Inside: Tata Mutual Fund's content strategy consisting Podcasts & Visuals

Podcasts have helped Tata Mutual Fund interact with a diverse audience in a language they are familiar with. MVS Murthy shares insights into the strategy at play.

Tata Mutual Fund has taken multiple routes to expand their digital presence and reach more people, especially under the lockdown. They have been organising webinars, producing podcasts, upgrading fund manager interactions and trying to better their ways to digitally source new customers. One of the most interesting aspects has been the Tata Mutual Fund podcasts.

The brand has recently launched the second season of Ishq Bhi Risk Bhi on aawaz.com. The podcast is an audio-drama aimed at mutual fund investor education — to help audiences in B30 cities and beyond understand capital markets and investments in mutual funds and SIPs.

Another podcast by Tata Mutual Fund is called Mind Over Matters. Featuring Tata Mutual Fund's CIO Rahul Singh and MVS Murthy, Head - Marketing, Digital & Corporate Communications, the weekly conversational podcast has been launched in English with an aim to help investors with needle-moving insights on capital markets.

While awaaz.com continue to be the originating point, the web and Ola Play have also been used by the brand to distribute audio content.

Why Podcasts?

The fact that people don't have to actively listen in works in the favour of podcasts. "40 Mn+ people active on the internet listen to podcasts i.e voice led content and these numbers are exponentially growing. One of the factors is that voice can play in the background while we attend to other stuff," Murthy tells us.

He further explains, "As a company, we are actively working on empowering the non-English speaking, non-Metro or T30 audiences to understand Mutual Fund investing and make a start. What better way to communicate than in a language that has a much larger reach."

While working on these podcasts, the Tata Mutual Fund team realised few key aspects: The content needs to be authentic, connect with at least one core audience (in this case, millennials and Gen Z), love and humour are always a winning combination and that everything has an element of 'risk'.

Brand v/s COVID-19

For BFSI brands, not much could be done during the end of the JFM period as numbers had to be delivered and there couldn't be a pullback from that. Also, there were plenty of uncertainties around the execution and impact of the lockdown. For Tata Mutual Fund, Murthy tells us, with the first quarter of the next financial year, approach and strategies were recalibrated and it was decided to go big on Digital.

The brand communication put forth went through some changes under the lockdown. They are focussing on encouraging customers to make the most of the lockdown by asking them to live, learn and love. The brand also converted Prime Minister's message into modules for onward sharing.

"We kicked off Webinars with Behavioural Finance Experts like Morgan Housel, CRISIL did a session for our partners, our Fund Managers have jumped from voice calls to video calls, as a company we have all learnt newer ways of managing work remotely and yet highly efficient," he says.

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The power of original content

In regards to running podcasts under the lockdown, Murthy says, "The power of a fictional social audio-dram is that despite COVID-19 our protagonists are getting closer to each other. WFH also is Work For Home and when you battle out time from Work From Home, content like this will bring a smile, lift the mood."

"Original content always gives you the flexibility to seed, nurture and grow a story. There is no pretence and the authenticity comes through. The audiences are quite discerning to know – this is a paid dialogue by the brand. While you do get 'reach' the affinity is much lower. It's like a group doing something for the society at large versus for the stock markets only. The former is original and happening while the latter is cool," he tells us.

The way forward

Tata Mutual Fund is expected to invest in Digital for the next quarter, a decision that is largely defined by the impact of the ongoing pandemic. On Digital, they will go but on the 3 Vs — Video, Voice and Vernacular. Talking about the pandemic, Murthy tells us, "It's been this external unbalanced force that propelled the object moving in a uniform state."

For the last three quarters, Tata Mutual Fund has taken an extra effort to visually educate audiences about mutual fund investing. It has been done in the form of an infographic, vector videos and voice backed animation.

"We have added speed and scale to messaging reach and delivery. Marketing has played a very origami-c role in creating multiple shapes (for each department) out of a humble paper — the power of Digital. There is no end for perfection but there is a higher momentum towards it," he adds.

Podcats, much like radio, are able to harness the power of verbal language and communication with ease. It is easier to communicate with a larger audience, across demographics and in various languages with this medium. The efforts being put in by Tata Mutual Fund are likely to pull more BFSI brands to take the route of podcasts going forward.