A thorough explanation of fund e-commerce operation methodology

Let’s take a look at the ideas of public funds in e-commerce operations , especially the methods of doing e-commerce on third-party platforms. I believe this is the most complete and sincere content you can see.

First, let's do a thought experiment.

Recently, a new general manager came to a fund company, who is ready to make great efforts in the marketing line.

You are the head of the e-commerce department of this company. The task assigned to you by your leader is to increase the number of fans on Ant Fortune tenfold and double the AUM within three months.

This is obviously an impossible task, what should we do?

Don't challenge the set conditions yet. The purpose of a thought experiment is to use extreme conditions and extreme goals to force you to consider solutions outside of the norm.

But don't rush to answer. Before thinking about the solution, let us first clarify a few basic issues.

1. What exactly are we talking about when we talk about fund e-commerce?

The most straightforward explanation is that fund e-commerce is selling fund products to Internet users through e-commerce channels. This definition is not wrong, but after reading it you still cannot grasp the core point and don’t know what to do.

In my opinion, the so-called fund e-commerce is essentially the process of selling a set of return expectations to individual customers.

In this process, users bear the transaction fees, holding time, drawdown risks, and the opportunity cost of buying this product instead of other products. What they gain is the benefits that this product will bring to users, which may be alpha returns or beta returns.

Let’s look at this sentence again. The so-called fund e-commerce is essentially the process of selling a set of return expectations to individual customers. There are several key points here.

1. Customers determine channels

Because the scale of direct sales to individual customers of most fund companies is below one million, to reach individual customers, fund companies can only rely on two channels: banks with massive offline customers and third-party platforms with massive online users. in:

• The development and maintenance of bank channels are relatively mature, and the connection is mainly offline. This part of the business is often handled by the company's channel department and is generally not included in the scope of e-commerce business;
• Online third-party platforms started relatively late, and the business model of selling funds is similar to that of ordinary commodity e-commerce on Taobao/Tmall. Therefore, the so-called fund e-commerce most of the time refers to selling funds on third-party platforms.

Of course, there are exceptions.

Leading platforms such as Southern, Huatai-PineBridge, China Merchants, and Tianhong all have relatively large direct sales customer bases; platforms such as China Europe and Hua Xia apply for agency licenses to engage in e-commerce in the form of fund subsidiaries. The practices of these two types of companies are not replicable, so we will not discuss them here.

2. Earnings expectations are a complete framework

The so-called "return expectations" do not promise returns to users , but repeatedly tell users three things:

1. You have to invest in funds, otherwise you won’t be able to beat inflation, let alone beat the kid next door, Mr. Wang, whose grades are better than yours.
2. If you want to invest in our funds, you can expect promising returns, the risks are controlled, and most importantly, they are particularly suitable for you. Why can I do it? Because the company has a good ranking/good fund manager/good track selection/good product historical performance/the lady in the live broadcast room is beautiful, if you like any of these factors, you can come to our store to buy funds.
3. Fund investing is risky. There may be drawdowns or losses, so you have to hold on.

3. Fund e-commerce is for selling

1) First, figure out who will sell it?

Many people think that it is the ladies/giegies from the e-commerce department who sell them, but this is actually not true. For users, this fund company is selling it. E-commerce girls, researchers, fund managers, and even company general managers and chairmen can all come out to sell (yes, I have seen chairmen who came out to sell, and they were at the top public funds).

Without this understanding and attention, do you think you can achieve a business turnaround with just a few people in the e-commerce department? That's really wishful thinking.

Over the years, among those fund companies that have done very well in e-commerce business, which one has not received various kinds of support and coordination from the company's management, either overtly or covertly?

It's common sense that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

2) What to sell next?

Many people think that fund e-commerce is just about selling funds? In fact, this understanding is also wrong.

As mentioned above, fund e-commerce sells expected returns:

1. First of all, users should have this expectation. There is not much that fund companies can do about this. Users will not buy your funds just because you promote them hard. It still relies more on the third-party platforms to screen users and distribute traffic. In other words, the users provided by the third-party platforms are those who want to make money. Here, the fund companies just need to do a good job of taking over the traffic and comply with the tone of the third-party platforms.
2. Then it’s about making users feel that your product can meet this expectation. Your fund company happens to have a good product. Because of various reasons such as good company ranking/good fund manager/good track selection/good product historical performance/beautiful lady in the live broadcast room, it is quite suitable, so just buy it.
3. Finally, the question is what to do if expectations are consistent with reality or not.

The above three points constitute the basic framework of e-commerce promotional materials and live broadcast scripts. To put it in terms that we often come into contact with, it is actually a sales and service system covering "pre-investment, mid-investment and post-investment".

3) How was it sold in the end?

If I were to talk about this matter in detail, it would take up an entire article of its own, so I’ll keep it brief here.

It can be viewed from two perspectives: new launch and ongoing operation:

• Newly launched products: If the product is more distinctive or appealing, no matter it is a fund manager, an industry track, or a current hot topic, you can bring it out to discuss key cooperation with third-party platforms: it can be a product-oriented approach, such as entering the "Newly Launched Funds" module and recommending it at the top, or it can be a marketing approach, such as pop-up recommendations on the homepage and strong promotion on the live broadcast channel. Moreover, since the issuance plan of a newly-issued fund can actually be determined several months in advance, it is possible to communicate well with third-party platforms in advance and connect this newly-issued fund to the platform’s large-scale marketing activities, which can more than double the effect.
• Sustaining operations: From the perspective of the three-party public domain, you can obtain platform traffic injection by joining the gold selection pool, issuing financial red envelopes, participating in platform marketing activities, etc. This needs to be done continuously. The basic base is expanded little by little, and there is no shortcut.

From the private domain of the three parties, various recommendations and guidance can be made in the live broadcast room, discussion area, and wealth account. If the efficiency is high enough, you can get recommendations from the platform algorithm and get priority on the financial management homepage or key modules. But this cannot be forced, we can only let it go. It is more important to do a good job in keeping existing private domain users active and retaining them. Retaining one old user is equivalent to attracting five new users, and the word-of-mouth of old users can help attract new users.

As you know, this is also an ongoing process.

In the final analysis, whether it is public domain or private domain, you need to have a list + N sets of scripts in your hands. The so-called "a list" refers to the list of products you are ready to use for cooperation with third-party platforms. The so-called "N sets of scripts" means that in various scenarios of the third-party platforms, you must have corresponding gameplay and strategy designs to do a good job of "introducing traffic + user retention + continuous advancement and conversion".

Only by holding these firmly in your hands can you stay calm.

The first question is the starting point of all discussions, so I will elaborate on it a little more. Okay, let’s move on to the next question.

2. Can the size and ranking of the fund company be leveraged?

There are huge differences between leading companies and mid- and late-stage companies on whether to engage in e-commerce business and their expectations for e-commerce business.

Here, the term "head company" has two meanings: ranking high in size or ranking high in company visibility.

The former includes companies such as E Fund, Huatai-PineBridge, and GF Securities, which are among the top 20 in the quarterly size ranking of the China Securities Investment Fund Association. Because they have a large user base, rich product lines, and strong appeal of fund managers, when cooperating with third-party platforms, the docking work of the e-commerce department is actually relatively easy, and they can leverage a lot. After the same activity, among dozens of fund companies, with basically the same investment, this type of company can often complete the activity targets ahead of schedule.

For such companies, e-commerce students can actually "win without doing anything" - but in reality, they often work harder than others. This is the legendary "you can rely on your looks but you choose to rely on your talent." The reason is easy to understand. The company is so powerful, if the e-commerce department doesn’t work harder, how can it prove the value of its existence?

The latter includes Dongfanghong Asset Management, Ruiyuan, etc. They do not win by the overall size of the company (in fact, Dongfanghong Asset Management's ranking is still quite good), but they have strong brand appeal. It actually doesn't make much difference whether these companies have e-commerce sales on third-party platforms, and traditional channels are often not enough to sell.

For such companies, there is actually not much room for the current e-commerce business to develop. But in the long run, star fund managers will move around, product performance will fluctuate, and as product lines become increasingly richer and the scale of management gradually expands, the company will eventually have to step out of its original comfort zone to serve more customers. It is better to start e-commerce business early than late.

It is not easy to set a clear standard for mid- and late-stage companies. I prefer a simple and rough approach and define the mid- and late-stage companies as those excluding the top companies from the top 100. Among these fund companies, the e-commerce business of many of them is either inactive or wants to take action but is unable to do so. Only about 40 companies have a real presence in the e-commerce business.

In fact, this type of fund company is the one that needs e-commerce business the most; and serving this type of fund company well is also the value of the leading third parties in building an open platform.

These companies may have outstanding performance in a certain track, or some of their products have high historical performance rankings, or some fund managers have a strong presence, or some are very strong in the market and urgently need to develop off-market channels, and the list goes on.

They have budgets and manpower, but they don’t know much about the strategies, tactics, and marketing activities of third-party platforms. The company’s size and ranking don’t have much to leverage. The best approach is to “fully deploy points + directional blasting” and catch up with the construction express train of third-party platforms:

• Comprehensive deployment : Actively experiment with new features and tools, and invest manpower and resources. It can not only help the platform quickly complete the verification process and obtain feedback data, but also obtain traffic and business resource support during the window period, and obtain development opportunities beyond the norm.
• Directed blasting : When the market conditions are in place, the company's products match the hot spots of the track, and the platform's major marketing activities are in line with the company's advantageous resources, we will use resources to penetrate and penetrate. For example, 12-hour live broadcasts throughout the day, shifts of fund influencers/e-commerce ladies/research directors/investment directors/fund managers, multi-level rewards for fan benefits, live broadcasts/wealth accounts/discussion areas linked to platform gameplay, and online operations combined with offline market voice (similar to the "behind the scenes" revealed in theaters/elevator frames/video patches and other channels)

You can't just copy homework casually. Different companies doing e-commerce business still need to find the strategy and pace that best suits them.

3. Is the fund company’s track and product line layout distinctive and complete enough?

There is nothing new under the sun, and industry hotspots driven by economic and financial cycles are constantly rotating.

For users, when a new hot spot emerges, they will go to the trading platform to look for relevant information and products. It could be casual chats between colleagues in the office, or it could be recommendations from financial influencers on Douyin. When you hear an industry theme or a fund under this industry, you will have the urge to open Alipay or Tiantian Fund to find related products and then make transactions.

For third-party platforms, if they fail to seize the hot spots, it means the failure of their own operating strategy. However, in addition to integrating and supplying content, the actual transactions on the third-party platforms still have to be based on the products provided by the fund companies. For third parties, high-quality products from high-quality companies must be the first choice - after all, if they make money, users will only feel that their timing and fund selection abilities are great, but if they lose money, they will blame both the third-party platform and the fund company, and may even blame the third-party platform more.

So, for fund companies, when a hot spot comes, you have to be able to take it . So, the next question is: what to use to take over the hot spots?

Pay attention, here comes the key point, the three major strategies for taking over hot spots.

1. Active product or passive product acceptance

Each fund company has its own preferences and strengths. For example, China Europe focuses on active products, pursues alpha returns, and completely abandons passive products; Tianhong vigorously develops passive products and launches a variety of index funds; of course, there are also E Fund and Hua Xia, which have both offensive and defensive capabilities and work hard on both.

Therefore, as an e-commerce operator, you must be clear about your company's strengths and strategic direction.

Market hotspots are always rotating. Sometimes active products become hot, and sometimes passive products rise. Prepare the products, as well as related rights, content and fund managers in advance. Once the hot spot comes, your materials and resources can be in place quickly, and you can become the preferred cooperation target of the third-party platform as quickly as possible.

2. Key track undertaking

Due to different backgrounds in research and investment capabilities, different companies have different layouts and outputs in various fields such as medical health, consumption, technology, financial real estate, cycles, and manufacturing.

For individual investors, it is actually very difficult to find your own fund company from the 151 fund companies in the market and select a product from 8,320 products. In other words, it is too difficult to make users find and remember your products. Therefore, you need to provide users with memory points : when they mention active investment, they think of China Europe Fund; when they mention ETFs, they think of Huatai-PineBridge; when they mention top fund managers, they think of Zhang Kun and E Fund; when they mention the consumer sector, they think of Hou Hao and China Merchants Zhongzheng Baijiu…

In fact, the same is true for third-party platforms. With hundreds of fund companies working together, their BD and operations colleagues cannot remember so many products from so many companies. It is also extremely important for continuous efforts and output to let the third-party operations, research teams, and recommendation algorithms know you and even remember you.

3. Fixed income fund or equity fund takeover

Since the new asset management regulations, there are fewer and fewer expected return products ("fixed-term products") on major Internet platforms, but users' demand for products with "controllable drawdown + fixed term + clear return" remains strong. This is also the underlying logic behind the subsequent proliferation of various "fixed income +" products from fund companies. Of course, judging from the actual implementation, it is hard to say whether "fixed income" can be achieved by using various bond funds, especially secondary bond funds, as a base, let alone "plus +".

But this is what users need, and users’ needs are never wrong. If you have to say it’s wrong, it only means that the product you provide is wrong and does not truly match user needs.

Let me add a few words here. Most people’s understanding of “investment education” is actually wrong: if investor education is to be truly effective, it is not to teach users a set of methods to let them know how to choose products and when to buy and sell. If you really have this ability, you don't need to work in the e-commerce department of a fund company. Wouldn't it be better to invest on your own and make a lot of money?

Users are not stupid, so most of the time they are very disgusted with so-called investment education. If I sometimes look at her a few more times, it’s only because I can get a red envelope or because the girl in the live broadcast room is very eye-catching.

Truly effective investment education is actually very simple: get users to pay for your products, and then help them make money. The best investment education is to learn during the investment process. In this process, a complete investment education process is completed through the introduction of product risks and returns before purchase, interpretation/accompaniment of market and product conditions during holding, and further configuration and position optimization suggestions after purchase. If the user makes money, he will think that everything you say is right; if the user loses money, the mere fact of losing money is enough to educate him, so why do you need to expose the scars and educate him again?

Therefore, the prerequisite for good investment education is to have good investment research capabilities, continuous reach and service capabilities. If you can't do that, then let's not talk about investment education, okay? We just work diligently in sales and say with confidence, “I’m here to sell (funds)”. It’s not shameful at all, really.

Okay, now that I’ve finished complaining, let’s get back to the point.

In terms of third-party platforms, including Ant and Wealth Management, since last year, they have opened up first-level entrances such as "Stable Financial Management" and "Advanced Financial Management" in their main battlefields. Behind this small change, there are big considerations. Users are naturally stratified into fixed income funds and equity funds, so they are reorganized and presented to users in the form of "stable financial management" and "advanced financial management".

At this time, if a fund company that has advantages in fixed-income products and has new layout plans can catch the train of "stable financial management/regular financial management product replacement" and build the market together with third-party platforms, I believe the results will exceed expectations.

Of course, the above ideas can also be reversed - according to the planning and demands of the third-party platform, reversely promote the design and approval plan of the company's products. The feasibility of this varies from company to company, so we will not discuss it here.

4. Do you understand Internet fund investors?

The understanding of Internet users can be grasped from three levels, from macro to micro. The investment and operation of e-commerce operations will be different depending on the different levels of understanding and grasp.

1. Level 1: Common characteristics of users

At this level, there are many research reports on Internet fund investors on the market, mainly from two sources:

1. Report of the China Foundation for Financial Studies. The report is quite long and its content comes from a sample survey. Its advantage is that the sample size is large enough. However, because they are all subjective answers from investors, they are slightly lacking in accuracy.
2. External reports, including brokerage research institutes and other research institutions. The data sources are all public, including annual reports of third-party platforms/fund companies, association data and some survey reports. The advantage is that some institutions have more unique research and analysis ideas. The overall quality of these reports varies. I personally feel that the reports from a few companies such as CICC are of higher quality and are worth taking a look.

Overall, the characteristics of these investors are actually similar: such as low transaction amount, short holding period, frequent trading, easy to chase rising and falling, like to redeem old and buy new, etc.

Understanding the different characteristics of Internet users compared to institutional customers and channel customers determines that the e-commerce department must adopt different standards from other sales departments when setting KPIs and applying for budgets. Over the years, senior executives of fund companies, colleagues in the supervision and audit department, and the finance department have basically established corresponding awareness, and the promotion of e-commerce business has become much smoother.

2. Level 2: User characteristics on different platforms

Among so many third-party distribution platforms in China, there are only about 10 that are really noticeable. Among them, the ones with the greatest potential for development and the highest input-output ratio are the top three: Ant, Tiantian and Licaitong.

In addition to annual reports, they will occasionally release some investor research data or reports, which are basically released in conjunction with external media. If we compare platform data vertically and data between platforms horizontally, and combine it with the "three-party platform characteristics analysis" mentioned in question five below, we can come up with some effective strategies to guide multi-platform operations.

There is a view that the average investment amount of users of Tiantian Fund is higher, and they have a relatively comprehensive understanding of the market and products; the user base on the Ant platform is the largest, and they are generally young, and they often participate in various activities and receive benefits; the users of the Licai Tong platform also tend to be younger, and they are not very interested in participating in activities, and tend to independently find suitable products for trading.

Understanding the user characteristics on different platforms determines that the e-commerce department must set different budgets and manpower investment methods for different third-party platforms.

3. Level 3: User characteristics on a single platform

This type of information is of the greatest help to the daily work of e-commerce, but it is also often the least publicly available. Students working in fund e-commerce can often only obtain a small amount of information through some basic reports provided by third-party platforms, verbal retelling of operations or BD, combined with their own personal experience.

For example, the users on this platform, the scale and ranking of the company's products held, the number and ranking of fans, their participation in activities, etc. Of course, you can be more specific, for example:

• What kind of products are users more interested in?
• We both sell new hair, why our sales are not as good as others?
• What benefits do users like most?
• What is the status of collection/write-off of benefits?
• What kind of communities or live content are users interested in?
• Does the name of a product affect sales?
• The number of followers has increased, but why is it so difficult to convert them into trading users and transaction scale?
• The event has attracted a large number of users. How can we retain them and further operate them?

It is indeed difficult to obtain this information. Regardless of whether it is reasonable or not, this is the current situation. But even so, e-commerce operations colleagues still need to invest as much as possible to obtain more data feedback and user feedback. Every bit of improvement and optimization will eventually translate into contributions to user scale and AUM.

The more you do, the more you understand.

Understanding the user characteristics on a single platform determines whether the e-commerce department will participate in the platform's activities, new promotion strategies and resource allocation, the design and operation strategy of the wealth account, and even determines the topic and content of each live broadcast.

5. Are you clear about the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of different third-party platforms?

The three major platforms: Ant, Tiantian, and Licaitong

As mentioned above, among so many third-party platforms, the ones that are most worthy of heavy investment are the top three leading platforms. So, for these three platforms, have e-commerce colleagues figured out the right tone and have targeted docking strategies?

Ant emphasizes the construction of an open platform. Whether it is the previous wealth account, last year's financial management live broadcast, or this year's fan system, it essentially hopes to combine the existing user base and platform capabilities with the fund company's products, manpower and resources to make the pie bigger and provide users with systematic service capabilities.

Tiantian was born out of the Dongcai website. The core business model of financial websites is to sell advertisements and resource spaces and to monetize user traffic. This strategy has continued from Dongcai to Tiantian. For fund companies, market budget is the most critical condition for cooperation.

LicaiTong was developed within the WeChat system and has very strict entry requirements for introducing partners. It will conduct in-depth understanding and screening based on company rankings, reputation, investment research capabilities, and product features. Basically, it follows the "boutique company + boutique fund" model. According to recent feedback from many friends in the public offering e-commerce industry, Licaitong has begun to make a number of adjustments this year, relaxing entry conditions and starting to strengthen operations. Those fund companies that are familiar with Ant’s strategy should be able to enjoy a second spring with Wealth Management.

In addition, traditional banking channels such as China Merchants Bank and Ping An cannot be ignored.

From the original use of MAU and AUM as both North Star indicators to the recent rate discounts and the launch of Zhaocaihao/Wealthhao, the leading joint-stock banks represented by China Merchants Bank have actually been planning for the Internet business for several years.

Perhaps the bank’s online user base is indeed not at an advantage, but the bank’s complete “online + offline” service system, strong marketing and service capabilities, and higher average order value are far beyond the reach of third-party platforms.

Now the banks have woken up and would rather give up part of the intermediary revenue that is already in their hands and revolutionize themselves to build open platforms. Now is a good window of opportunity, and fund companies naturally cannot miss such an opportunity.

Don't be limited by the division of labor between the e-commerce department and the channel department. After all, we are all selling, and many times everyone is under the same general manager. Seizing this time window will definitely result in a win-win situation: the e-commerce department wins once, and the channel department wins once.

6. Have you figured out the product rhythm and operation rhythm of the leading third-party platforms?

No matter which third-party platform it is, it actually has its own product rhythm and operation rhythm.

After setting the annual KPIs at the beginning of the year, each team will break down indicators and tasks based on its own positioning and division of labor. At the same time, they should combine the conclusions of the research team and public offering surveys to make a rough judgment on the market conditions for the whole year and ultimately determine the pace of fund product promotion and operation for the whole year.

The so-called product rhythm is based on the judgment of the market conditions throughout the year. It is arranged according to a rough timeline. It integrates the newly launched products/operating products of fund companies in different tracks externally, and coordinates live broadcast/community/smart assistant/open platform and other service products internally.

The so-called operational rhythm includes the planning and arrangements of user operations, product operations and activity operations. User operation is a relatively confidential topic, which is not easy to understand from the outside, because it involves user stratification and advanced strategies for various businesses and scenarios. After all, the existence of peers and friendly competitors must also be considered. However, the product operation plan, annual promotion and monthly activity plan can be more or less known through daily docking and communication (but sometimes it is really inconvenient to say, or it is still uncertain, or it was determined before and then adjusted later, so don't make it too difficult for the three parties).

To be honest, it is impossible for a third-party platform to explain its complete product rhythm and operation rhythm in such detail, and this rhythm is always in the process of adjustment and change. However, through cooperation on one project after another, timely review and communication, and keeping a close eye on the product and activity iterations of the third-party platforms, it is possible to obtain useful information to the greatest extent.

This world will never let down those who work hard.

7. What is the capability and level of internal integration of e-commerce business?

In many cases, there is a two-way black box state between Internet third-party platforms and fund companies, and they do not understand each other's organizational structure and working atmosphere well. I remember that during a big promotion, a classmate expressed his deep confusion about the fact that an e-commerce classmate from a certain fund company was unable to arrange for a fund manager to appear on a live broadcast.

He didn't understand. It was such a big event with such good expected results, and the fund company had invested so much budget, so why couldn't they get the fund manager to do anything?

On the other hand, I have heard more than once questions and complaints from my colleagues in fund companies: why are our products included in the product pool but cannot get the best recommendation position? Or did it go up for a while and then quickly come down?

The two-way black box problem is expected to exist for a long time, so we will not discuss it here. Let’s get back to the topic of this section. If e-commerce colleagues can invite fund managers or research directors to show up in Ant’s live broadcast room, would that be enough? Does this mean that the e-commerce department has integrated the company's resources well and maximized their use?

Of course not.

The e-commerce department needs to integrate the company's internal resources, at least starting from the front and back ends.

1. Front-end integration

First up are the five front desk tyrants. The organizational structures of various fund companies are different. Larger equity investment departments can be divided into departments one, two, and three, and the research department can also be further divided according to industry tracks. Let’s not argue here and just divide it according to the most general standards: product department, research department, equity investment department, fixed income investment department, and marketing department.

• For the product department , do the e-commerce colleagues have a clear understanding of the company's annual product planning and declaration status? How do product managers evaluate their own products and similar products from competitors? By communicating with third-party platforms, can we push the product department to design products that match e-commerce channels?
• For the research department , have the e-commerce colleagues understood the market trends and their thoughts and judgments on the segmented industry tracks? Is it possible to export the company's research results in the form of articles, community interactions, live broadcast room interactions, etc.?
• For the two major investment departments , is it possible to coordinate the pace of new fund issuance and the effective management of capital inflows and outflows of operating funds? Do you have a full understanding of the company's investment strengths and weaknesses? Do you have any understanding of the fund manager’s historical performance, investment style, market judgment, and even personal character and hobbies? Similarly, is it possible for fund managers to also conduct effective external output?
• For the marketing department , have the e-commerce colleagues coordinated the company’s marketing plans with those of third-party platforms? Has it promoted the replacement of resources? Can it help the marketing department better achieve their KPIs?

In fact, there are many more things that the e-commerce department can do than what is listed above, but human nature is sometimes very interesting. People know what to do but always fail to do it.

Why is this?

2. Backend integration

Next are the four major backend departments: IT, fund operations , supervision and auditing, and finance.

1) For IT

It plays a vital role in the construction of the company's direct sales platform. I myself have served as the director of the Information Technology Department for quite a long time. I know very well that whether it is WeChat transactions or APP construction, from project establishment, bidding, procurement to implementation, it is basically the IT department that is promoting and implementing it. Similar investments will also occur when the company's money fund is connected to baby products on a third-party platform.

2) For fund operations

It includes two functions: fund accounting and fund liquidation. Every time a company launches a new product or connects to a third-party channel, the corresponding manpower and time costs will be higher. In an era when e-commerce business was not so inward-looking, colleagues in the fund operations department were the group that worked the most overtime in the company. For e-commerce colleagues, if the data update on the channel side is delayed or erroneous, they also need to be very clear about the workflow and specific responsible persons of the company's fund operations.

3) For supervision and audit

The main function is to ensure that all the company's businesses are carried out legally and in compliance with regulations, from product design and declaration, investment research decisions, company management system design, contract review to the review of materials and documents in various sales channels. In this case, there must be a mature communication process mechanism with the Inspector General, the Director of the Supervision and Audit Department, and the compliance/risk control colleagues who support e-commerce business, and they must be able to synchronize the practices of peers and third-party platforms from time to time. On this basis, it would be even better if a good personal relationship could be established.

4) For finance

When formulating the e-commerce department's annual plan and financial budget, KPI completion progress, and year-end final accounts, the support of finance colleagues is needed. At the same time, in daily e-commerce operations, there are often situations where budgets need to be increased or adjusted. At this time, it is very important to provide sufficient information to financial colleagues and explain the business model clearly.

Whether it is the five tyrants at the front desk or the four giants at the back desk, to achieve high-quality integration, you only need to grasp two key points: institutionalize the process and invest and communicate patiently over the long term.

In addition, there are additional rewards for maintaining good business communications and establishing friendly cooperative relationships with these sister departments: when faced with doubts and challenges, colleagues from sister departments will help you respond and explain. The same words, coming from their mouths, can save you a lot of trouble. At the same time, isn’t this also the harmonious working atmosphere that leaders most want to see?

Speaking of leadership, in fact, for the company's management, the answers to the first seven questions are not particularly important, but they are very concerned about the last two questions:

8. Is the development of e-commerce business replicable and scalable?

This problem can be broken down into two key points: replicability and scalability.

1. Reproducible

Three aspects are mainly considered: replacement of e-commerce managers, access to new channels, and changes in third-party platforms.

Generally, e-commerce directors seldom change jobs, and if they do, it is usually between companies in the same city. Domestic fund companies are highly concentrated; most of them can be found in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Because they are close to each other, everyone in each fund company, from the deputy general manager in charge, the general manager of e-commerce to the employees of the e-commerce department, is very familiar with each other, and there should not be too many small groups. What often happens is that as soon as you leave the company where you had an interview, your boss or colleagues already know about it. So unless there is a really necessary reason to leave, I won't move easily.

However, for the boss, it is definitely problematic to put the work and performance of an entire department on one person, and most public funds are state-owned enterprises or central enterprises, which requires you to break down the work of the department: divide the positions, establish departmental systems, and formulate processes. The goal is to ensure that any adjustments to any employee from the e-commerce manager to any department will not affect the smooth development of the existing business.

Access to new channels is also a major test of replicability. As mentioned earlier, the tone and strategy of the three major third-party platforms are actually very different, not to mention a number of small and beautiful platforms such as Snowball, Yingmi, and Lufax, which are even more diverse. In addition to the basic construction of "dividing positions, setting systems, and drafting processes", the operational strategies mentioned above, such as "one list + N sets of scripts" and "comprehensive deployment + targeted blasting", are actually common across multiple platforms:

• After you have determined the product you want to promote, you can write the promotional copy and the live broadcast script, and you can also use it on Ant Investment or Tiantian. There is no problem.
• Accompanying the growth of third-party platforms and seizing the traffic window period can be done every day or in Licaitong.

Of course, the three-party platform itself is also changing.

Although the top three-party platforms are all saying that AUM and MAU are important, they have actually experienced the evolutionary process of "just focusing on user scale -> user scale and transaction scale -> user scale as auxiliary and transaction scale as main".

In the stage of focusing on user scale, by vigorously promoting money base or fixed-income products, you can enjoy more traffic injection and inclination from the platform. For example, the underlying products of various saving scenarios of the three-party platform are connected to this type of product.

In the stage where trading scale or ownership is focused, equity products and supporting fund e-commerce operations and investment advisory services are the key points. At this time, high-performance products and celebrity fund managers in hot tracks are easy to come out. At the same time, strong operations and services also mean more manpower and budget investment.

In this process, it is necessary to have timely and profound insights into changes in market conditions and regulatory environments, and also to have a timely understanding of the rhythm switching of the three-party platforms. It is actually quite difficult to do so. Except for a few companies that seize the opportunity, most of the time, the top public offerings have obtained more resources and tilts. The reason is not complicated, because the company's product line is rich enough, the product performance is impressive enough, and the e-commerce budget is in place. It doesn't matter even if there is no change. As long as the three-party platform makes a request, the top public offerings have a way to meet it.

This is the scale dividend of public funds. You see it, you know it, but there is nothing you can do. In the middle and late stage fund companies, they can only work harder to make the leading companies look effortless.

2. Scalable

It mainly considers two aspects: product and business innovation of fund companies, and model and gameplay innovation of three-party platforms.

Let’s look at the fund company first.

Ask a small question: What is China's first baby-based product?

If you say it is Yu'ebao, then congratulations, the answer is wrong.

All the old people in the fund know that Yu'ebao was launched in June 2013. Before that, in 2011, Huitianfu's Cashbao jointly launched the money-based payment function with CITIC Bank, and realized the money-based redemption T+0 payment service in 2012. Speaking of which, it is the ancestor of the baby products that are rooted in a positive way. Since then, a group of "treasures" including Yu'e Bao have been rampant all over the world. Even the naming mode with the word "treasure" in its name is inherited from the cash treasures of Hei Tianfu.

Huitianfu Cash Treasure

So I want to say that financial institutions, including fund companies, are really not inferior to Internet companies when playing financial innovation.

Over the years, fund companies have continued to innovate in products and businesses. In terms of products, there are strategic allocation funds, REITs, pension target funds, FOFs, etc., and in terms of business, there are fund investment advisors, suitability, etc. The scalability of e-commerce business is reflected in the fact that when companies have these innovations, they can connect with the three-party platforms in a timely manner.

Because the top three-party platforms need to grasp the hot spots of the industry, they often push them to users through the combination of "recommended core position of financial management homepage + marketing activity momentum + post-columnization". At this time, if you happen to have such hot products, you can naturally get resources that exceed the company's ranking and marketing budget (but then again, those who can get such hot products and businesses are often those top fund companies that have high rankings and no need to worry about budgets, haha). Although some companies are not at the top overall ranking, if they have advantages in certain sub-sectors, they will also have the opportunity to get the resources of this opportunity window - Didn’t Tianhong succeed in counterattacking by Yu'ebao?

Therefore, if e-commerce wants to be scalable in the innovation of company products and business, it needs to link with the "key position recommendation + marketing activity momentum + column-based precipitation" of the three-party platform on the platform side and the "Wealth Account + Live Broadcast Room + Community" on the institutional side. Through the launch of new products and new businesses again and again, the entire link is connected, and the process is solidified, and iterated and optimized through data analysis.

3. This end of the three-party platform

The three-party platform has been innovating its model and gameplay, which is concentrated in four levels: researching and serving centralized scenarios, centralized activities, and institutional open platforms .

Research and services mainly refer to products or services recommended to users by the research team of the three-party platform independently or in cooperation with external institutions in the form of brand endorsement. For example, the "Alipay Jinxuan" cooperating with Alipay Financial Think Tank and China Securities Journal, and the "weekly preferred" of Financial Management Connect, etc. In addition, the "Help You Invest" and the "Invest Together" of Ant and Pioneer, are targeted services of three-party platforms and specific institutions, and there are often more special conditions in terms of cooperation access conditions.

Centralized scenarios mainly refer to various user investment scenarios built by the three-party platform based on financial products. For example, Ant's lazy financial management, every copy saving, Ant Star Wish, small money bag, salary financial management, and more money making, Financial Management's dream plan, salary financial management, etc.

Centralized activities mainly refer to activities in which the three-party platform designs gameplay and reward system based on its own traffic, guides users to carry out advanced conversions and transactions. For example, Ant has 18 Wealth Days on the 18th of each month, and there are multiple S-level promotions every year, including the 218 Financial Management Festival/818 Financial Management Festival, Yu'ebao Anniversary Celebration, and the annual surplus activities at the end of the year.

An institutional open platform mainly refers to the three-party platform providing traffic, user-side products and operation tools, providing financial institutions with a complete set of platform capabilities to reach users-user advancement-user conversion and retention. For example, Ant and Tiantian have launched their own wealth account platforms. This year, the fan system (Iron Fan-Diamond Fan-Love Fan) that various fund companies have been focusing on has actually been an integral part of the institutional open platform.

For fund e-commerce, it can be expanded and controlled, sorted from easy to difficult according to difficulty, and is an open platform for institutional <centralized activities <centralized scenarios <research and services .

• The closer to the left, the higher the degree of control the fund company will be, especially the wealth account, live broadcast room, discussion area, etc. under the open platform, which can basically be considered as the private domain of the fund company.
• The closer to the right, the higher the requirements for the three-party platform to realize its own KPI, resulting in the stronger the degree of independent control of the three-party, and the more difficult it is for the fund company to intervene. Or in order to ensure the authority and independence of the research, the three parties will build an independent evaluation system, and in this regard, the fund companies basically have no room for operation.

If you do a good job in question 8, you can basically think that the fund company's e-commerce business has been on track and has stable output.

9. Is the organizational construction and development plan of e-commerce business reasonable and clear?

This issue can be viewed in two parts: organizational construction and development planning. The former is based on the understanding of the current business situation and the control of the company's resources, while the latter is based on the judgment of the direction of business development and the understanding of the company's strategy, which affects each other.

Organizational structure of a large leading fund company (smaller companies generally do not see independent e-commerce departments)

1. Let’s look at organizational construction first

The organizational construction of the e-commerce department includes two solutions: low-provision and high-provision. For low-level solutions, the roles of jobs will be smaller and the number of jobs will be streamlined. This is reflected in the position design, which is " BD+ operation ", and even the integration of BD and operation roles is done by the same group of people or even the same person.

The high-end solution is " BD+operation+product ", and on this basis, it distinguishes the job division between the own online direct sales platform (APP/WeChat official account/official website) and the three-party platform.

• The self-owned direct sales platform is equipped with full-time product managers and operators, and undertakes relatively independent indicators
• Further, there are also differences between different three-party platforms, such as BD and operation sub-groups, connecting with Ant, Tiantian and Financial Management, etc.
• In terms of work content, the operation positions can be further split, such as Fortune Account Operation, Community/Topic Content, Live Operation, Short Video Editing and Operation, etc.

It doesn’t matter which method is better for low-end or high-end. It depends more on the scale of the current e-commerce business and the company’s expected value. But since fund companies are a typical intellectual-intensive industry, they make so much money every year, and you recruit more people and less money assigned to each person, so you need to grasp the balance relationship, otherwise there will be many eyes staring at you.

As an alternative and supplement, you can consider finding some three-party agency agencies to cooperate, such as *shou, *le, *guo, etc., which can be a certain degree of pressure.

Some companies will place direct sales positions in the customer service department, some will place them in the e-commerce department; some companies will also set up a sub-team in the channel department to do e-commerce; some companies will merge the functions of the marketing department and the e-commerce department. These business and functions will not be discussed in this article.

To add, in the talent background of the e-commerce department, if you can have dual work experience in Internet + finance from e-commerce directors to operation students, it will be a good plus point. The situation of "two-way black box" of three parties and institutions mentioned above can be largely avoided. Among the public offering friends I know, there are several e-commerce companies that have either Alipay background or come from Tiantian Fund. They are relatively more organized and have much clearer goals in the docking and layout of tripartite operations. Of course, there are relatively few cases from public offerings to three parties. The more famous one is that Chen Canhui from Huitianfu went to JD.com, and the less famous one is that I came to Ant.

2. Look at the development plan again

The e-commerce department must be able to " draw small pie + tell small stories ", but cannot "draw large pie + tell big stories", which is completely different from planning for Internet companies.

The so-called " drawing small cakes " means not to set business indicators that are too excited, even if you say that this goal is not enough to be achieved in 3-5 years. A better approach is to set reasonable growth targets based on the company's current e-commerce business level. At the same time, if you have to draw a blueprint, you can use the timeline to string the development history of other well-made fund companies' e-commerce business, then analyze the reasons, and then compare the similarities and differences of our company.

This is a common practice for many fund companies to plan and describe their business prospects from the company to various department levels. You can experience the benefits of doing so.

The so-called " telling a short story " means that the core assessment indicators are mainly transaction scale and AUM, supplemented by user scale (account opening user/transaction user/fan scale). Don’t talk about the story of Internet companies that “firstly expand the user scale, then do user transaction conversion and ownership”. This kind of big story is left to the three parties to tell, and they are very good at it.

Fund companies are still asset management institutions after all. If you say that you can’t escape the word “efficiency”, the financial department will also chase you behind and ask you for input-output ratio. This is the survival logic of this industry, you cannot challenge it. Therefore, what the e-commerce department needs to do is to continuously improve the efficiency of the fund use of the operating budget, the output efficiency of the operation personnel in the three-party live broadcast room/wealth account/community, and the efficiency of user conversion from the three-party platform.

After sorting out this logic, you will not listen to the wind or rain when making plans. It will not be as simple as the three parties starting to build an open platform for institutions and a fan system. I heard that the e-commerce department of other fund companies has also included user scale in the assessment, so it simply puts the assessment indicators from the original "user scale + sales" to "user/fan scale + sales + ownership".

In a word, cooperation with the three-party platforms can be coordinated in rhythm and separated in indicators.

10. End

Finally, we are going back to the topic that gave away at the beginning of the previous article:

Recently, a new general manager has arrived in a fund company and is preparing to do a big deal in the market line.

You are the head of the e-commerce department of this company. The task assigned to you is to increase the number of fans in Ant Wealth by 10 times within 3 months, and the AUM will increase by 10 times at the same time.

How to solve this problem?

In fact, there is one simplest and direct way: take the general manager out, communicate with the senior executives of the three-party company for face-to-face communication, or attend a wealth partner conference, see the ideas of the three-party and listen to the situation of the peers.

Think about it, how many fund companies' e-commerce departments have been working with the three parties for several years, and even the top leaders like the company's chairman or general manager have never sat down and talked with the three parties once?

Remember what was said above? For users, it is not the e-commerce department that sells it, but the entire fund company that sells it, and the company’s top leader is the representative of the best company’s capabilities and willingness.

Therefore, the first purpose of placing this question at the beginning of the article is to force yourself to think about it: Have you tried your best to connect and get involved in senior management?

Of course, as smart as you, after reading this article of almost 20,000 words, I believe you are not just trying to get the answer to this question.

The supervision and market environment are unpredictable, the asset management market is developing rapidly, and the three-party platform is full of wolfishness. In so many uncertainties, you will definitely hope to have some certain things in your hands. Don’t worry, we have:

(1) Clarify the current situation, determine the facts, and determine the starting point

State the current status of the tripartite platform. Ant's open platform, daily advertising business model, financial management boutiques, each platform has its own platform strategy and goals, and we must determine the platform that is closest to the company's goals and characteristics to focus on overcoming.

State the current status of the user. The user characteristics and ownership of our company's products on the core three-party platform are relatively good and can be improved.

Analysis: Clarify the platform where our company's e-commerce business should focus on. If this platform does not emphasize the number of fans, then the goal of increasing the number of fans in the issue can naturally be adjusted.

(2) Take stock of resources, clarify gaps, and call support

Take stock of the tracks and product lines of the company, determine the main products, and determine the investment and research support of fund managers and researchers who need to be mobilized; at the same time, we need resources, headcount, and support from the boss, and communicate clearly from the product department, investment department, marketing department to the supervision and audit department. Since we have set such a big goal for e-commerce, the cooperation of each brother department needs to be in place.

Come up with "one list + N sets of scripts" that meet the company's characteristics. The so-called list refers to the product list you are preparing to take out to cooperate with the three-party platform. The so-called N-set script refers to the fact that in various scenarios of the three-party platform, you must have corresponding gameplay and strategy design, and do a good job in "introducing traffic acceptance + user retention + continuous advancement and conversion" - Analysis: If the company's advantages are not obvious in track layout and products, then the growth target of ownership in the issue can naturally be adjusted.

Analysis: The boss assigned a super high goal, and it is most likely that he does not want to make things difficult for you, but to think about the possibility of business breakthroughs from the overall perspective of the company, and even wants to use this as an opportunity to promote the overall change of the company.

Therefore, while you are doing your job in e-commerce, you also need to promote it from the perspective of overall company coordination to give the boss a reason to promote change.

(3) Propose strategies, correct goals, exceed expectations

Propose the "comprehensive point distribution + directional blasting" strategy. Take the express train of construction of the three-party platform. Actively try new functions and new tools, and invest manpower and resources; when the market conditions are in place, the company's products match the track hot spots, and the platform's major marketing activities are in line with the company's advantageous resources, they will destroy resources and penetrate them.

The product rhythm and operation rhythm of the three-party platform. Based on the rhythm of the three-party platform, we will formulate goals and strategies for a significant increase in the number of fans or a significant increase in the number of fans.

Analysis: Don’t just emphasize difficulties, always say “this is not possible, that is not possible”, and the boss will only think that it is you who can’t.

Therefore, propose feasible strategies, through the above "one list + N sets of scripts", "comprehensive points + directional blasting", and then connect with the three-party rhythm, and take out a target that can exceed the boss' expectations on a certain indicator - for example, "iron fans" can achieve 60,000 in 6 months...

The above content is the results of the answers to questions 1 to 9, and the extraction and reorganization. If you forget, you can look back again.

Good luck.

Written at the end:

It is said that this article can be sold at a good price.

After I posted the article on my official account, a public fund friend joked that your article can actually give you a more gimmick name - "The Way of Practicing the E-Commerce Director of Public Funds". Such a topic can not only write articles, but also make a profit from a course.

This logic is actually correct, but there is a problem with the direction.

Educational research expert Shen Zuyun once said a sentence (this sentence shocked me for two or three years). She said-This world is not divided by field, but the world is organized by "challenges".

There is actually no completely correct answer to these nine questions about public e-commerce, let alone the correct answer. The environment is changing, and users are changing. All we can do is to constantly respond to various challenges that may arise with questions and constantly ask ourselves: Which method is more effective and which method is the most effective?

Note: The above content has nothing to do with the institution I serve, does not represent the opinions of the institution I serve, nor does it involve investment advice.

Author: Zhang Dechun

Source: Daoshi No