Marketing Wiz is a joint initiative between Kotak Mutual Fund and Wealth Forum, where we bring you smart marketing ideas that can help you win clients and boost growth. A key aspect that is highlighted in Marketing Wiz is a thought led by Jigar Parekh of Prudent CAS, in his exclusive column called "The Guerrilla Advisor", where he asks advisors to embrace smart, low cost, yet high impact marketing strategies. A fine example of Guerrilla Advisory in action is what Omega Financial of Bhilai has recently demonstrated. Read on to understand how some smart thinking and great execution has helped team Omega achieve what you would normally associate only with marketing teams of large fund houses.

Team Omega : from left to right : Yogendra Singh, Krishna Gupta, Ziauddin Khan & Jay Sonchhatra

A year ago, we had profiled Team Omega from Bhilai as a young, new age advisory firm doing an excellent job and making waves in their city (Click Here). Last year, they picked up a bag full of awards at the Wealth Forum Advisor Awards (2013), presented by DSP Blackrock (Click Here) and were also worthy winners of the Wealth Forum Emerging Advisor Awards (2013), presented by SBI Mutual Fund (Click Here).

Why are we talking about them in our Marketing Wiz columns now? As you are aware, Jigar Parekh of Prudent CAS writes an exclusive and popular column within Marketing Wiz, called "The Guerrilla Advisor" (Click Here). Jigar writes about ideas that combine the essence of marketing with smart guerrilla tactics that are low on cost but high on imagination, and which deliver high impact for the advisor's business. Here is a fine example of guerrilla marketing, which we think is exactly the thought process that Jigar asks all advisors to embrace.

How much will an exclusive IFA branded educational video cost?

Team Omega struck a smart deal with a group of final year engineering students. The students were on the look out for an interesting project that could help them complete their curriculum and Team Omega was looking for a low cost way of creating their very own branded educational video for new investors. Why play videos of various fund houses, when you can have your own! That's a good thought, but the cost and the logistics come in the way of IFAs actually realizing these aspirations. Not if you put on your Guerrilla Advisor hat!

Team Omega struck a deal with these students. They would put together the entire script of an educational video and the engineering students would create an animated video from it. As Ziauddin Khan of Omega says, "they were not exceptionally bright students - they were struggling for a project, so we hit upon the idea of working with them to produce something that we can use with our clients and they could show as their project".

Thus was born an Omega branded SIP educational video, in two languages - Hindi and English. How many lakhs do you think this cost them? Believe it or not - it cost Omega Rs.13,000 as fees for the students and a further Rs.12,000 to hire a professional RJ to give the voice over for the video. Total cost: Rs.25,000.

What do you think of this effort? A great example of what a Guerrilla Advisor is all about? Think about the impact such a video will have when new investors see it. Think of the image of the firm that such a video will instantly convey. Think of how Omega is leveraging this smart effort to drive business further. Think of what you can do, if you take off your traditional advisor hat and don the hat of a Guerrilla Advisor!

All content in Marketing Wiz is created by Wealth Forum and should not be construed as views of Kotak MF.

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