Preface: Basic definition of community marketing: Against the backdrop of urbanization, it studies consumer characteristics and channel features in scenarios such as residence, work, and entertainment, based on the geographic location of consumer groups.
Key point 1: 1.4 billion population. Urban population: In 2019, China's urban permanent population was 848.43 million, an increase of 17.06 million from the end of the previous year; rural permanent population was 551.62 million, a decrease of 12.39 million. China has about 300 "cities," 2,856 "counties," 41,658 "townships," and 662,238 "villages." In 2019, the total number of migrant workers reached 274 million.
Key point 2: According to a 2016 report from AutoNavi, among the 300,000 residential communities nationwide, Beijing and Shenzhen each have over 7,200 and 5,700 communities, while Shanghai's number exceeds 12,000. It is estimated that the number of communities will exceed 400,000 by 2020.
Key point 3: Community marketing will be another marketing system or campaign covering the vast majority of consumers after deep distribution. In the past, over 80% of the population lived in rural areas; today, 80% live in communities.
Key point 4: The two centers of new community marketing are: to-store and to-home! Four keywords: deep differentiation, e-commerce, community, and delivery! The keyword sorted out today: dual-line deep distribution!
-01- Is the theoretical model of deep distribution suitable for online? The basic principle of traditional deep distribution is to find sales points that match the product through street-by-street scanning, and through management means, use distribution channels to cover the controlled terminals, with various pull-based sales activities in between.
The core of this process is to find and control more sales points, and even different sales points have different functions!
If we set aside the exclusive clauses of internet giants that force brands to take sides, online can also achieve multi-store layout, either direct-operated or agency-based. Multi-platform and multi-store product placement!
If this holds, the common formula for offline and online can be: Sales volume = number of sales points (stores) * single-store sell-through rate!
This may also be the logic of whole-network distribution: offline multi-channel and multi-terminal, online multi-platform and multi-store!
This kind of layout may not be something that small Taobao store owners in the early days of entrepreneurship can handle; it is a game that only giant brand enterprises with large organizations, large scale, and offline presence can play.
Offline deep distribution has always been the patent of large enterprises because of operating costs, labor expenses, management difficulty, and other factors. Small enterprises, whether in scale or capability, are insufficient to overcome this hurdle! This has also prompted large enterprises to use the deep distribution formation to gradually increase industry concentration!
If we look at the industry rankings of various categories in both offline and online dimensions, the overlap may not be high, meaning the online leader may not be the offline leader, and vice versa: the offline leader may not be the online leader!
The野蛮 growth period of e-commerce's first half promoted a large number of asset-light players without supply chain foundations, while many asset-heavy brand enterprises reacted slowly, evolved slowly, and missed the budding period!
In the future, enterprises with dual-line deep distribution capabilities both offline and online will rise:
-02- Offline stock support, online incremental development!
1. 28 structure: The sales layout of such enterprises may be 80% offline and 20% online. Offline deep distribution dominates, online deep distribution rules, not excluding price wars and traffic wars online, launching anti-bandit campaigns. Dual-line industry concentration will further increase!
2. Sow online, harvest offline: Personalized products find it hard to survive in mass channels but have stronger vitality online. Enterprises will make new product development online-led, and after forming momentum, transfer to offline distribution! Forming a model of online incubation and offline amplification.
3. Dual-line operations, combining rigidity and flexibility: One of the advantages of large enterprises is large-scale automated equipment, with the advantage of large volume and low cost, possessing operating cost advantages that small enterprises dare not imagine; the disadvantage is that once the machine starts, it's "gold every second": products (especially new products) come out, but initial sales may be small, making it tasteless to sell and a pity to discard!
Once online deep distribution is launched, enterprises basically achieve pre-sale order-based production, ensuring controllability of output!
4. The diversity of channel functions is further established: Offline, near-expiry products are either destroyed or discounted, especially in the immediate consumption channel, which can serve as a drain. Online, many platforms also have this function, such as Pinduoduo, live-streaming e-commerce, multi-store, etc.
5. Dual-line anti-bandit operations: Currently, the living space for offline counterfeit and small and medium brands is shrinking. In recent years, under the sinking strategy of big brands, rural areas are basically occupied by famous brands! Similarly, online, the thousands of small bandit store owners survive by guerrilla warfare. Once the regular army intervenes, they scatter like birds and beasts, and the rankings in the category will further change and concentrate.
Walking around the market, you'll find more and more offline stores of Tmall and JD.com; even Tmall brands like Three Squirrels are laying out offline! It can be seen that online incremental space can only be found offline!
Similarly, in today's era of surplus, offline enterprises are struggling to maintain performance, and the trend of offline shrinkage still exists. Incremental growth online will become a consensus among more and more offline enterprises!
In the offline space, no model can replace the power of deep distribution. Despite various problems, deep distribution, while continuously evolving, remains in an unshakable mainstream position!
In the online space, although many voices shout that traffic is getting expensive and conversion rates are declining. This is true for small bandit store owners, but large enterprises with offline stock may have the ability to overcome this hurdle, at least making up for losses online with gains offline.
Perhaps one day, we may really need to seriously consider a topic: smashing 1 billion into CCTV versus smashing 1 billion online, which is more powerful? The answer may be found in the process of enterprises' dual-line deep distribution layout!
Get one store right offline, connect one county online! This is based on offline communication, achieving cross-coverage in a relatively closed county market, targeted detonation, using channel community-building to form a communication matrix for seamless targeted coverage, opening up three-dimensional space.
Understand one county offline, understand one store online! This is the basic skill in organizational structure, an indispensable basic skill, especially for traditional FMCG brand enterprises. Missing any one item cannot be made up later! In the past, offline led online; in the future, enterprises without online operation capabilities and people without online work experience may face the embarrassment of missing lessons, and it will be difficult to make up! Marketing innovation is likely to originate online, and dual-line deep distribution may be the beginning of a new era!
Source: New Beer (ID: newbeer_BJ)