The formula that succeeded in attracting one million clients to mandatory pension funds was a combination of reputation, extensive sales force and low investments in marketing, says Mioara Maruster, chief operating officer with Allianz-Tiriac (AZT) Pensii Private.
"At the start of the sales campaign, our research indicated that Allianz was well-known nationally, and so we decided not to spend too much on marketing and promotion," says Mioara Maruster.
The company's overall promotional budget stood at around 4m euros, earmarked both for the voluntary pension campaign, which started in spring, and the mandatory one.
The company's estimates indicate that, because of the small promotional investments, AZT may have the smallest ad costs per participant for mandatory pension funds, at least among the large pension companies.
This is a marked difference compared to ING, which invested the most among all pension funds in advertising last year.
As most offers on the market were similar, the difference was determined by customers' confidence in the various brands
Another difference, says Mioara Maruster, was the sales force ratio between funds' own agents and alternative channels.
"In our case, half of the over 1 million customers were found by an internal sales force and the other half by external distribution channels, primarily several brokers".
In the mandatory pension campaign, AZT Pensii Private collaborated with 27 brokers of various sizes. In comparison, the total number of brokers that operate on this market revolves around 40.
The biggest three brokers on the market in terms of the number of marketing agents, namely Brokerpool Cluj, FinCoP and Salve Club, operated massive sales on behalf of the fund managed by Allianz-Tiriac Pensii Private. As regards its own force, AZT used a network of more than 25,000 agents, o
