| China's mutual fund industry is still a young industry, which was born 16 years ago. In the early years, marketing and sales relied heavily on banks' networks with a primary focus on sales volume. Then, besides banks, security brokers and direct sales became the new channels to market public mutual funds. Today's third party sales and online sales provide plentiful options and strategies for marketing and services. However, continuous innovations, radical technological progress, explosive development of Internet finance and fast evolving regulatory reforms brought great challenges to existing mutual fund sales and current marketing models. In order to succeed in the environment, focus of marketing has to shift from old school thinking like product sales, initial offering size, maintaining existing fund size to investment advisory and service based mindset, which more appropriately serves investors' goal to manage and increase wealth.The article investigates in detail the evolvement of China's public mutual fund industry and marketing strategies. The article also examines different sales channels and compares their real world performances. In addition, a detailed example from a major domestic fund management company is provided with analysis on the company's client changes, marketing strategy, execution and performances supported by long term observations and data. Based on practical analysis and research results, following suggestions are made to address current challenges of mutual fund sales and marketing in the increasingly competitive world:Reform existing marketing and sales structure.Focus on existing clients and increase client value by improving service quality.Optimize internal incentive schemes and improve performance appraisal systems.Utilize Internet and other new technology to provide more client friendly services.These suggestions provide some guidance to reshape existing sales and marketing strategies to investment advisory and service based marketing models. |
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