No matter the scale of the business, every business someday comes face to face with one burning question: should it create digital content in-house or work with a specialised agency? And it’s no doubt a tough one since businesses have a lot to consider. At least for Angel One, building an in-house capability is the winning strategy.
“With an in-house content capability, the differentiator is user empathy. As a business, internal stakeholders would know its customers the best. Agencies have many clients to look at and it might go right in the first go but one often needs obsessive iteration day in and day out. Especially for a finance brand where customer relationships have transformed, content is how you speak to your folks and users on a daily level,” said Paarth Dhar, VP – New Growth Opportunities at Angel One.
The company expends many resources to regularly create online digital content that is creative and persuasive. Taking it a notch further, it has launched Fin One, a digital-first initiative set to transform financial literacy for a billion Indians, through multiple content offerings.
In an exclusive conversation with Storyboard18, Dhar shared that Fin One will have a dedicated Instagram page for fun bite-sized content and a new YouTube channel for use cases. Apart from all the informative posts, there will soon be launched quirky content series— which eventually become its IP, he said. “Once the entertainment becomes our mass lever for organic traction, we move towards the engagement part where we go in-depth into some of the topics and at the end will create product tools for the empowerment of the users,” he said.
All such content marketing initiatives (from script writing to production) and technological tools are being created by its Gen Z in-house team. “We have an in-house capability to produce high-quality content. The entire team of Fin One is built by Gen Z for Gen Z,” he added. While the company isn’t actively looking for its promotions, it intends to get familiar faces as guests which includes both creators and brands.
Fin One integrates engagement and entertainment to empower young Indians to make informed financial decisions and develop resilient investing habits. Young Indians, especially Gen-Z and Millennials, are diving into the market now, and they need to know about the virtues of early investing, staying in the market for the long term, the risks involved, and how to make the most of their investments.
Dhar also noted that the average age of people taking an interest in financial products has decreased for the company. From nearly 1.3 million in FY19 to over 22.2 million by FY24, Angel One’s client base expanded significantly and further to nearly 23 million as of April 2024. The average age of clients on its platform is around 29, and it has strong traction from the Tier II and beyond markets. Most importantly, about 48% of the clients acquired are below the age of 25.
“While our core product offering in itself is expanding (where we are expanding beyond stock, broking, lending, and insurance), Fin One is not a product but an initiative to cater to the needs of this audience that we are aiming for next- the 100 million users. While they might not be the direct customers at this point, they would eventually be transacting in their lifetime,” he said. This strategic move underscores Angel One’s commitment to meet the dynamic needs of younger investors, especially Gen Z and Millennials, who are showing a growing interest in capital market products.
Meanwhile, the company is also designing content specifically in Hindi and targeting users in areas classified as tier III, IV, and beyond, across the country. “Among the younger generation, there is an increasing need to explain concepts in their vernacular language. We are trying to translate audio into regional languages through AI. Going forward, we would explore southern languages as well,” he concluded.