The go-to-market nuances Saxo Bank is employing to win younger investors

Traditional thinking would suggest wealth creation is an older person's game. But recent years have heralded a significant change in investor demographics.

Numerous reports from financial services providers and commentators around the world point to evidence of more millennials wanting to build wealth. This includes a study from CommBank published in December 2021, which found 43 per cent of millennials are investing instead of spending, with property and shares revealed as the most favoured investments.

This young audience is highly attractive for wealth management services and trading platforms, who see building connections with young clients as an opportunity to create relationships that will last for decades. But as many marketers will know, reaching and connecting with younger audiences can be a tricky proposition.

This has not stopped Copenhagen-based Saxo Bank nominating millennials as one of its growth opportunities. The bank launched its SaxoInvestor platform in Australia earlier this year, and according to the bank's chief experience officer, Camilla Dahl Hansen, younger investors are firmly in its sights.

However, what younger investors want, and how to reach, them presents a unique set of requirements.

"The younger generation are navigating the whole social media space and are following fin-fluencers," Dahl Hansen says. "We a see a generation that has lost trust in the traditional authorities and are listening in to peers and the people they can relate to. That is something we are trying to utilise a lot more. We have very much adjusted to our audiences."

This has meant taking a different approach to the channels and messages Saxo is using, including use of podcasts and videos. Dahl Hansen's strategy also sees Saxo utilising TikTok, starting with a trial with customers in Hong Kong. In Australia, Saxo is investing in in-game reward videos where players can earn rewards by watching ads to.

"The view-through-rate is standing at 97 per cent, with a considerably higher click through rate than all of our other channels," Dahl Hansen says. "This gives us an opportunity to tell our story, with a positive reward association then attached to the brand when they receive their in-game reward.

"We have the campaign targeting digital natives, millennials and young gen x, essentially offering Saxo Australia's clear differentiation, our international access, and diversity of markets and instruments."

Saxo is also tapping into the desire of many younger investors to share their performance socially and has commenced trials in Singapore and Hong Kong.

"We are making sure we make our platform easy to be shared in social media," she says. "You can actually share from our platform if you see great insights, or if you have a chart where you can show you have been able to develop your investments. You don’t have to put in the amount of the investment, but you can show the trends.

"That is something we know clients love to share in their communities, so we are making it easier for them to do so."

Another factor proving critical for attracting younger investors is to offer products where they can see their investments having a positive impact. In Australia, the SaxoInvestor platform features various themes and categories designed to guide investors to areas that might best appeal to them, including an ESG investment theme, a women-in-leadership theme, a renewable energy theme, and a green transformation theme. There’s also an Islamic investment offering.

"We are about to embark on a campaign to target Australia’s fastest growing demographic according to the latest census," Dahl Hansen says. "The Australian Muslim community of approximately one million people is desperately under served by the Australian financial services sector."

In addition, Saxo has commenced a program of outreach to investors in regional Australia.

"Regional Australia is a neglected yet affluent market," Dahl Hansen comments. "Through our upcoming promotion with Rex Airlines, a domestic carrier with passengers working predominantly in Australia’s booming mining and resources sector, we want to highlight the opportunities for them to access managed portfolios, investment diversification, and so on, for their self-managed super funds."

These activities appear to be paying dividends for Saxo. Since 2019, it’s witnessed a rise in the percentage of new female clients from 19 per cent to 27 per cent. Against this, the percentage of new global clients, which grew younger in 2020-21, appears to be slowing – something Dahl Hansen attributes to broader changing market conditions.

"While the upward trend has stabilised a lot more this year, we still see positive developments in welcoming more younger and women clients to Saxo, and the same trend applies to Australia," she says.

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