Survival first, development second. This is a market strategy aimed at using limited space to create local advantages, win a larger market share, effectively resist competitors' attacks, and preserve and strengthen one's own market position. It is a key tool for distributors to win competition. Before developing a regional market, distributors must first plan and coordinate comprehensively, systematically mapping out the regional market. However, in actual surveys, it was found that most distributors, when developing markets, have not yet established a base market—a clear and stable regional market—before expanding into the overall market. Their market expansion activities lack clear thinking and strategy, as well as specific and feasible measures and methods, showing strong randomness and blindness. This behavior manifests in product sales in two tendencies: First, the "dragonfly skimming" style of "guerrilla warfare" — selling wherever possible, selling as much as possible; Second, the "pepper sprinkling" style of "comprehensive attack" — casting a wide net, sowing seeds everywhere, striving for "broad but thin harvest."

The above approaches may achieve a certain level of sales to some extent, but their drawbacks are obvious: First, no clear regional market target, which is like a ship at sea without a clear course, making it difficult to achieve the distributor's various business indicators; Second, no stable market base, lacking strong market support, making it difficult to form competitive advantages, ultimately leading to a Li Zicheng-style outcome. This is a non-rational marketing behavior that is short-sighted or greedy for large and complete, extremely harmful to the overall development of distributors.

So what is a distributor's base market?

It refers to the part of the market where distributors can gain competitive advantages and utilize them. The base market is defined entirely from the perspective of competitive differentiation. The essence of base market thinking is to optimize profits based on the degree of competition. The base market is a market where, through professional market research and analysis, distributors can build their own competitive advantages through operations. This market is not the same as the ordinary "model market." The "base market" is the core support for the growth and strengthening of distributors, providing a continuous supply of resources for distributors to compete in markets outside the base.

For distributors, base markets can be divided into: First, regional base markets: referring to markets where the distributor holds the first share, first influence, and first profit in a certain region; Second, channel base markets: referring to markets where the distributor has absolute influence and share in a certain channel. Regardless of the type of base market, they all share a common feature: within a certain period, they are the areas where the distributor has the highest profit, largest market share, and greatest influence.

The role of base markets for distributors:

  1. Base is the fulcrum: a support point for material supplies in other markets, and an oxygen supply for strong spiritual motivation.
  2. Base is the talent pool: a training ground, a marketing training academy, and a talent export base.
  3. Base is the experimental field: a practice ground for new methods and explorations, and a birthplace for successful operating models.
  4. Base is the banner: it not only solves survival problems but also creates huge influence; attracts and integrates more advantageous resources; attracts more sales personnel to join.

Five strategies for distributors to build a base market:

1. Targeted Strategy No matter how big the problem, it can be broken down; no matter how difficult the market, there is room for action. "Look for opportunity markets within market opportunities; look for opportunity channels within channel opportunities; look for opportunity consumers within consumer opportunities." For most distributors, due to limited human, material, and financial resources, they must combine with the company's actual situation when establishing a base market. If conditions are not sufficient for comprehensive expansion of the local market, it is recommended to segment the market, determine narrower target regions, channels, and consumers, and establish a base market in a targeted manner. This not only saves resources but also achieves twice the result with half the effort, creates local competitive advantages, and accumulates resources and confidence to establish a comprehensive base market. For example: A certain trading company, with limited personnel and funds, was unable to expand the market across the entire county. After detailed market research, they finally selected several townships to establish their base market (appropriate products placed in appropriate terminals; appropriate policies given to appropriate terminals; appropriate promotional materials posted in appropriate terminals; different visit cycles and service standards for different stores; different sales promotion standards for different stores...). After one year of operation, the prototype of the base market in these townships emerged, with sales in each township reaching over 600,000 yuan.

2. Focus Strategy Those familiar with history know that when Nurhaci faced the attack of the Ming Dynasty's thirteen armies, he adopted the policy of "No matter how many routes you come from, I only target one route," concentrating the elite forces of the Eight Banners to defeat the enemy one by one, ultimately defeating the Ming army. For enterprises with limited resources, as long as they focus limited human, material, and financial resources on local markets, channels, products, and consumers, they can definitely create a local base market and thus overturn the market.

1. Market Focus Market focus means that distributors, based on their actual situation, shrink their market scope as much as possible until they can form an absolute advantage. It is best to use townships as the market unit; if strength is insufficient to form an advantage in townships, villages can also be the target.

2. Channel Focus Channel focus means that distributors, based on their actual situation, if they cannot achieve full channel coverage such as hotels, hypermarkets, group buying, and supermarkets, can choose one channel suitable for themselves to operate until this channel becomes their base. Then use the product's absolute advantage in this channel to radiate to other channels.

3. Product Focus Product focus means that distributors should "break through with a single product," using one product to create an image and become the "fist" product in the market, then use the absolute advantage of the single product to radiate to other channels, achieving relative advantages and channel resonance. "Single product breakthrough" does not mean selling only one product, but concentrating resources to promote one leading product. If too many products are launched at once, it may disperse limited resources and result in all products failing to break through.

4. Resource Focus Resource focus means that distributors, based on their resource size, concentrate resources on a certain region, channel, and product, "exchanging resources for time" and "exchanging resources for market" to form market explosive power. The most taboo in base market construction is the "oil-adding tactic" and "salt-sprinkling tactic," which fail to form market explosive power due to non-focused and insufficient policies. For example: If 100 store signs are scattered across thousands of terminal outlets in a county, they will not have much influence. If 100 store signs are concentrated in two townships, they will form market explosive power in the short term.

5. Personnel Focus Personnel focus means that distributors concentrate limited sales personnel on a certain region, channel, or product, fighting a war of numbers and annihilation. For example: In the new product distribution stage, if personnel are dispersed, each salesperson can only visit their terminal stores once every ten days. If salespeople are gathered together, divided into several groups, and concentrated on a small area with a human-wave tactic, the results will be significantly improved.

6. Consumer Focus Consumer focus means that distributors concentrate financial and energy resources to find the consumer leaders in the urban area and each township, let them recognize, approve, and recommend their products, and through the consumption of consumer leaders, establish the product's reputation and create consumption trends. For example: Because the essence of white liquor is a lubricant for social interaction and emotional communication, consumer leaders are the best group to create trends. As long as a product's popularity atmosphere is created, the foundation for a base market is established. When a distributor launched a wedding-use liquor in the county, they gathered the heads of red and white affairs committees from each village in each township for a tasting session. The company also provided these heads with a certain amount of public relations liquor. For each wedding or event they connected, the company gave them a commission. As a result, the wedding-use liquor quickly became popular in the market, enhancing brand awareness and influence, and also driving sales of other company products.

3. Speed Leadership Strategy After determining the segmented market, based on the targeted and focused principles, speed leadership must be adopted to win with speed. Development strategies, promotional strategies, and sales promotion strategies must be quickly formulated because speed leadership allows you to take the lead before competitors have time to react; it creates an atmosphere among terminals and consumers that they must catch up with the new opportunity; it instantly awakens the memory of terminals and consumers; and it quickly occupies the minds of terminals and consumers.

4. Outlet Sales Promotion Strategy The outlet sales promotion principle is to solve the problem of terminals "only stocking, not selling." It involves strengthening deep maintenance, enhancing customer relationships, and making promotional materials vivid. It means working with terminals to figure out how to sell products quickly and create a sales atmosphere. In base market construction, the most feared thing is only doing distribution and promotions without solving terminal sales. In that case, the day the product is placed on the shelf is the day it becomes unsellable. It is normal for products to not sell after distribution; solving sales promotion is to make this normal phenomenon abnormal. The purpose of solving sales promotion is to enhance terminal confidence, selling products they think cannot be sold and have no brand. Help them sell with confidence. As long as three or more rounds of outlet restocking are achieved, the market will form a virtuous cycle. For example: For terminal outlets with slow sales, the most capable salespeople should be assigned to these outlets, ensuring these terminals always maintain a maximized display, the best promotional layout, and the highest quality customer service. This reduces competitors' display space; the less conspicuous competitors' displays are, the greater your opportunity. Second, through maximized promotional materials and displays, it directly advertises to consumers, stimulating impulse purchases. Additionally, free tastings outside these stores or during peak sales hours inside the store can help terminals sell products, giving terminal owners confidence, and thus they will proactively help you promote products until a virtuous cycle is achieved.

5. Process Management Strategy Base market construction is a process. Good processes inevitably produce good results. The finer and more comprehensive the controllable processes, the more controllable links, the greater the grasp on results, and the greater the chance of successful market construction. So what should be controlled during base market construction? Distributors, terminal networks, prices, promotions, costs, market information, etc. All of the above need to be controlled by sales personnel. Therefore, it is necessary to establish and improve various management systems, assessment systems, and reward and punishment systems, clarify job requirements, work content (specific to actions), and work processes, strengthen the completeness of the four links of "planning, execution, inspection, and feedback," especially establishing an objective and effective inspection system to track execution in real time and on site, ensuring implementation is in place.

Introduction: Shi Shunkuan. Practical marketing expert, consultant, and trainer. From a newcomer in the FMCG industry to regional manager, marketing manager, marketing director, and then to the consulting industry, he has experienced the whole process. He specializes in "strategy formulation, tactical implementation, brand promotion, channel management, and sales team management" in the FMCG industry.

2017 (Third) FMCG + Internet Conference will be held in Chongqing in November 2017. The conference will closely focus on the theme "New Forces, New Ecology," inviting domestic 1000+ distributors, 500+ brand owners, 200+ B2B platform founders, and 100+ investment and financing institutions to jointly explore a new chapter of cross-border integration!

Click the link below to review the highlights of the first and second FMCG + Internet conferences:

2016 "FMCG + Internet" Summit Forum

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