Investor awareness programs, particularly on-ground activities, are emerging as the most impactful route for many AMCs to reach out to masses. The number of AMCs adopting IAPs as well as the outreach has gone up substantially over the last five years.
For instance, 26 AMCs were conducting in FY2010-11. Now, 38 AMCs conduct at least five IAPs every month, shows AMFI data. The number of IAPs too have doubled from 5,817 in FY2010-11 to 10,816 in FY15-16. Naturally, the number of participants in these IAPs has also gone up from 3.40 lakh in FY2010-11 to 4.73 lakh in FY15-16.
B15 is an important market for many AMCs. In 2012, SEBI had permitted AMCs to charge additional TER up to 30 bps on the new inflows from beyond top 15 cities. This has encouraged many fund houses to reach out to investors in hinterland. For instance, of the 10,816 IAPs conducted in FY14-15, 64% (6,957) of them were conducted in B15 cities. Thus, the number of participants from B15 cities were higher (2.86 lakh) as compared to 1.86 lakh participants from T15 cities.
AMCs were doing IAPs even before SEBI came out with this regulation. The only difference now is that AMCs have more money at their disposal to invest in IAPs.
In 2013, AMFI had launched a District Adoption Program (DAP), a voluntary initiative for AMCs, to adopt certain districts where they will conduct IAPs and enroll new cadre of distributors. Under this initiative, each AMC is supposed to conduct IAPs in the districts allotted to it. For instance, Birla Sun Life AMC conducts IAPs in Hassan, Tirunelvali, Chikmangulur, among other cities. A complete list of IAPs conducted by AMCs is available here.
“We do both ATL and BTL activities. While BTL activities are more impactful it is very difficult to organize them on a large scale due to resource and time constraints. On the other hand, ATL creates instant visibility,” says the marketing head of a public sector fund house.
While on-ground IAPs still have their relevancy, AMCs are now expanding their IAP activities by adopting different media vehicles such as social media, TV commercials, print and radio. Some fund houses have even produced short films to evangelize the benefits of mutual funds.
