For an enterprise, especially an FMCG company, the most headache-inducing issue in the early stage of product manufacturing is the product itself. Once the company gets past this stage, it is often troubled by brand issues. For example: weak consumer identification, insufficient market pull, etc. As a weak brand, how to solve these brand-related problems? 1. Invest heavily in advertising. There is a famous saying in advertising: not advertising is waiting to die, advertising is seeking death. Weak brands are weak partly because they lack sufficient funds, making heavy advertising investment unlikely, especially in today's advertising-saturated environment where credibility is in crisis. 2. Vary promotional tactics. A walk through the market reveals that many companies have exhausted their promotional strategies, not only in methods but also in the choice of promotional items. However, often sales only move when there is a promotion; without it, they stall. 3. Offer low prices and discounts for value. Price is the most effective promotional tool, but discounting is like "bleeding" for a company. As long as you have endless "blood," you can bleed more or continuously. But once the consumer market accepts your low price, it becomes "addicted," and once the market opens up, it is almost impossible to raise prices. If advertising, promotion, and price cuts don't work... where do weak enterprises go? 1. Never take shortcuts. Market development follows rules, and any attempt to break these rules will be punished! Every brand must go through stages from launch to consumption to habitual consumption: display, awareness, purchase, and acceptance. No product can jump directly from the display stage to the acceptance stage. When managing a brand, a company must advance step by step, down-to-earth. In the display stage (launch period), the company should expand product points of sale as much as possible while ensuring channel support, supplemented by awareness tools such as POP displays, to stimulate consumer senses repeatedly. With repeated stimulation and appropriate terminal promotions, after encouraging first trials, the company should gather market feedback to improve the product. These steps are complex and difficult to execute precisely. Companies may skip some steps and take shortcuts, often leading to a situation where they can't manage both ends. 2. Never trust distributors. Distributing products through distributors is the easiest path: take the money, ship the goods, and the company's job is done. As for how the distributor sells the goods, the company at most has advisory power, and even pricing may be decided by the distributor. Often, if you catch a big distributor, you catch a big market; if you get a small one, you leave it to fate. The company operates behind the distributor, making the distributor the "dare-to-die squad" for attacking the hill. The company has only two ways to deal with the "dare-to-die squad": 1. "Hype" them to charge up, promising "treasure" at the top; 2. Pay on the spot, with heavy rewards for brave men. Either way, the company pays a high price in "profits" and "kickbacks." So, if you can't take shortcuts and can't trust distributors, where should the company go? 1. You must fight for your own territory! Weak enterprises cannot do the national market, but doing a few counties or 1-2 prefecture-level cities is possible. Concentrating limited resources on a few markets and cultivating them intensively is better than scattering beans to become soldiers. Consumer markets have a herd mentality and the 80/20 phenomenon, where 20% of people determine 80% of consumption trends. If the company firmly grasps these consumption leaders and guides them toward its products, it gets closer to market goals. In recent years, the "plate-in-plate" strategy of "Hui liquor" illustrates this. For baijiu, in a county-level city, there are only 1,000-2,000 points of sale. If the company sends 3-5 professional salespeople to visit according to professional procedures, with professional assessments, and takes on the "hill-attacking" task itself, with distributors acting as "local troops" to clean up the battlefield and occupy positions, the company not only fully contacts the consumer market but also changes its role in the attack formation, avoiding the embarrassment of the distributor "bullying the store owner." 2. The closer you are, the stronger! The purpose of production is profit; profit is achieved through marketing; marketing is the process of meeting consumer market needs. The connection between the company and the consumer market cannot rely solely on channel connections. Relying on channels requires satisfying channel interests, but this creates a barrier to the consumer market, leading to distorted information transmission. New product launches may rely on intuition, and when products fail to suit consumption and only cater to channel interests, they are often short-lived, such as the current trend of OEM production in the baijiu industry, where many companies design numerous trademarks each year, some even designing packaging based on the number of distributors. From a marketing definition, satisfying the channel is not marketing; even if it succeeds, it becomes increasingly tiring and may even harm the company itself—a typical lazy approach. Is it enough for a company to do these things? The answer is: No! When a company is fighting for its territory, it must have strong execution as a guarantee. How to build execution? 1. Employees never do what they "hope" to do; they only do what is "assessed." Building execution cannot start from employees' "self-awareness." Simply emphasizing personal cultivation and quality may have some effect, but it is not fundamental. The company must have a mature training and assessment mechanism. While telling employees how to do things, use "assessment" as a benchmark to measure their actions, continuously guide and correct them to align their work with goals. 2. To conquer territory, you need an "iron army" or "wolf-like division"! Building a marketing iron army is a dream for many companies. Without a strong "iron army" as a guarantee, even with strong brand support, it is only "strong in words but weak in action." The way to manage an army is to reward and punish appropriately! When building its marketing system, the company must start with detailed execution, turning its sales team into an "assembly line," making each marketer a link in the line, clarifying responsibilities, refining indicators, and letting goals show results bit by bit! 3. Iron camps, flowing soldiers! In the military, the best execution is often from new recruits; veterans have rich combat experience but often execute poorly. As the saying goes, "a newborn calf is not afraid of tigers." Newcomers have an innate advantage in creative execution. For a company, grassroots marketing personnel must maintain turnover. Only entering without leaving, or only leaving without entering, is not good. This requires the company to have sufficient training resources and hardware support, such as job standards, visit records, customer files, etc., so that natural attrition does not leave them at a loss. Big brands are what every company aspires to. Building a big brand is not an overnight task, nor is it just about having money for advertising. When a company successfully builds marketing execution, it is actually not far from becoming a big brand. Like a football match, brand is "having possession," and execution is "scoring." A match with possession but no scoring is the most awkward, because only scoring wins the game! - END- The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operation | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brand | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]