Customer Onboarding at ICICI securities: The Digital Marketing Dilemma

Abstract

ICICI Securities, a part of the ICICI Group, is India’s largest integrated financial services firm. Their online trading and investment portal ICICI Direct had millions of account holders as per the last quarter of 2016-17. However, the percentage of active investors on the platform was very low (25% of the total account holders). The situation was even worse in case of young customer segment with only 19% of the account holders being active. Shilpa Kumar, the CEO and MD of ICICI Securities was keen on improving the active client base, especially the young customer segment acquired through their flagship 3-in-1 accounts. Kumar and her team recognized the importance of digital channels in raising awareness and creating a positive attitude towards the financial market among young customers. They took some digital marketing initiatives such as knowledge sharing on ICICI Direct, virtual trading portal, I-Community, and use of data analytics for gathering customer insights. Kumar felt that it was necessary to evaluate the existing initiatives and contemplate on launching additional digital media initiatives. Would ICICI Securities be able to make their customers active on their investment platform?