---
title: "2015 Township Market Tough? Change Path, Discover Gold Everywhere..."
description: "During the industry adjustment period, distributors are the first to feel the impact. In Baoding, Hebei, Shicheng Liquor, known for its low-key and stable style, bucked the trend by actively expanding into township markets through a strategy of 'building momentum in the middle, intensively cultivating townships,' achieving growth against the tide."
author: "王赫"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-01-15"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/2015-township-market-tough-change-path-discover-gold-everywhere-ec9a25c3/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/2015-township-market-tough-change-path-discover-gold-everywhere-ec9a25c3.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OwzhhSglApb8Y-1Mchjrcw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/2015%E5%B9%B4%E4%B9%A1%E9%95%87%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA%E5%BE%88%E9%9A%BE%E5%81%9A-%E6%8D%A2%E6%9D%A1%E8%B7%AF%E8%B5%B0-%E6%89%8D%E5%8F%91%E7%8E%B0%E9%81%8D%E5%9C%B0%E6%98%AF%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91-ec9a25c3.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/2015-township-market-tough-change-path-discover-gold-everywhere-ec9a25c3/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# 2015 Township Market Tough? Change Path, Discover Gold Everywhere...

> During the industry adjustment period, distributors are the first to feel the impact. In Baoding, Hebei, Shicheng Liquor, known for its low-key and stable style, bucked the trend by actively expanding into township markets through a strategy of 'building momentum in the middle, intensively cultivating townships,' achieving growth against the tide.

Friendly reminder: Click the blue text above to follow 'FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting' for more marketing and distributor internal management insights.

During the industry adjustment period, distributors are the first to be affected because they are on the front lines, at the forefront of the market. This year, liquor distributors have mostly been defensive, with few taking the initiative. However, in Baoding, Hebei, Shicheng Liquor, which has always been known for its 'low-key, stable' business style, has bucked the trend by actively attacking, using a strategy of 'building momentum in the middle, intensively cultivating townships' to carve out a path of counter-trend growth. **Regional giants create 'star township markets' – learn these tricks and you can do it too!**

**Major Distributor Transformation: Three Steps to Target County and Township Markets**

**Step One: Transform into an Operator, 'Earn Money by Running'**

**'Previously, I visited the market once every three days; now it's once every two days. Previously, I earned money sitting down; now I have to earn money running.'** Yang Jianli, General Manager of Hebei Shicheng Liquor, believes that the more adjustment period, the more opportunity. Although the liquor industry situation is not good now, as a distributor, you must persist and take the initiative.

At the same time, Yang Jianli believes that the competition now is about market reaction speed. When he was an agent, after seeing market changes, he needed to select products, promote them, etc., which took a considerable cycle. But if he had his own operating brand, as soon as he saw what type of products consumers liked, the company could adjust promptly. Yang Jianli believes that high autonomy over the brand, coupled with a complete sales network, can quickly make township market operations successful.

**Step Two: Seize Local Brands to Capture Consumer Mindshare.**

Similar to other markets nationwide, in Baoding, Hebei, there are more and more products, and the mass consumer market is heating up. Yang Jianli believes this is a great opportunity for local liquor to quickly seize market share. Among many brands, after market research, Yang Jianli concluded that **local brands have a 'people-friendly' characteristic, making it easier to capture consumer mindshare.** Therefore, he chose to operate the local old brand – 'Old Baoding'. This brand has high reputation in Baoding, with a people-friendly price positioning, retailing below 50 yuan. 'Old Baoding' targets township markets as its main sales market.

**Step Three: Lock onto Townships, Make Products the Market Needs!**

After choosing to operate 'Old Baoding', Yang Jianli decided to lock the brand into township operations. The main reasons are as follows:

**Reason One:** Baoding has 22 counties, each with multiple townships, offering vast market space, and it's the most suitable place for local liquor sales;

**Reason Two:** Township markets have relatively lower competition, and township residents are more nostalgic than urban consumers. They receive less advertising than urban consumers, so township consumers have more emotional attachment to the 'Old Baoding' brand;

**Reason Three:** In the past, township markets had low consumption capacity, with most consumers only buying liquor priced at a few yuan or over ten yuan per bottle. Now their consumption levels are gradually rising, and 50 yuan per bottle liquor is becoming mainstream. Therefore, 'Old Baoding' has significant operational space in township markets;

**Reason Four:** In township markets, the quantity of liquor used for banquets is very large. When holding weddings or funerals, they basically host big feasts. As long as you can capture this market, you won't worry about sales volume or brand influence. Therefore, there is even greater growth potential here.

**Five Steps to Create a Star Township Market**

Brand operation tests the comprehensive operational capability of an enterprise. Yang Jianli, who has been a distributor for many years, knows better what downstream distributors care about, what they want, and what he needs to provide them. To ensure 'Old Baoding' can quickly achieve channel sinking, Yang Jianli made arrangements in the following five aspects:

**First: Hold the 'Four Rights' to Promote Rapid Channel Sinking.** To ensure brand dominance, Yang Jianli took **the intellectual property rights, production rights, sales rights, and service rights of 'Old Baoding' into his own hands, which accelerated the speed of Shicheng Liquor's channel sinking.** The manufacturer also sent two heavyweight figures with years of experience in liquor work to help him control the quality of the liquor, because for local liquor, quality is the most important. In addition, Shicheng Liquor's brand influence and reputation established over the years in the market also ensure rapid product sell-through.

**Second: Cultural Excavation to Enhance the 'Old Baoding' Brand Image.** 'Old Baoding' has certain cultural genes locally. Shicheng Liquor will organize China Time-honored Brand, Baoding Association, local playwrights, and artists to spread 'Old Baoding' culture, while also excavating Baoding's red culture, such as Baiyangdian, Langya Mountain, Tunnel Warfare, and some celebrities, including Liu Bei, Zu Chongzhi, etc. These can be combined with the 'Old Baoding' brand to enhance brand power.

**Third: Accelerate Product Development to Maintain Freshness in Front of Consumers.** Currently, Old Baoding has two core products, including 250ml and 500ml, which basically meet market purchase demand, but the company will still put effort into product development to maintain freshness in front of consumers.

In developing new products, Shicheng Liquor adheres to the principle of '**Three Do's and Two Don'ts**'. The 'Three Do's' are: **First, do a good job with the brand; second, do a good job with quality; third, do a good job with consumer activities.** The 'Two Don'ts' are: **First, don't do excessive packaging.** 'Old Baoding' is for ordinary people to drink, so packaging doesn't need to be overly luxurious. Now it's about environmental protection and low carbon. Choosing environmentally friendly packaging can still be beautiful, and it also reduces production costs, allowing real benefits to be passed on to the people. **Second, don't pursue short-term profits.** From agent to brand operator, Yang Jianli's philosophy is to give customers long-term profits, to give them a 'long-term meal ticket', not to use short-term interests to damage the long-term market.

**Fourth: Do a Good Job of Price Control.** Price is the foundation of market stability, and the key to stabilizing prices is the upstream. The high autonomy of the Old Baoding brand gives Yang Jianli confidence in stabilizing market prices. 'Having been a distributor for so many years, we know best their feelings. Once products sell well, they fear price chaos. Since we've experienced this, we won't let price problems occur.'

**Fifth: Direct Sales Model to Create Model Townships.** The recruitment model for 'Old Baoding' is direct sales in urban areas and distribution in townships. Shicheng Liquor has operated in Baoding for many years, establishing a good sales foundation in the urban area and good control over local channels. Therefore, in the urban area, they adopt a direct sales operation model, first building momentum from the middle, planning to cover about 600 terminal stores in the city, achieving 70% to 80% sell-through.

In township markets, they adopt a strategy of 'rural areas encircling the county town'. Township markets are more dispersed than urban areas. To better control townships and achieve refined operations, they adopt the strategy of rural areas encircling the county town, integrating distributor resources in township markets, and creating model township markets.

**In the Baoding area, they plan to create 5 to 10 model townships. After completing the first batch of 5 to 10 townships, they will proceed to the second and third batches of township coverage, and finally cover the entire county.** Then each market will replicate this model, with the goal of having one model township per area in the first batch. For example, in Yi County, Shicheng adopted a model of four customers jointly acting as agents, encouraging them to build the market first, while learning from the models of large manufacturers. In county and township areas, they visit familiar customers, and for unfamiliar customers, they have salespeople organize briefings to promote 'Old Baoding' products, helping distributors build confidence in the product and the future.

Daonong recently opened a public account specifically about how traditional enterprises can do WeChat marketing well. If you are interested, you can follow it. Search for the WeChat ID above or scan the QR code below to follow.

\--------------------------------------------


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671