More and more advisors are using online platforms to acquire clients. One such platform is Quora, a question-and-answer site.
We asked a few top advisers whether writing for Quora has helped them in acquiring clients.
Advisors say that Quora is a cost-effective platform through which they can get in touch with people who are seeking financial help.
A quick glance at the list of top writers in categories such as mutual funds and financial planning shows that the young generation of financial advisors is making most out of Quora.
Gaurav Perti of Fincash.com says that Quora is a useful platform for financial advisors as they can connect with young investors who come to Quora to gain financial knowledge as well as clear their doubts. “There is gross information asymmetry which is evident from the low penetration of mutual funds. A large number of Indians are on this platform and hence it provides financial advisors with a large user base. A fair of percentage of our readers have become our clients,” says Gaurav.
Similarly, Harsh Jain of Groww.in started using Quora as a means to understand the needs of the investor community. “We looked at different platforms to help us understand what people really want, what are the kind of questions they are asking, what are the kind of gaps that exist today in the industry and as well as to understand the level of mis-selling that is taking place. Hence, we explored Quora. We got good feedback to our answers. Few of the readers have called us to understand more about mutual funds and later started investing with us. Quora has also helped in increasing our visibility,” says
“It is one of the channels where you can reach people who intend to start investing but do not know how to start,” Harsh adds.
However, not all advisors feel the same way.
Gayatri Jagdale of Fund-Matters who started answering questions on Quora almost one-and-half year back says that most investors go for direct investment after clearing their doubts. “I can’t say that it has resulted in client acquisition. People are full of queries and ask questions on platforms such as Quora for free and most of the time they do direct investments. However, answering questions was a learning experience for me because people from all over the world ask you questions and it requires you to search, dig more into information. Also, people have become more aware of us,” says Gayatri.
Is there a strategy?
Advisors value quality over quantity. Harsh says that volume of questions answered does not merely translate into client acquisition. “It is important to write good quality answers. In addition, we prefer not to write answers for questions that have been already answered by other writers,” says Harsh.
Advisors say that they answer queries when they have time. Gaurav says that he writes three to four times a week while Gayatri tries to write twice a week.
