In our last blog, we discussed the SWOT analysis of AU Bank. In this blog, we will dive into an in-depth marketing strategy of AU Bank – A Small Finance Bank in India.
AU is a scheduled commercial bank that serves financial services to inferior and middle-income people and micro and small businesses that have limited or no access to standard banking and finance channels. The bank is ranked 257th among the Fortune India 500 Companies, enabling a convenient banking experience with many industry-first initiatives.
So, as you can see, the world is fully online now, and marketing is the rib of every industry. If you are interested to know more about marketing then do check out our Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing by the CEO and founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.
We will learn the entire marketing strategy of AU Bank by the end of this blog. Before diving deep into it, let’s begin with the company’s story, target audience and digital presence.
About AU Bank
AU Bank was founded by Sanjay Agarwal as a private limited company and was later publicly listed. AU Small Finance Bank was founded in 1996 in Jaipur as AU Financiers. It is a non-deposit-taking Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC). It has worked particularly well to fund the economic growth of the under-serviced, lower and middle-class individuals.
The Bank offers loans, deposits, payment products and services. In addition, it has strived to diversify into savings products such as deposits, payments banking, distribution of third-party products and additional credit products, establishing its position as a comprehensive provider of financial products and services.
| CEO | Sanjay Agarwal |
|---|---|
| CMO | N/A |
| Area Served | India |
| Industry | Financial |
| Market Share/ Revenue | Rs.3817 Crore (2021) |
| Vision | To be the world’s most trusted retail bank and coveted employer that is admired as the epitome of financial inclusion and economic success, where ordinary people do extraordinary things to transform society at large, thereby guaranteeing Trust, Confidence and Customer Delight. |
| Tagline | ‘Badlaav Humse Hai’ |
Marketing Strategy of AU Bank
Let’s take a look at Au’s marketing plan. and how Aetna carries out the marketing campaign, among other things.
Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning
STP begins with segmentation, in which organizations break their marketing into distinct categories depending on factors such as those listed below.
Demographics Segmentation
Geographical Segmentation
Location-Based Segmentation
It identifies the group of buyers based on differences in their desires or requirements. From the beginning, the products of AU Bank are segmented based on the customers belonging to similar geographical areas. Besides geography, psychographics and demographics are also considered.
AU small Bank finance’s target audience is low and middle-income individuals, age group (18- 60) and retired senior citizens to make their banking services hustle-free and fully online for their convenience.
AU’s positioning in the market has increased after their several collaborations and campaigns as mentioned in the blog. AU small finance Banks’ powerful message to bring a change in the banking system as well as in society helped in positioning as their message made close contact with the hearts of people.
Marketing Campaign
“Badlaav humse hai campaign” was released to make a shift in the banking system and freedom from old habits. The bank aims to spread the advanced banking feature:
As stated by RBI’s guidelines AU has started a journey of becoming a universal bank by next year. TV is chosen as an important medium to raise brand awareness to reach their target segments.
AU Finance Bank released its first festive campaign for Ganeshotsav under its umbrella #BadlaavHumseHai. The campaign addresses the age-old custom of males in the household eating before the women. In today’s day and age, this practice has lost its rationale and works only as a measure to imply a member’s importance in the household.
With the thought that a family that eats together, stays together,’ AU Bank attempts to bring a small, do-able, yet significant change in the dynamics of our culture and family values.
Another campaign on Diwali named “Happy Diwali” was released by AU Bank under the campaign belt of #BadlaavHumseHai.
Social media influencers and celebrities like Mithali Raj, Mrunal Thakur, and Vikrant Massey took pledges on the occasion of Independence Day. The challenge was further extended by each celebrity/ influencer reaching out to people in their network. This social media strategy helped the brand ignite plenty of conversations and helped them engage with their target group.
The theme of the campaign was related to freedom. Organising a campaign on Independence day is significant to their motive is to bring freedom in terms of the banking system by making it all online and a click away. The reason for their success was the cause that they are working for and also reaching out to their targets through social media and influencers.
Other Campaigns –
PAAKHI- save the bird campaign: The campaign was held to establish an emotional connection with the youth and enable quality lead generation. More than 90 branches in the west, north and south participated in the same. AU provided clay pots in residential areas, parks and more to provide birds water in scorching summer.
Teacher’s Day and Children’s day Campaign: AU reached out to 9,000+ Teachers and children, held drawing competitions and more to build a strong bond with kids, their parents and school staff. AU personalised appreciation cards on Teacher’s Day. Floated a zero balance account offer and gave free eye checkups to children.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is really important when it comes to gathering the audience at large and no wonder a bank like AU Bank uses it to its full advantage.
The Bank can be found on these –
Facebook: 328,624 followers
Instagram: 21.4k followers
Twitter: 12.6k followers
As we can see from the above stats, the AU is most followed on Facebook and they keep their followers. AU keeps its customers hooked up on all the platforms and they are super active in all the channels. The type of content that the AU utilises is; informational, promotional, and awareness and as well they do festivals’ wishes and more too.
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SEO Strategies
AU small Bank Finance’s most of the traffic comes from the searches made online. Au drives half of its organic traffic from offline and advertisement campaigns on social media. Easy and feasible searching options are the cause of its growth and higher ranking on Google.
The SEO strategy of AU is strong enough to keep it soaring on the SERP results as shown in the data above. Their strategy of keeping their organic keywords 100,000+ contributes to the same.
SEO helps in achieving your long-term goals for your brand. A good ranking and a favourable placement help in raising the profile of your brand. In short, SEO strategies are crucial for the development of the website and to provide more visibility to the relevant audience.
If you are someone who doesn’t want to miss any step in implementing the right SEO for your new website, then you must have a thorough go-through of our in-depth blog on Step-by-Step Guide on SEO for New Websites in 2022 – IIDE where you will explore a new website SEO checklist, all the SEO requirements for a new website, how long does SEO takes to work for a new website, and more.
Influencer Marketing
As a part of influencer marketing AU small finance bank has chosen Bollywood superstars – Kiara Advani and Aamir Khan as their leading influencers. Both the stars have rising popularity among youth as an icon. Both of them are seen promoting AU Bank services in a series of advertisements. You can check AU Bank’s social media handle to know more.
AU Small Finance Bank, India’s Largest SFB has unveiled a mega Brand Campaign, aptly titled ‘BADLAAV Humse Hai’. This is the first integrated marketing communication campaign from AU Bank since its inception to showcase their creative endeavour that showcases the bank’s passion for innovation.
“Kiara Advani is one of the most popular Indian film actors and a youth icon. Her professional choices and repertoire of work find perfect resonance with AU’s journey so far’” said Sanjay Agarwal.
E-Commerce Strategies
The Bank has an online portal active 24/7 for the customers for account opening and other facilities. One can also use their application for the same.
Mobile Apps
The bank has a mobile app named AU 0101.
Users can avail service of smart Banking and can also Enjoy 24×7 access to their funds through AU 0101 App and AU 0101 NetBanking, a video banking facility and more according to users’ convenience.
AU provides WhatsApp Banking services to their customers. The savings account can be opened by just texting the bank via WhatsApp and can also find one’s nearest branch at their convenience.
Content Marketing Strategies
The Bank is very active in terms of content marketing. They very frequently upload blogs sharing details to their customers about the facilities they provide with just a click.
The blogs are about financial literacy and account opening including savings accounts, current accounts, fixed deposits, credit cards, debit cards, Digital banking Insurance and more.
This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of AU Bank. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of AU Bank.
What’s Unique in AU Small Finance Bank’s Marketing?
The Bank’s approach to people and its audience is sentimental and emotional. Campaigns such as PAAKHI and Teacher’s day were held to build an emotional connection with the audience of every age group. The urge is to bring a change in social norms and accept the new change in stereotypes of whether its Bank’s new digital-friendly facilities or the society. Video banking to open a savings account is a new facility introduced in 2022 by AU Bank only.
The bank is famous for its “Badlaav humse hai” Campaign urging the rising importance of digital marketing going with a rapid change.
Check our Online Digital Marketing Course if you want to learn more and improve your marketing skills. Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing.
We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of AU Bank has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.
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