---
title: "After Work Resumes, Re-strategize Marketing to Embrace the New Normal"
description: "In the past two days, except for Hubei, the focus has shifted from epidemic supervision to work resumption supervision, and another economic battle has begun. Before the Spring Festival, I outlined three major marketing growth strategies for 2020: product upgrade growth, channel squeeze growth, and three-dimensional connection growth. Now, the original plans and pace have been disrupted, but there are unexpected gains: new marketing tools such as community groups, live streaming, and home delivery services have accelerated the adoption of the three-dimensional connection growth model across industries."
author: "刘春雄"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-02-21"
categories: "Brand Marketing, E-commerce & Instant Retail, Management & Methods"
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citation: "刘春雄. “After Work Resumes, Re-strategize Marketing to Embrace the New Normal.” New Distribution, 2020-02-21. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/after-work-resumes-re-strategize-marketing-to-embrace-the-new-normal-35b7c697/"
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---

# After Work Resumes, Re-strategize Marketing to Embrace the New Normal

> In the past two days, except for Hubei, the focus has shifted from epidemic supervision to work resumption supervision, and another economic battle has begun. Before the Spring Festival, I outlined three major marketing growth strategies for 2020: product upgrade growth, channel squeeze growth, and three-dimensional connection growth. Now, the original plans and pace have been disrupted, but there are unexpected gains: new marketing tools such as community groups, live streaming, and home delivery services have accelerated the adoption of the three-dimensional connection growth model across industries.

**In the past two days, except for Hubei, the focus has shifted from epidemic supervision to work resumption supervision, and another economic battle has begun.**

**Before the Spring Festival, I outlined three major marketing growth strategies for 2020: product upgrade growth, channel squeeze growth, and three-dimensional connection growth.**

**Now, the original plans and pace have been disrupted, but there are unexpected gains: new marketing tools such as community groups, live streaming, and home delivery services have accelerated the adoption of the three-dimensional connection growth model across industries.**

**-01-**
**Re-strategizing Marketing**

When the epidemic ends, you will find that marketing has changed and needs to be re-strategized.

At this point, enterprises face two issues: after resuming work, how to quickly respond to emergencies and recover losses during the epidemic? After the emergency, how to re-strategize marketing? Because during the epidemic, new business models such as community partners, live streaming, and home delivery have already brought marketing into a new normal.

Two judgments are important:
> 1) After the epidemic, in what way will business recover quickly? 2) What will be the new normal of business after the epidemic?

The judgment on when the epidemic will end determines whether you can stand at the starting line at the first moment.

How business and consumption change after the epidemic determines the enterprise's response measures. I believe business recovery can be roughly divided into three stages:
> 1) Family emergency procurement, about one week; 2) Business transition period, about one month; 3) Business enters the new normal.

**The three stages have different work content, but marketing thinking must be consistent, and in the emergency stage, you should already be planning for the later stages.**

**1. What should manufacturers and distributors do during the post-epidemic emergency period?**

First, look at a picture: a refrigerator that was full before the Spring Festival is now empty. This was posted by a relative of mine on WeChat Moments.

Then look at a photo of a store just opening: customers queuing, so much so that police were needed to maintain order.

Then look at a media report: On the first day of a Zhengzhou mall opening! The upper floors were empty, but the supermarket was ransacked. There is photographic evidence.

During the epidemic, families faced the situation: normal consumption, but procurement could be postponed as much as possible.

The result: family reserves were basically depleted, and after the epidemic ends, there will be concentrated procurement. I call this "compensatory procurement" to make up for family consumption.

When the epidemic broke out, family normal consumption reserves were purchased for a 7-day holiday, but the "house arrest" time was about four times the normal holiday, meaning family reserves were far below normal, and compensation is needed after the epidemic. Also, those who "returned to their hometowns" for the New Year are returning to the cities, and there will also be highly concentrated procurement.

Compensatory procurement has high average transaction value and is concentrated in time, with a scale possibly equivalent to holidays other than the Spring Festival. It is not mainly holiday products, but normal family consumption.

**This is a very important window of opportunity.** Families need to procure, but terminal shelves are either empty (in operating supermarkets that haven't been replenished in time) or full (in stores that haven't opened).

**Whoever can fill the shelves first, or whoever can launch promotional activities first, will capture this wave of procurement.**

Since manufacturers may have difficulty replenishing within a week, distributors can only take two measures:
> 1) Transfer goods between terminals, from unopened stores to stores in shortage; 2) When the industry is generally short, pre-sell through community groups, cloud stores, etc. (e.g., for baijiu, beer, etc.).

Distributors will definitely have difficulty replenishing, such as labor shortages. It depends on who has stronger adaptability and which manufacturer has stronger organizational capability.

**My conclusion: The main work during the emergency period is consumers' "compensatory procurement" and distributors' rapid terminal replenishment and promotions.**

**2. What should manufacturers and distributors do during the post-epidemic transition period?**

If the first week is "compensatory procurement," then within a month, there will be roughly several waves of consumption:
> **1) Recovery of delayed consumption.** For example, home furnishing purchases, appliance purchases, building materials, weddings, and other delayed celebratory banquets. This type of consumption is postponed, but planned consumption will still recover. **2) Consumption driven by the recovery of business activities.** 80 million marketing personnel going to the market will drive what kind of consumption? Since the normal marketing pace has been disrupted, the business pace in the first half of 2020 will be faster than normal, also driving corresponding consumption. **3) Consumption in special channels driven by students returning to school.** **4) Restaurants and hotels** that have not operated normally for a long time will need to re-purchase many categories once they open. **5) Revenge consumption.** This is a controversial topic. Let's not discuss it for now.

If the above is from the consumption perspective, from the manufacturer's perspective of resuming work, the original supply chain may be affected. This is both a problem and an opportunity. If others' supply chains have problems, can you enter new supply chains?

**3. Can emergency measures become the new marketing normal?**

Before the epidemic, e-commerce accounted for about 23% of total social retail goods (social retail share can be ignored), with the rest being traditional retail and new retail.

During the epidemic, traditional channels were blocked. Traditional retail channels were blocked, and platform e-commerce and social e-commerce were also not working due to delivery issues. The first to boom was the "home delivery" new retail delivery model, such as Hema Fresh.

Traditional stores do not have APP technology, but they need to be able to "deliver home," and community groups and property security became connection points for community users. Thus, **community groups became popular**.

Tsingtao Beer, as a brand owner, took the lead in recruiting community partners, driving leading enterprises in the beer, dairy, instant noodle, snack food, and meat product industries to participate in community partner recruitment.

There were also live streaming initiatives launched by new media platforms, such as New Distribution and Yunjiu, which later spread to brand owners. Early on, Douyin live streaming was used, and later it shifted to Tencent's live streaming platforms.

When the epidemic is about to end, we must ask: Are these emergency measures, or are they major marketing trends that the epidemic has prematurely brought about?

Since 2018, I, along with teachers Shi Wei, Fang Gang, Zhang Xuejun, Niu Enkun, Ding Ding, and Bao Yuezhong, have been advocating "three-dimensional connection" and "opening up three-dimensional space," and have been practicing in enterprises. This time, we suddenly discovered that the trend has arrived, and it cannot be stopped.

**My judgment: After the epidemic, marketing will enter a new normal, and brand owners and distributors need to re-strategize their marketing.**

**-02-**
**The New Marketing Normal**

**1. What is the new marketing normal?**

Home delivery, live streaming, and community groups are just technical expressions of marketing methods. What marketing trends do they represent?

First, let's talk about live streaming.

During this epidemic, live streaming influencers seemed to be absent. The protagonists of live streaming were actually "old trees with new sprouts"—more traditional marketers, more traditional experts, and more traditional enterprises.

This round of live streaming platforms is Tencent's system, different from Douyin and Kuaishou. Entering live streaming platforms requires community as a path, and the form is "community + live streaming," connecting community and network.

"Community + live streaming" I call fan organization. Fans on Douyin and Kuaishou, although fanatical, are invisible. "Community + live streaming" achieves organization through community, connecting the two spaces of community and network, and can also guide to offline through community.

Now let's talk about community groups.

Some people say that recruiting community partners is the popularization of micro-commerce, which is a big mistake! Micro-commerce is in the form of "community + community," while community groups are in the form of "community + community."

Communities naturally have strong offline relationships. Community groups are just an extension of strong offline relationships into the community. Therefore, community groups naturally connect the two spaces of offline and community.

There is also the "home delivery" model. In China, home delivery is actually more about delivering to the community; express delivery is mostly to the community, and only food delivery is truly to the home. True home delivery has a short delivery window, with lunch and after-work times being the windows. Food delivery can truly reach home precisely because it is in this window.

Home delivery, community groups, and live streaming all share a common word: community.

**We have always said that offline, community, and network are three-dimensional spaces, and community is the router. The internet version of traditional enterprise marketing is to use community as the user connection point to open up the three-dimensional space.**

Platform e-commerce and social e-commerce are both 2C logic, while traditional marketing is 2B logic. The ultimate goal of marketing is 2C, and traditional channels moving towards 2C is BC integration. **The key node of BC integration is community.**

Hema's new retail model previously used APP as the user connection method, but now it is also doing community groups. It can be said that community groups are the most sticky communities.

**2. The value of opening up three-dimensional space**

Now there are three-dimensional spaces: offline, community, and network. Offline has traditional channels, community has social e-commerce, and network has e-commerce. However, they are all single-dimensional business models.

Single-dimensional business models inevitably encounter the dilemma of "rising traffic costs" and traffic exhaustion. This is true for e-commerce, social e-commerce, and traditional channels.

Opening up three-dimensional space has **two huge values**: **First, traditional channels have the largest retail volume, meaning the largest traffic enters the internet; Second, cognition, transactions, and relationships can be distributed across the three-dimensional space, thereby reducing traffic costs.**

Traditional channels are 2B, and by opening up three-dimensional space, they enter 2C. So, it is also called BC integration.

**BC integration is not doing both 2B and 2C, which is multi-channel. It is going from 2B to 2C, which is omni-channel.**

**3. Transitioning from emergency to new normal**

Whether it is recruiting community partners or doing live streaming, during the epidemic, as long as you take action, it is reasonable. After all, traditional channels are blocked, and having new channels is good.

However, once it becomes a routine action, can emergency measures continue?

For example, most home delivery models will disappear; for example, for low unit price categories, community partners may find it hard to sustain; for example, without the current "house arrest," not as many people may listen to live streaming.

For most FMCG industries, direct "home delivery" by manufacturers is not feasible, and daily live streaming is also impossible. **What can be normalized, I believe, is community groups.**

**4. Clarifying three main issues**

**1) The positioning of community groups: Is it a new channel distinct from traditional channels, or an extension of traditional channels?**

In this recruitment of community partners, some partners are original terminals, and some are stay-at-home moms. These are two different 2C paths.

If it is stay-at-home moms, it is like building a new channel. If it is original terminal stores, then it is BC integration.

**2) The commercial functions that community groups undertake.** Communities generally have three major functions: socializing, dissemination, and transactions. Socializing is about building relationships, and dissemination is about forming cognition.

If transactions are the main focus, then there is a possibility of moving towards micro-commerce. However, FMCG does not support micro-commerce systems!

Of course, there are differences between industries. Beer may be a new channel, but instant noodles are hard to become a new channel.

**3) Daily operation of community groups**

Community groups differ from micro-commerce in that they have strong offline relationships. Strong offline relationships are not related to manufacturers and distributors; they are strong relationships at the retail end. Therefore, community groups are not private domain traffic, but public domain traffic.

To monetize public domain traffic, brand owners need to participate in activating community groups. Activation requires solving two problems: first, content production; second, continuous iteration of activation methods.

This function does not exist in traditional marketing organizations. The test is that traditional enterprises must grow new functions.

When the sales system goes out after the epidemic, if the above issues are not well arranged, then after the epidemic ends, there will only be losses, no changes, and no gains.

Source: Teacher Liu's New Marketing (ID: liuchunxiong1964)


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 刘春雄
- Published: 2020-02-21
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/after-work-resumes-re-strategize-marketing-to-embrace-the-new-normal-35b7c697/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dpx5qdGRQ8NIWIvRhdpdGg

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