---
title: "Channels and Channel Thinking Are Dead; Can Traffic and Traffic Thinking Live Forever?"
description: "The article discusses the shift from traditional channel-based thinking to traffic-centric thinking in the FMCG industry, emphasizing that traffic is the essence of business, and proposes new marketing principles for the digital age."
author: "赵波"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-07-09"
language: "en"
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# Channels and Channel Thinking Are Dead; Can Traffic and Traffic Thinking Live Forever?

> The article discusses the shift from traditional channel-based thinking to traffic-centric thinking in the FMCG industry, emphasizing that traffic is the essence of business, and proposes new marketing principles for the digital age.

Click to read the original article for details.
**I. The Three-Part Theory of Traffic**
In traditional business, success hinges on location: the better the location, the more foot traffic, and the less worry about sales. This is the traditional business logic.
Why do hypermarkets dare to charge entry fees? The reason is simple: because they have customer traffic. If you want your products sold here, sorry, you must first pay a toll (to procure traffic).
In internet business, which positions are the most expensive? Certainly, the places with the highest user open rates and most views. Essentially, it's still about traffic, but the logic of traffic has shifted from offline locations to online PV and UV.
So, regardless of industry, online or offline, the prerequisite for doing good business is having sufficient traffic.
In the past, we talked about deep distribution; essentially, the goal was still to get our products to reach more consumers through more stores at the first opportunity.
In the past two years, traditional business has struggled, largely because traffic (consumers) has been intercepted online in advance.
Let's put it this way:
Imagine traffic as a river. Offline supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience stores are like dams in this river (consumers need to travel a long way to reach the store to consume).
But one day, a guy named Tmall or JD.com appears, building a "dam" upstream, intercepting a portion of the traffic. Consumers no longer need to go to the supermarket; they can just stay home, see good products on portal sites or TV ads, and open e-commerce apps like Tmall or JD.com to purchase and have items delivered home.
However, not long after, a bunch of guys called social e-commerce, video e-commerce, community e-commerce, and neighborhood e-commerce appear, building many large and small dams on the tributaries upstream of Tmall and JD.com. Now consumers don't need to go to stores, nor do they need to specifically shop on apps; they can simply rely on friends in WeChat Moments to proactively recommend products, with friends providing personal endorsement.
When there are many dams upstream of this "river," the traffic reaching downstream becomes pitifully small. Hypermarkets are declining day by day, but they can only watch helplessly and squeeze suppliers' profits even harder. This causes great pain for many marketers: costs keep rising while sales decline.
This is the logic of the internet seizing offline traffic. The internet not only changes the path consumers take to purchase but also lengthens the traffic flow and further segments it.
The essence of business hasn't changed; at the bottom, it's still traffic. But for brands in decline, with fragmented traffic, we need to re-examine how we do business.
For us, when the form of traffic changes, our rules, technology, and organizational methods must also change accordingly.
**II. The Core of Traffic**
The essence of traffic is the occupation of user time.
For us, **there are roughly four sources of traffic:**
> Enterprise-owned traffic: official website, APP, WeChat, CRM, etc.
>
> Media content traffic: media, self-media.
>
> Advertising procurement traffic: various types of ads, search bidding, information feeds, video pre-rolls, etc. Offline commercial location ads, product hardware exposure, etc.
**There are two forms of traffic dissemination:**
> One-way traffic: one-way communication, initiated by the enterprise, using online media for ads, soft articles, video placements, topic placements, and e-commerce product promotions, then converting accordingly.
>
> Multi-directional traffic: users' spontaneous forwarding and commenting on brand, product, topic, event content, with multiple forwards, interactions, and engagement.
**The relationship between traffic and conversion:**
From the perspective of user purchase behavior, there is basically a direct conversion rate between traffic and sales. So, as an enterprise, whether doing branding, communication, or business, the core is to generate traffic. Traffic and conversion have a certain relationship, but not an absolute one. For example, the Baijiaolan screen-sweeping event. Therefore, traffic in the internet age must lead to clicks, purchases, and potential purchase conversions; traffic that doesn't aim for conversion is just hooliganism.
Good content, spontaneously spread, generates traffic, and traffic can certainly convert into sales. If you don't have good content, you can only rely on others' traffic to convert your product sales. So if you can't create traffic yourself and have to leech off others, you'll find it increasingly expensive. Therefore, enterprises doing content well is a basic capability for future marketing.
Fragmented traffic, when accumulated, can become substantial; don't give up on any bit of traffic content.
All touchpoints with users should be fully reached. Moreover, not only reach but also perceive what consumers are thinking and needing, and delight them.
The cheapest traffic is user word-of-mouth. The secret to turning users into "tap water" (organic promoters) is exceeding user expectations.
Compared to traditional traffic acquisition methods like brand exposure, saturated advertising, content marketing, and PR events, internet-based fission and user acquisition may be more effective.
Summarizing the above two sections, the three axes of owned traffic: **high-reputation products + fission marketing**, plus one more point: you must have an **ultimate supply chain system**. Taishan Beer was built this way.
**III. From the Old 3P Marketing Principles to the New 3P Marketing Principles**
In the past, brand owners followed the 3P marketing principles for products:
> Pervasive (ubiquitous)—make our products readily available.
>
> Price Relative To Value—our products must be worth the price.
>
> Preferred—make our products the first choice in consumers' minds.
The logic was to place products in high-traffic areas, with correct pricing and vivid displays, to trigger impulse purchases.
Now, traffic has shifted from offline to online, from downstream to upstream, from concentrated to fragmented. So, for us, we must learn to lay out all traffic. The so-called all-traffic means online and offline, upstream and downstream; wherever users can be reached, whether information or products, we should reach them as much as possible, and generate direct purchases and conversions through touchpoints.
01
Ubiquitous:
All traffic entry points across the entire network, all traffic, all time periods must be online, and ensure our information is visible on every "screen," allowing users to purchase with one click.
02
Worth the price:
Exceed user expectations, provide ultimate products, compare prices, and achieve "scarcity" value.
03
First choice in mind:
> Brand culture and image should match users' own labels and tone.
>
> Sustained hot content and diverse communication methods.
>
> Actively maintain interaction and communication with users.
>
> Visible, precise channel promotions.
In this era, traffic is becoming increasingly scarce and valuable. For enterprises, traffic is the lifeblood flowing through the future enterprise.
If you cannot deeply understand the essence of traffic, perhaps you truly cannot adapt to this era.
At the August New Distribution Conference, there will be a dedicated afternoon session to discuss with friends in the FMCG industry the three key points of traffic: brand, channel, and communication. If interested, don't miss it.
-END-


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