This paper holds that 2022 is a year of depression, and financiers have experienced shocks in the capital market, retrogression under epidemic prevention and control, and difficulties in performance appraisal. In 2022, the epidemic prevention and control policies changed, the market picked up, and new businesses such as personal pension business started. At this point in time, she can be said to be a faithful wife. We believe that 2023 will be a year of recovery and boost, and the high-quality development of the industry will usher in opportunities. We hope to think about how to do marketing this year with you, so we put forward the proposition of channel expansion VS user operation, hoping to attract more attention and discuss it with you. Background: channel expansion VS user operation? Become a must _ channel change under the wave of financial management online Before the wave of fund online, the sales channels of asset management institutions were mainly offline outlets of banks and brokers. Asset management agencies can't directly contact users, so they can only expand channels. Channel expansion is a concept in traditional marketing theory. Enterprises do not directly contact consumers, but establish a dealer network, and their behavior is sales-oriented. The goal of channel expansion is dealers. By negotiating with channels and establishing business relations, better sales can be obtained. After the rise of fund internet sales, asset management institutions have set up direct sales channels to directly drain customers and operate. In order to build an online wealth management ecosystem, Ant, Tian Tian and Bank have all handed over some rights of the open platform to asset management institutions, which can reach users to some extent. Fund sales channels have developed from offline to banks, brokers, tripartite agency and direct sales. The role of fund companies has changed from a simple product provider to a dual identity of asset management institutions and wealth management. Online fund sales provide objective conditions for asset management institutions to operate as users. _ In the era of stock, it is caught in the bottleneck of obtaining customers. In the period of searching for AUM Internet dividends from existing customers, institutions will seize customers in various channels and follow the channel policies, which will naturally gain more traffic and increase their own ownership. At this stage, although asset management institutions have adopted various marketing methods to provide user services, they still follow the requirements and ideas of channels and are still meeting the needs of channels in essence. Now the Internet has entered the period of stock competition, and the price of obtaining customers is high, making it more difficult. Asset management institutions need to change the rude mode of investing resources to grab customers in full accordance with the channel policy, focus on existing customers, increase customer unit prices through refined operations, and improve product ownership. The operation of stock customers needs the organization to change from the idea of channel operation to user operation. User operation is a concept that emerged after the rise of Internet enterprises. The goal of user operation is not to directly lead to sales, but to set up content and activities with users as the center and users' needs as the guide, and finally promote users' purchase. Obviously, the strategy of simply doing channel operation is no longer suitable for the current sales channels and future development trends, while doing user operation faces many difficulties and pain points. How should we choose the dilemma? How should fund companies choose the fork in the road given by the times? Current situation of the industry: the openness of consignment channels is enhanced, and the Matthew effect of sales channels is obvious _ the sales system is mature, and the Matthew effect of sales channels appears. The topic discussed in this paper is based on the fact that asset management institutions have formed a relatively mature sales system, but the sales channels of newly established bank wealth management companies and some brokerage asset management subsidiaries are not yet complete. Because the sales of institutional customers and private equity products are quite different from the mass retail model, this paper mainly focuses on the retail business of public offering by fund companies. Banks, brokers, independent fund sales agencies and direct sales are the main channels for fund sales. As shown in the chart 1, according to the data of China Foundation, the proportion of holdings in 2020 will be 27.68%, 9.3 1%, 14.54% and 48.03% respectively. In the channel of fund agency, the industry concentration is very high. According to the data of Top Fund Consignment 100 in the third quarter of 2022, the holding scale of stock funds is 43%, 59% and 75% respectively. Although it is slightly lower than that at the beginning of 20021,it can basically be considered that 20% of the institutions have sold 80% of the funds. This means that when fund companies are doing consignment channels, it is a high-yield choice to concentrate resources as head institutions. After years of channel construction, most fund companies have formed a stable and extensive pattern of consignment agencies, and more than 30 fund companies have reached cooperation with more than 200 consignment agencies. Only 2 1 fund company cooperates with less than 50 consignment agencies. Although the overall scale of direct sales channels has not been low, most institutional customers and retail customers from direct sales counters have a low scale, and short-term direct sales channels are more strategic than profitability for fund companies. In the past two years, with the head fund company brand out of the circle, the significance of direct sales channels began to appear. _ Banks and brokerage channels: channel cooperation is the main channel, and the openness is gradually improved. According to the data released by the China Foundation, the equity and non-goods retained by 27 banks in the top 100 fund consignment scale are 3 trillion and 3.9 trillion respectively, accounting for 52% and 28% of the total scale of the top 100 respectively. Banks are undoubtedly the leader in the distribution channels. Among the 27 banking channels, China Merchants Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank account for 46% (equity) and 44% (non-goods) of the total size of the 27 banks. Although the online sales layout of banks is late, the marketing strength of state-owned banks should not be underestimated. With the acceleration of digital transformation of banks, banks began to pay attention to online wealth management business. Starting from 20021,some banks began to launch an open platform for bank financial management, and asset management institutions settled in. After more than a year's operation, the fund company's operation has little effect. Take China Merchants Bank as an example. By the end of 65438+February, 75 asset management institutions had settled in, with a total of nearly160,000 fans. Banks and brokerage channels have not formed a fully market-oriented competitive operation mechanism, and there are still barriers to entry. Whether they can settle in or not, the resources they get need to be maintained by business relations. Even after entering the open platform, the construction of the open platform of the banking platform is slow and the traffic is relatively low, so the operation of fund companies in banks is very limited. However, the bank channel is a new traffic entrance, and the open ecology is gradually improving, which is a channel that needs attention. _ Internet independent fund sales organization: Head fund companies have gained a large number of users. By the third quarter of 2022, independent sales organizations have occupied 20 seats in the top 100 fund sales organizations, forming a pattern of "2 over 4", with the total scale of equity and non-goods accounting for 25.8% and 36.5% of the total scale of the top 100 respectively. Tian Tian, the tripartite platform of Ant and Head, ranks among the top three in fund consignment, and the sum of its scale accounts for 17% (non-goods) and 22% (equity) of the top 100. The tripartite platform is open to fund companies for the first time. 2065438+June 2007, Ant announced the official launch of the wealth open platform, and then Tian Tian Fund also announced the launch of Fortune. Today, there are more than 100 fund companies that Ant and Tian Tian Fund have settled in, and the total number of fans of Ant Fortune is hundreds of millions. In the past few years, head fund companies have gained huge traffic on the Internet platform. The independent three-party sales organization has a strong openness, opening up positions such as graphic, live broadcast, applet and discussion area. And the operation is completely market-oriented. Ant Platform has launched FICI system, which relies on the quantitative scores of various indicators to decide which institution gets more resources. Under the full market competition, fund companies are familiar with the characteristics of Internet users and Internet marketing methods of Ant Platform, and have accumulated experience in online marketing. In the past two years, the traffic dividend of the three-party platform has declined, coupled with market shocks, the enthusiasm of investors has ceased, the growth of fans has slowed down, and the operation of fund companies has turned to refinement. _ Direct channel: Direct channel is divided from beginning to end, and WeChat channel is put into production higher (1). By the end of September, more than 50 fund companies and brokers operated direct selling apps, and all head fund companies basically had direct selling apps. In the past two years, many fund companies have stopped the operation of direct selling apps. Investment in direct selling platform is polarized, and some fund companies continue to increase their scale with the blessing of brand and product performance, so they continue to increase their investment. Some fund companies continue to reduce investment due to cost problems, and even give up direct selling apps. (2) Rich marketing gameplay can be realized in the WeChat domain of WeChat platform. In the field of WeChat, through the linkage of WeChat official account, micro-website, WeChat video number and applet, rich marketing scenarios such as account opening, transaction and user companionship are created. Wechat applet can further enrich the marketing game and promote fund sales. Service number: From the service number of the top 50 non-goods funds, from July to September, 2022, 43 institutions published an average of 394 articles per month, with an average reading volume of more than 3,000 articles. The posting trend is stable and users are already sticky. The organization is very mature in the operation of WeChat official account. Most fund companies have formed a very perfect channel system through early channel operation. Head fund companies have accumulated a large number of users in various channels and formed a normal user operation mode. The distribution channel layout of Public Offering of Fund industry has been basically completed, and the next work began to turn to intensive cultivation of channels. In the future, most of the scale increment of fund companies will come from user operation rather than channel expansion. Industry Case: Head Fund Company has invested heavily in the operation of key channel users _ Direct selling channel: Guangfa Fund-Direct selling ecology continues to invest. The direct selling scale of Guangfa Fund has always been in the forefront of the industry, and it has been building a direct selling system for a long time. We look at the current situation of direct sales of head offices from the analysis of direct sales channels of Guangfa Fund. (1) direct selling APP The direct selling APP of Guangfa Fund was launched in 20 13, and it was one of the fund companies that invested in direct selling APP earlier. From 20 13 to 20 19, GDF fund direct selling APP has built various basic functions and experience optimization around the needs of "selling funds", such as account opening, login, fund inquiry and deposit and withdrawal. Since 2020, direct selling apps have designed tools from the user's financial scenarios, such as parent-child financial management and financial assistants. Especially in 2022, Guangfa Fund polished and upgraded the fund investment pages for many times, such as investment experience fund, smart education fund investment fund and super fixed investment fund. The operation idea of direct selling APP has gradually changed, from selling products to managing money to operating direct selling channels. (2) official website official website is the earliest direct selling platform of Guangfa Fund, and users can trade directly in the fund company official website. Because the website can't reach users continuously, the usage habits of user groups migrate to the mobile terminal. At present, official website, a fund company, plays a more important role in brand promotion than sales. Guangfa Fund official website consists of five pages: home page, personal finance, high-end finance, corporate finance and about Guangfa. This design is a traditional business module idea, and also conforms to the usage habits of users who use official website trading. (3) The operating positions of Guangfa Fund on WeChat platform include official WeChat account, video number, applet and enterprise WeChat. Among them, the service number of Guangfa Fund is the main position of direct sales, which can be understood as a "simplified version" of APP, and the main functions of APP are refined in the service number menu bar. After the user binds the account, he can push the message to the user through WeChat. Micro-housekeeper and Niuji Investment Society locate information and provide educational services, and provide comprehensive services to users in the community and WeChat circle of friends through enterprise WeChat. Generally speaking, the direct selling channel of Guangfa Fund has changed from "selling products through channels" to "perfecting channels and providing wealth services". _ Consignment channel: The head company covers a wide range, and small and medium-sized institutions choose key channels to operate. After decades of channel expansion, the channel coverage of most fund companies is very wide. Wind data shows that by the end of 2022, 74 fund companies had more than 150 cooperative institutions, and 12 fund companies had more than 250 cooperative institutions. The largest number of cooperative consignment agencies are Bosera Fund, E Fund and southern fund, with 343, 324 and 300 cooperative agencies respectively. The channel operation coverage of head fund companies is already very high, so it is difficult to make a big breakthrough. In order to continuously improve the sales volume of consignment channels, the next key work of consignment channels should be to strengthen the cooperation depth of key channels. In terms of key channel cooperation, fund companies are also actively staking. Take the open platform as an example, as shown in figure 1 1. Statistics show that some head fund companies have settled in key open platforms. Head companies such as Bosera Fund, southern fund Fund and Penghua Fund have settled in dozens of institutions including tripartite platforms, banks and securities firms, and accumulated certain users after a period of operation. Both the open platforms of Ant and Tian Tian Fund have high sales scale, so most institutions have very high investment in these two platforms. Take ants for example. In 2022, Huitianfu Fund, Huaxia Fund, ICBC Credit Suisse Bank Fund and Jinchuang Hexin Fund published more than 1500 articles. The number of articles published by 36 wealth accounts exceeds 500, which shows that the frequency of articles published is very high. Counting the number of live broadcasts, videos, articles and small programs of the top ten non-goods fund companies on the Ant Platform in 2022, the operating frequency is very high, and a lot of resources have been invested. Outlook: User operation meets the needs of wealth management transformation _ User operation is the general trend and needs continuous investment. Under the general trend of wealth management transformation, the asset management industry is transforming from a simple product provider to an "asset management institution+wealth management institution". In recent years, the staffing of Public Offering of Fund's industry sales lines has also changed quietly. The personnel of the Ministry of E-commerce (Mutual Finance Department) are constantly expanding, and jobs such as financial live broadcast and content operation are constantly expanding. The whole industry tends to attach importance to the operation of online channels. We believe that asset management institutions should spare no effort to do user operations. First of all, user operation is an inevitable trend in the process of wealth management transformation. Asset management products rely on the profit model of management fees, which requires fund companies not only to look at short-term sales, but also to look at long-term holdings. The sales volume brought by obtaining high-quality traffic bits only by business relationships is not lasting, and it is impossible to guarantee the holding time of users. We believe that most of the growth of fund scale in the future will come from user operation, which requires fund companies to improve after-sales service and deep companionship. Secondly, fund companies have very limited control over channels. Since its establishment, the fund company's bargaining power in the channel is not strong, the sales ability of the channel itself and the policy towards the fund company are changing, and the business relationship can not fully guarantee sales. On the contrary, user operation can establish deep contact with users through long-term work, user operation can be replicated and promoted, and accumulated working methods can be extended to various sales platforms. In addition, user operation plays an important role in fund investment business. The difference of fund investment products will be narrowed, and the ability of "care" will be more competitive. In order to occupy a place in the fund investment business, it is necessary to cultivate the user's operation skills in advance. _ Channel expansion and user operation will take a long time at the same time. Although we think that user operation is an inevitable trend in the process of wealth management transformation, it is still difficult to do it in the face of reality: (1) The independent operation of the consignment platform is limited, and it is too difficult to do user operation in cross-platform collaboration. (2) There are many service departments for users within the fund company, and the business modules are subdivided, so it is difficult to work together. (3) The core of the fund company is the product, and the responsibility of the business department itself needs to be operated according to the company's product rhythm, so it is difficult to really operate with the user's operational thinking. Although user operation is a long-term trend, it is difficult to change the consciousness of focusing on channels in the short term. What needs to be done for a long time is that channel expansion and user operation are carried out at the same time. During the parallel period, institutions need to invest some resources in advance to try and layout, and gradually change their strategies. _ Three trends of short-term (1) user operation are exclusive: make full use of the platform's openness, and differentiated channels need differentiated user operation. As mentioned earlier, the fund agency industry is highly concentrated, and the key investment of fund companies in the head channel is high-yield. It is necessary to make use of the platform capabilities of the head channel to do differentiated operations. (2) Completeness: The sales system is fully deployed, covering all customer needs. The three functions of fund product sales, customer service and user investment are the same for users, but they are separated within the fund company. It is necessary to have a comprehensive user deployment and internal system platform to enjoy user information and plan user services under the premise of compliance. On the premise of meeting users' needs and covering their whole life cycle, don't over-market and disturb users. We should not only pay attention to the front-end content output, but also pay attention to the effect analysis and re-selling, and do a good job in long-term user marketing. (3) Science and technology: Strengthen digital means, strengthen investors to accompany thousands of people, and the application of artificial intelligence and big data in user services needs to provide users with more personalized and intelligent services, such as intelligent assistants for investors, intelligent customer service and so on. At the same time, organizations also need to improve the compliance, safety and efficiency of marketing through technology, such as establishing marketing centers to improve the efficiency of internal marketing materials review, production and release. The financial digital marketing platform developed by Dole has enabled him to intelligently produce and publish marketing content, help asset management institutions improve efficiency and provide thousands of contents and services for different users.