equity delivery and a flat rate of Rs.20 per order for all other segments including intraday, F&O, commodity, and currency trading. Furthermore, we have also developed Smart Money Platform which is a comprehensive guide to financial markets that extends free courses and certifications to retail investors, as well as Angel Amplifiers, which is the industry’s first Amplifiers platform exclusively for the Social Media Influencers.
Further working on this front, we’ve recently launched SmartAPI, which adds to the capabilities of an investor. It extends advanced functionalities to startups, algo traders, and other fintech players to build innovative trading platforms and customized charts via API integration, thereby opening a new growth avenue for all market stakeholders.
Also, we were the first to offer UPI Auto-pay for Mutual Funds. It significantly brings down the turnaround time of e-Mandate authentication for SIPs down to a few seconds.
What is your USP, what differentiates Angel Broking’s services from others?
One of the biggest USPs of Angel Broking is that we are a full-service, digital-first brokerage player. We have simple and uncomplicated pricing with no hidden charges at Rs.20 per order for intra-day, commodity, F&O, and currency orders while we feature Zero Charges on delivery trades.
We also continue to offer complimentary research and advisory service, and margin trading facility. Our comprehensive suite of services enables our customers to reap the benefits of a full-service broker at a flat price.
Our in-depth knowledge about the industry and customers is reflected by the deep digital journeys we have created within our mobile app and other customer touch-points. Angel Broking’s easy-to-use product, seamless and secure execution experience, places us ahead of our competition.
The BFSI sector has generally been perceived as unglamorous, how does Angel Broking tackle this challenge and engage with its audiences?
I have a different perception. I believe we are the ones shaping the market while also empowering the people in more than one way. You can realize it from the fact that the exchanges are called ‘market makers’. It is because they are precisely it; they make the market.
They address a financial need-gap that enables businesses to raise capital. It can be used to fund research and development, amplify business footprints, and better cater to the end-customers. On the other hand, it simultaneously empowers people to tap an additional revenue stream or adopt trading as a full-time practice.
These aspects also reflect in our campaigns with initiatives. For instance, our multi-award-winning Aage Badhne ka Smart Sauda discussed stock trading and investment as a progressive step forward with Angel iTrade Prime.
The campaign encompassed ML-driven tools and services along with language personalization and eclectic financial and non-financial platforms. We have received a very affirmative response to the campaign, which indicates even our customers don’t perceive trading and investment as unglamorous.
What had been Angel Broking’s strategies to reach out to younger audiences?
We’ve delved into the channels that are more focused on the younger audiences. It includes social media platforms as well as other media outlets that they prefer. We’ve also leveraged OTT platforms such as JioTV, Influencer Marketing in our marketing campaigns as youngsters typically spend a lot of time on them.
Angel Broking has also built on platforms like Hotstar, JioSaavn, MX Player, Daily Hunt, Amazon, and Flipkart in addition to popular social media ones such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
We have also tapped into the power of influencers and driven full-scale Influencer Marketing campaigns involving more than 1,000 big and small influencers. Another innovation that we’ve used is the responsive video ads, insta reserve with channel packs, and true view campaigns on YouTube that ensure brand lift in addition to gaming content. To ensure maximum accessibility, we’ve further ensured that vernaculars are used for the relevant target group in our campaigns to the extent possible.
Angel Broking has also expanded its horizons to smaller cities and towns in India as part of the customer outreach program. A lot of youth is concentrated across these regions which enables us to connect with them better. We have also spearheaded the development of young-investor-friendly platforms such as Smart Money that extend educational modules for investors and traders of varying expertise.
Smart Money divides educational materials into multiple categories based on the investor persona. We have also introduced the industry’s first Amplifiers platform exclusively for Social Media Influencers.
This first-of-its-kind platform empowers India’s millennials to tap the rising popularity of stock trading and, at the same time, set up extraordinary content through direct brand collaborations and an all-powerful influencer ecosystem.
How has Angel Broking leveraged social media to connect with its audience? Any recent campaign(s) you would like to talk about?
We use various interactive content formats including text, articles, DIY video series, quizzes, podcasts, and infographics to reach out to our customers. We have a strong presence across all major social media platforms and leverage all of them to drive the metrics.
Some of our recent campaigns include #ShagunKeShares, which was based on the Muhurat Trading session on Diwali, and Smart Sauda that highlighted various advantages of Angel iTrade Prime plan. They received unparalleled traction amongst the target audiences.
How does your media mix look like and what are the mediums that work best for Angel Broking?
At Angel Broking, we use social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, & Linkedin as well as Hotstar, JioSaavn, MX Player, Daily Hunt, Amazon, Flipkart, traditional media outlets, podcasts, videos, and blogs alongside others to engage our customers.
Has the pandemic affected your business, and how have Angel Broking tackled it?
The pandemic has led to an immediate burst of digital activities across the horizontal market. It has benefitted Angel Broking as an organization as we have developed industry-leading, digital-first operations over the years.
We have added an average of 1.5 lakh new accounts every month in the current financial year. Our target is to penetrate further into tier 3 cities and beyond where the growth potential is very high. This will enable us to emerge as the market leader in retail stockbroking.
The only downside of the pandemic was that we had to operate from our homes. In a way, it was also favorable as we had an IPO aligned which requires frequent meetings with various industry stakeholders. We were able to conduct them online seamlessly, thereby saving a lot of time and effort.
Going forward, what is Angel Broking’s growth plan ?
Our target is to achieve the number 1 position across segments. This vision will be fueled by our digital-first growth strategy, which has helped us achieve a high retail equity market share of over 15%.
We aim to expand our business footprint across tier II and tier III geographies and keep improving our client engagement journey to cater to the ever-growing needs of our customers.
How do you see the brokerage business changing in the future and any industry trends we should watch out for?
Advanced trading methodologies such as Algo Trading and High-Frequency Trading are going to be the next step forward for the market. They enable investors to be more productive while eliminating human biases, errors, and omissions from the picture. More processes will be digitally-driven with automation and technological interventions taking on a new significance altogether.
