Analysis of in-depth marketing

Introduction: In the development history of marketing concepts, concepts such as production concept, product concept, marketing concept, marketing concept, social concept, and big market marketing concept appeared in turn. Generally speaking, these concepts emphasize the initiative of suppliers, clear demand and information asymmetry. Fundamentally speaking, these concepts are just marketing means, but the focus and complexity are different.

First, in-depth marketing: it is not easy to say I love you.

Recently, a series of weird terms such as "channel profitability" and "channel tension" have appeared in articles about in-depth marketing or in-depth distribution. ARS(AreaRollerSales Regional Rolling Sales Model) founded by Hejun Venture Consulting Co., Ltd. practices this model with TCL, especially Robust as the representative brand, and calls this operation model with the goal of seeking the first regional market share as "deep marketing".

We believe that sales, including marketing, can be explained clearly by "addition and subtraction". Occasionally, I will use a little multiplication and division, and I don't need to use advanced mathematics at all. Secondly, the so-called deep marketing should be defined as an operation control system with deep channel cultivation as the core, which is not the whole connotation of regional marketing activities.

In addition, the core of in-depth marketing models of major brands that have been mysteriously explained, such as "integrated distribution system" of P&G, "1kloc-0/model" of Coca-Cola, "intensive channel cultivation" of Master Kong, "unified auxiliary sales agency model" and "direct channel sales" of Bao Si, are nothing more than reasonable allocation of product distribution costs, and further. As far as its original intention is concerned, it is a channel operation experiment conducted by various brands under the guidance of market environment, enterprise resources and marketing strategy. In its long-term success, 60% is due to brands and products, and 30% is due to the tenacious execution of enterprises. The real component of channel creativity may only be 10%! Excluding the moral point of view, multi-level pyramid selling (people-oriented channel) and selling oral liquid in villages and towns (bypassing hospitals and pharmacies to sell "medicine") are the channel ideas!

In the market economy environment of China for nearly 20 years, for consumer goods enterprises, brands that have always achieved two things will be more or less successful: First, they will insist on widely distributing goods, that is, they will try their best to make their products appear in all saleable places, such as wrigley, cola, instant noodles and drinks in food, shampoo, sanitary napkins and washing products in daily necessities, and even electrical appliances and mobile phones in durable goods. As long as you do this, second, the sooner you establish a relationship with the rising modern super terminal, you can also succeed: super terminal refers to Gome, Suning, Sanlian and other electrical supermarkets that have achieved scale advantages in food and daily necessities with multi-store and cross-regional large chain stores, and refers to regional large restaurants and hot pot cities in the ready-to-drink market.

This is the real connotation of "building a brand in the channel" that we have repeatedly emphasized. That is to say, for the brand of China in the first 20 years, it will live longer (of course, sometimes it won't be as limelight as Biaowang) if it invests resources in the channel first, instead of reveling in the glory of CCTV. From "No.3 Factory" and "K of Hearts" to the rural movement, and then to the quiet Wrigley, Hsu Fu Kee (increasing investment in media communication in recent years), as well as high-profile brands (enterprises) such as Procter & Gamble, Wahaha, Master Kong, Uni-President and Bao Si.

There are two kinds of in-depth marketing models mentioned above: the first is organized and continuous terminal coverage, and the same feature of the above model is "increasing channel sales personnel", including line salesmen, tally clerks, shopping guides (sales promotion) ladies, channel managers, resident salesmen and so on. We call it a professional channel (distribution) team; The second is to systematically collect, sort out and analyze the channel sales data, so as to track the changes of the channel structure and enhance the accuracy and economy of the promotion activities, that is, a complete market information system (MIS).

Therefore, the real connotation of in-depth marketing is not the so-called mode, execution, or integrated marketing communication, but systematic market competition based on complete channel information!

Second, the system structure of in-depth marketing

For brands without complete channel sales information, any sales promotion may be temporary: that is, the factors that lead to their successful rise (KSF-the key success factor) meet the needs of the market and consumers. However, such success is difficult to maintain because it lacks real data to know what keeps it successful. Jacques V9, his+her nutritious water, Robust's pulsating water, if these brands still believe that blind follow-up and disorderly competition have led to the rapid decline of their products, then it cannot be explained that there will still be brands (such as luxury brands such as fashion and leather goods) in the commodity market full of fakes and low-grade goods-and this is the deep reason for the fatal outcome of the star-making brand concept.

In fact, deep marketing is a systematic structure: the promotion behavior of enterprises (energy input) promotes the growth of product sales (volume), but behind the sales growth is nothing more than the increase of channel share and/or customer share. When the growth of channel share and customer share produces positive "mutual feedback", the growth of market share is stable and benign. In other words, when the market share is based on the growth of channel share and customer share, the market share driven by sales growth will not become a bubble. This system structure and its functional relationship have special significance, especially for repetitive consumer goods (the consumption power of durable goods comes from new purchases and redemptions, and there is basically no repurchase).

Channel share = brand outlets (sales volume)/channel outlets (sales volume). The first indicator to measure channel share here is channel coverage, that is, the proportion of brands entering the total channel network; According to the 2: 8 rule, 20% of key outlets may achieve 80% of sales, so brand coverage and single-point sales in these 20% of key outlets often become the key to enhance brand channel share. The number of channels of the brand also reflects the quality of the channels! Therefore, when the sales volume comes from a group of merchants (distributors), the risk of the brand is the greatest; When the sales volume comes from the second batch, the risk is secondary; Sales come from the terminal, with less risk; When the sales volume comes from the repeated orders of the terminal, the brand has almost entered a risk-free place. Because the repeated orders in the terminal must come from the customer share.

Customer share = number of brands consumed/sum of all brands consumed. Even if the consumption of competitive brands cannot be accurately counted, the customer share can be calculated through in-depth analysis of brands. That is, sampling survey of age, gender, income, education level, occupation, family status, purchase frequency, single purchase quantity, etc. Multi-factor correlation analysis is made on the consumers who buy the brand, and the characteristics of heavy, medium and light consumer groups, their buying motives, buying habits and brand attitudes are further studied. , you can judge the brand stickiness of this brand (the proportion of heavy consumers in all brand consumers) and find out the real state of consumers behind the sales growth (. Tracking survey).

Sales volume (sales volume) and promotion: sales volume is usually achieved through offline promotion such as channel tying, dealer pressing goods, consumer purchase incentives (buy one get one free and other consumer bribes), which can be expressed in terms of amount and can be decomposed into channel outlets to measure the sales power of each outlet, and is also a unit to measure performance and market share; On the other hand, sales must be reduced to the minimum sales unit (usually called SKU), and buying a SKU represents the completion of a consumption pattern; How many SKU products are purchased or consumed at one time, and how long the interval will lead to the second purchase (or how many purchases occur per unit time). The purchase frequency and consumption depth behind these are consumer groups: scale, characteristics, habits, attitudes and so on. In terms of sales volume, it needs to be achieved through online promotion, such as display, vividness, POP, advertising, performance and gathering.

Market share: the growth of every customer share is the growth of channel share, so the market share from the growth of customer share is safe and healthy; But not every increase in channel share will bring customer share, especially the newly listed products. After the first round of distribution, many products were troubled by long channels: slow sales-immediate return-deterioration-complaints-hatred-death. Therefore, when the sales volume comes from the increase in the number of channel outlets, rather than the repeated orders placed by outlets, it is a signal of brand channel crisis.

It can be seen that the market share based on mutual feedback between channel share and customer share can effectively consolidate sales and improve the effectiveness of promotion investment. High market share brings low promotion cost and favorable market position to block attacks.

Channel information refers to channel sales data and third-party market surveys (such as regular retail store surveys, Storecheck and use and Attitude U&; Only by mastering the information obtained from a survey can the sustainable survival and growth of the brand be guaranteed, and it is also necessary to look at the market outside of sales and look at sales from the perspective of marketing. On the contrary, the success and sustainability of the brand will be extremely accidental.

Third, the strategic orientation of in-depth marketing.

Now let's discuss the core question: how does deep marketing become necessary?

In fact, when we sum up one of the essence of in-depth marketing, "increasing channel sales staff", it is equivalent to saying that in-depth marketing and "crowd tactics" can be equated, and many enterprises hesitate here. Enterprises that successfully seize the sales outlets by introducing the sea of people tactics first, such as TCL for home appliances, Bird for mobile phones, Bao Si for daily use, Master Kong for food, and Liangle for drinks, if the product sales increase and the gross profit of products changes slightly (TCL, Bird), the sales team will immediately lose weight, causing an uproar in the market, and the slimming of Lehua color TV even makes the sales stall and the brand die!

In China's 20-year channel operation mode, deep marketing represented by Procter & Gamble and Liangle is the benchmark, while other modes only change in terms or details. The same characteristics of the three brands are the deep control of each channel terminal and a series of links related to this control: channel definition, line visit, eight steps of visit, tabular management, networked real-time data acquisition and order generation control. In concrete operation, P&G adopts an integrated e-commerce mode (large-scale and deep cooperative marketing system) integrating third-rate (capital, goods and information), while Pepsi adopts straight-line car sales (direct supply system) and Coca-Cola adopts direct sales+"10/mode" (pre-sale plus small-scale distribution system). The benchmarking distribution system of the three major brands has a far-reaching impact on the channel thinking of local brands.

Here, I summarize the problems that need to be paid attention to in-depth marketing operation with two cases I personally experienced: strategic orientation determines the ultimate success or failure.

Case 1: 1998, when the national beer industry and even most FMCG industries were still studying distributor management, network construction and new product wars, a channel reform was about to start in J, a small town in eastern Guangdong. The reason is that the manufacturer suddenly raised the price of the original products, which was opposed and resisted by almost all dealers and did not ship for a month! The salesperson is also very helpless and complaining! With the support of the enterprise leader's belief that "Jiangshan must fight by itself" and drawing lessons from Pepsi's automobile sales model, the company invested more than 30 vans, more than 80 salesmen and 70 salesgirls to conduct comprehensive direct sales and deep-rooted channels in the eastern part of Guangdong with a population of 30 million.

1998' s channel innovation, coupled with the imitation of Pepsi's "Love Will Win" and the combination of push and pull, led to a rapid rebound in sales. Taking J city with a population of less than 2 million as an example, the result of full direct selling is that only intermediate wholesale and retail customers (second and third batches) control (open customer card management) 280 hotels, and direct supply hotels reach 160, and nightclubs (bars, D halls, teahouses) and restaurants with promotional girls reach 60 every day, which truly realizes omni-channel.

1999, the sales staff moved closer to the big distributors and gradually began to assist about 20% of the key customers in distribution. In this way, from the horizontal organization of 1998 to the multi-layer structure, the channel has become two distribution links. After the channel profit was reset (in fact, the special rebate of key dealers was added to the original unified price supply), the company's profit space almost returned to the level before the price increase, but at this time there was a huge direct selling team that was not before the price increase, consuming the resources of the enterprise!

Case 2: Z brand snack food formally established a branch in 2003 and began to implement the national direct selling model in large and medium-sized cities, because it was impossible to reach an understanding of cost sharing with distributors. At that time, following the model of Coca-Cola, in C, a mega-city with a population of 6.5438+0.2 million, the headquarters required the OEM pre-sale system, strictly selling by line, and then delivering by line. Unrealistic plagiarism led to the stagnation of direct sales for three months, the disintegration of the team and the departure of the branch manager. After re-establishing the retail sales team, we will develop KA and suburban distribution customers at the same time. With so many direct selling channels and customers, only 1 Jinbei car (cargo capacity 150 cars/time) was delivered, not to mention that the pre-sale system could not be realized, even the coordinated delivery between dealers and KA orders could not be realized. As a result, the pre-sale was changed to direct sales with goods. With the increase of single-person sales, the goods could not meet the order, and 30 distribution points were set up in the urban area. In distribution, in order to alleviate the pressure of insufficient transportation capacity, some distribution subsidies are given to distribution customers who can pick up the goods by car themselves, and distributors are encouraged to pick up the goods themselves.

After nearly two months of adjustment, the sales process, distribution process, order processing process and financial settlement process are all straightened out without increasing resource investment. The average monthly sales of retail outlets has increased from 2,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan (the lowest single-point sales in 7 yuan), and there are more than 5,000 retail outlets within the first ring of the city. The distribution rate of direct KA and B chain stores has reached 60%, and the coverage rate has reached 50%. For example, Carrefour's order increased from 2000 yuan to 20 thousand yuan. As a result, due to unreasonable price increase, the channel profit distribution system was disordered, the established operation system collapsed and sales returned to the starting point.

In both cases, the brands did not invest in media advertising. From the similar process of their rise and fall, we can sum up the serious lack of strategic positioning of local brands (enterprises) in regional deep marketing:

In-depth marketing model can't change the distribution pattern of channel profits-but many enterprises are almost naive and paranoid about it, thinking that canceling the sales price difference increased in the intermediate links can improve the company's profit level. The strategy of direct operation (bypassing distributors) or flattening (small regional distribution mode represented by Coca-Cola "10/system") is a typical manifestation of strategic orientation deviation: can an enterprise that cannot handle the interests of distributors properly handle the interests of distributors, terminals and even employees? Direct mode, while increasing the so-called management efficiency (prohibiting banks), does not it also increase the risk and cost of management? How many brands of direct selling branches have either embarked on the contract system of profit sharing with the head office, such as the giant brain fund before the collapse, or there have been a lot of management crises such as interception of payment, corruption and personnel mutiny, such as three.

Strictly speaking, deep marketing is a means of strategic control, not the purpose and universal mode of marketing. Different enterprises or brands choose to engage in deep intervention in different ways. P&G did not solve the core problems such as channel coverage, service and price control by splitting large households, but developed from the initial semi-automatic ECR(efficientcusumerresponse) management to the current CPFR (CollaborativePlanning, Forecasting &; Replenishment) semi-intelligent management. This is a model of controlling reality with virtual reality, which conforms to the golden business rule of "having without"-making full use of social resources and reducing operational risks and management complexity.

Therefore, enterprises that carry out in-depth marketing must have a clear understanding of their own needs (strategic objectives, resource conditions and objectives) from a strategic perspective in order to make correct decisions:

First of all, the channel depth controlled by the manufacturer is not the core of the problem, but the key point of decision-making is whether the channel coverage, distribution service and price setting can be effectively realized to promote sales.

Secondly, it is more critical for manufacturers to promote, motivate and standardize channel members to the greatest extent than to flatten blindly and lower the sales focus. Therefore, it will be much easier to solve the problem of how consumers choose products or brands (customer share) before solving the channel problem (channel share).

Third, we should evaluate the way to go deep into channels. We believe that the investment in improving the operation level of the system (promotion, logistics, finance, supervision) and the quality of employees is an addition or even multiplication investment to enhance the market competitiveness of enterprises. Enterprises that blindly play "utilitarian" zero-sum games among dealers, salespeople and managers will eventually be abandoned by their dealers and employees!

Taking seriously the enterprise or brand of stakeholders means taking seriously the future of your own enterprise or brand. From this point of view, in-depth marketing begins with the promotion of market share, but its ultimate goal is not the unlimited expansion of market share, but the establishment of brand value chain to the construction of industry value chain: if consumers lose their interest in product categories and enthusiasm for consumption, no matter how good marketing means and management means can create any value!

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