Financial Services Companies in China Battling on Live Streaming using Analytics and Creativity
The era of financial live broadcasting in China has arrived.
After the pandemic, financial platforms began to flood the short video and live broadcast fields.
According to industry statistics, there are now 1 million professional financial accounts on Douyin. They are all exploring how to get customers online.
Some banks even spend millions to build their own live broadcast platform.
What is the effect of live streaming of financial institutions?
Water Drop Company claims to live for one hour, “selling nearly 7 million yuan of long-term life insurance products.” The live broadcast of China Life Insurance lasted nearly 80 minutes. They claimed that 910,000 people watched it and the turnover was 400 million yuan.
A bank revealed that the conversion rate of their live broadcast is 5% to 6%.
The era of financial live broadcasting has arrived. Who will become the wave of this wave?
01 Short video
Through short videos and live broadcasts, you can sell lipstick, clothes, and even cars and rockets. Why can’t you sell financial products?
“The financial account on Douyin recently doubled every two weeks.” Huang Xi said. He is the founder of an MCN institution focused on financial accounts.
On the platform of the Douyin data analysis tool “Jiaochao”, there are more than 3 million accounts related to “Finance”, more than 2 million accounts related to “Finance”, and more than 4 million accounts related to “Bank”. There are over 6 million related accounts.
Calculated in this way, the financial account here has tens of millions.
“In this, 10% are banks, insurance, funds and other financial institutions, as well as the accounts made by the practitioners of these institutions.” Huang Xi said.
He found that these financial platforms have extremely high enthusiasm for registering accounts, and even each department of an institution has joined in. Customer service centers, credit card centers, and loan centers have all established their own accounts.
“Conservative estimates, there are now at least 1 million professional financial accounts marching into Douyin.”
According to the data of the check, the official accounts of financial institutions mainly talk about professional knowledge such as wealth management and funds. The content is relatively vertical, and the number of fans is not much, mostly between thousands and tens of thousands.
Among them, the largest number of fans is the CITIC Bank credit card customer service account, with about 1.3 million fans.
What content are these official financial accounts publishing?
The most popular content is about the beautiful lady.
For example, China Merchants Bank has released a short video “Miss Bank’s Day”, shooting the day when Miss Sister wakes up to work.
China Merchants Bank’s short video of “Miss Bank’s Day” released by Douyin
This kind of young lady’s routine is more eye-catching, and many fans love this one.
The customer service account of the China CITIC Bank credit card also often shoots interesting stories about a beautiful customer service lady who copes with various people at work.
For example, what if the user always calls the customer service “baby”…
Below these videos, there is a comment: “Because of this young lady, I decided to always use only the credit card of China CITIC Bank.”
The second category is more concerned about the popularization and education of financial knowledge. For example, banks often publish videos about financial scams to remind people not to fall.
The third category is regarded as an innovation attempt of financial platforms. They will shoot a short story, and then implant their own products.
For example, the girlfriend’s birthday is coming, the boyfriend wants to prepare a surprise for him, but he is shy and does not want to borrow money, so a loan product appears, which relieves his urgent need.
“Financial platforms have reversed the original stereotypes and become very lively, with many changes.” Huang Xi said that these financial platforms are tapping short video traffic. This trend will become more apparent in the next six months.
02 Live Broadcasting
In addition to short videos, the ambition of the financial platform to advance into the field of live broadcasting is also extremely obvious.
In June, more than 40 financial institutions have started live streaming of Alipay.
On June 22, ICBC broadcast live knowledge on anti-fraud of middle-aged and elderly people, and attracted more than 600,000 fans to watch it within an hour.
On Douyin, various financial platforms have also started to broadcast their live broadcasts one after another.
“Miss Beauty speaks about financial management and recommends financial products like a beautiful dress. The language is very lively.” Huang Xi watched no less than 20 live broadcasts and found that the best effect was the routine of Miss Beauty.
How efficient is the conversion of live streaming?
On May 9, Shenpeng CEO Shen Peng hosted a live broadcast through WeChat and Kuaishou.
According to the water drop, “This 90-minute live broadcast brings nearly ten million yuan in premium conversion.”
9 days later, China Life held a global new product launch conference, and Chief Actuary Li Jianwei participated in the live broadcast.
The live broadcast was nearly 80 minutes. China Life revealed: “More than 910,000 people watch online, and the conversion premium exceeds 400 million yuan.”
Lu Min, the chief executive officer of Ping An Group’s insurance business, has also done live insurance coverage, claiming to be “a live broadcast for 1 hour, and it is expected that the premium will be converted into 160 million yuan in the next 3 months.”
Such dazzling data really surprised the industry.
Financial live broadcast seems to have become a trend.
“Our department is also preparing to build a vibrato, which has even been included in our mission indicator this year.” The person in charge of a bank credit card center said that the establishment of vibrato has become a “workload.”
03 PROBLEMS
“Financial short videos and live broadcasts are definitely a great road.” After studying this model in depth, Huang Xi feels that everything has just erupted and has plenty of stamina.
But this model also needs to solve three core problems.
The first big problem is the matching degree of users.
In fact, as early as around 2016, there was a wave of live broadcast fever in the market.
At that time, many P2P platforms rubbed hot spots and launched live broadcasts one after another.
They invited online celebrities to broadcast live inside the company and show the audience the company’s office environment in an attempt to increase users’ trust.
At that time, a P2P platform had live broadcasts for three consecutive days. The cumulative number of viewers reached 155,000, and the number of simultaneous online viewers was 42,000.
But after the excitement, the effect was minimal. The actual conversion rate is only single digits.
“Live broadcast can only promote the brand, it is unlikely to bring conversion.” This has almost become the consensus of the industry.
Why is the live broadcast effect in 2016 so poor?
Huang Xi analyzed that the users who watched the live broadcast at that time were very young post-90s, and the degree of overlap with P2P users was extremely low.
Therefore, the effect of the financial live broadcast that has emerged this year will vary depending on the product.
“Different products, the effect is very different.” Huang Xi statistics, found that the conversion rate of financial products, about 5%.
The conversion rate of loan products is higher than that of wealth management products.
The most obvious effect is insurance products, but insurance products that are too complicated cannot be sold, only products with low unit price such as “Million Medical” can be sold.
Huang Xi believes that this is because on short video platforms such as Douyin, there are fewer users of wealth management, and more users of loans and affordable insurance.
“The products recommended by Financial Live must be matched with users, otherwise it will fall into a black hole in traffic and the conversion rate is extremely low.”
A private equity manager revealed: “90% of the users on Douyin are not our users, and the live broadcast effect is very poor.”
Even if it is a private placement customer, it is unlikely to invest after watching the video or live broadcast on Douyin.
This involves the second difficulty of live mode — — content supervision.
Bring goods and cosmetics, the content can be entertaining, but financial products are more serious, it is difficult to play with flowers.
“We also used some entertainment methods to introduce products, but instead it seemed unprofessional and had poor conversion effect.” Huang Xi said.
But for too stiff content, the number of viewers is low.
How to find a balance point has become the key.
Financial institutions are subject to some restrictions when promoting financial products.
In 2012, the Shanghai Banking Regulatory Bureau issued the “Specifications for the Terminology of the Shanghai Banking Wealth Management Product Sales Promotion”, which stipulates that commercial banks must use real and objective language when selling wealth management products, and the language and text should be true, accurate and clear.
Especially financial products. If the publicity materials are not submitted for approval, they may be punished by the regulatory authorities.
Therefore, in order to avoid risks, some banks simply review the video after recording the video, and then put it on the live broadcast platform if there is no problem.
But this effect is greatly reduced. “Financial supervision is too strict to be obscene, so it is not feasible to use pure entertainment promotion methods.” Huang Xi had to make some strange moves to dilute the seriousness of the content. For example, “contrast cute”. The average person hears “finance” and thinks that the interpreter is a man in a suit and glasses. Huang Xi just walked the opposite way, letting a chubby, cute girl say, “The effect is better.” .
Recently, the sale and promotion of insurance in the form of short videos have attracted the attention of the regulator.
On June 1, the official website of Hebei Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau announced that it would organize comprehensive investigation and special governance of self-media insurance marketing.
For the promotion of financial products, “it is really like walking on thin ice”.
The third problem is security.
After all, short videos such as Douyin are an entertainment tool. Buying financial products on an entertainment tool still makes people feel insecure.
“Financial institutions found that although these platforms have traffic, they cannot complete the closed loop of marketing.” A system service provider said.
Platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also aware of the particularity of financial products and have imposed strict restrictions on the sale of financial products. For example, users may not be able to jump directly from the live broadcast page to the product page, and can only quit the live broadcast and download the bank’s APP to purchase the product.
Huang Xi said that in these few steps, “almost 90% of users will be lost”.
As a result, some platforms began to try to build a live broadcast system on their own APP and WeChat public account. A bank has grafted a live broadcast program on its own small program, “it is said to have cost millions”.
Because of the above-mentioned three major problems, most financial institutions lay out short videos and live broadcasts, mainly not to convert, but to promote brands and enhance users’ trust in themselves. However, Huang Xi believes that online and entertaining financial flows are the general trend and cannot be reversed.
How to play this financial live broadcast game? Huang Xi concluded that there are three tips: matching users, complying with supervision, and interesting content. But the current financial platform that meets these three points is “less than 1%.”
Therefore, it is possible to help financial platforms build live broadcast systems, incubate teams, or plan industries that promote financial products.
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