"Without a brand, there is no competitiveness." This is an era of brand competition, from a country, province, or city down to an enterprise, company, or even an individual, everyone is engaged in brand building. For the liquor industry, brand development is not only for manufacturers but also a necessary path for liquor distributors. So, how can liquor distributors carry out brand-oriented operations?
Brand power is "charisma" Brand-oriented operation refers to distributors positioning themselves clearly within a certain region based on their own strength and capabilities, aiming to have a unique and differentiated business value proposition. Through certain channels and strategies, distributors disseminate this positioning to gain recognition and influence in the region, highlighting the core competitiveness of this positioning. It is a competitive advantage established among peers in the region through their operational, distribution, service, and network advantages. This wins the attention and trust of upstream manufacturers and downstream sub-distributors, terminal stores, and consumers, thereby maximizing benefits in the industrial value chain.
Liquor distributors can use brands to establish their market position in the local industry, effectively differentiate and combat competitors; gain greater support from enterprises; attract more brand companies to cooperate; enhance team cohesion and profitability; and improve cooperation status with downstream sub-distributors and terminal stores.
As competition in the liquor industry intensifies, brand development has become an obvious necessity for distributors. Many distributors know the concept of "branding" but do not know how to enhance brand-building capabilities, so they feel confused and lost about brand-oriented operations.
[Case Study]
Manager Zhang, a distributor in a prefecture-level city in Hebei, originally thought like most distributors that branding was the manufacturer's responsibility. He only distributed this or that brand's products, believing that his work was to distribute products through "channels," selling whichever product generated profit.
However, with the intensifying competition in the liquor industry, starting from 2008, Manager Zhang felt that the liquor business was becoming increasingly difficult, money was harder to earn, and cooperation with manufacturers and various terminals was getting tougher. If he did not take the path of brand development, his company would not only fail to grow stronger but would also gradually become marginalized.
So, from 2008, Manager Zhang repositioned his company based on his own strength, positioning it as the "professional brand marketing service provider" with the best service in the local market. This meant providing marketing services such as distribution, delivery, and brand promotion to upstream suppliers, while also serving as an integrated brand supply partner for downstream suppliers. At the same time, the company's management achieved branding, specifically shifting from a "product wholesaler" to a "professional brand marketing service provider" in business philosophy.
First, Manager Zhang chose Laocunzhang liquor as the company's leading brand for meticulous promotion, making it the leading brand in the local market and successfully achieving a profit surge. After establishing core market competitiveness, he expanded to other mid-range and mid-to-high-end brands.
After four years of brand-oriented management, Manager Zhang grew the company from 10 salespeople, 2 small box trucks, 6 electric tricycles, one Laocunzhang brand, and annual sales of about 10 million yuan, to 110 salespeople, 15 logistics staff, 10 middle managers, 4 sales departments, 1 marketing department, 1 management department, 1 finance department, and 4 brands (Laobaigan Soft Series, Laocunzhang Series, Honghualang Series, and Great Wall Dry Red Series) by 2011. Warehouse and finance were fully computerized, and annual sales reached 92 million yuan.
Seven "Magic Weapons" to Strengthen Brand Power
- Make a Good Business Strategy Plan Most liquor distributors emphasize tactics over strategy, thinking that strategy is empty and "impractical," and cannot bring immediate benefits. They often focus on tactical effects, such as setting simple second-tier and terminal stocking policies or flashy promotions. These can show immediate results, but such short-term effects only address the moment, not the long term. This short-sighted business syndrome of emphasizing tactics over strategy leads most distributors to feel that business is getting harder and money is harder to earn.
To take the path of brand-oriented management, liquor distributors must plan their business strategy. For example, Manager Zhang set a clear direction for his company at the beginning of brand-oriented management: to be the "professional brand marketing service provider" with the best service in the local market, transitioning from "product agency" to "brand agency," gradually moving products toward "refined and excellent," becoming a "professional partner service provider" in the distribution value chain, providing distribution, brand promotion, delivery, and other marketing services to upstream suppliers, while also serving as an integrated brand supply partner for downstream suppliers.
Additionally, Manager Zhang's company is achieving brand-oriented management, specifically shifting from a "product wholesaler" to a "brand marketing service provider" in business philosophy. Under the guidance of the correct direction, the company quickly became a dark horse with the best profit model in the local market.
What is distributor strategy? Strategy is the direction and goal of distributor development, the grand blueprint of operations. Distributor strategy has clear goal orientation, foresight, comprehensiveness, and planning. The purpose of formulating a strategy is to establish the distributor's development and position in the market. Therefore, the accuracy of the strategy directly affects the development and fate of the distributor, and it is the primary task for distributors to take the path of brand-oriented management.
- Publicize the "Core Business Value" Many liquor distributors lack the ability to discover and refine their own value, and even more lack the awareness of self-promotion and dissemination. They often hide their true core business value, showing competitors their shortcomings, thus losing many opportunities and advantages. Therefore, doing a good job in disseminating and promoting the "core business value" is one of the contents that distributors must improve.
At the beginning of brand-oriented management, Manager Zhang determined that his company's "core business value" was to be the "professional brand marketing service provider" with the best service in the city. In the early stage of determining the company's "core business value," the company held five sessions at a large hotel in the city, inviting owners of more than 2,000 terminal stores in the urban area, conveying the company's "core business value" to them, hoping they would supervise and provide valuable opinions and suggestions during future cooperation, thus widely disseminating the company's "core business value" in the market.
- Pay Close Attention to Business Management The more intense the competition in the liquor market, the higher the requirements for distributors. This requires distributors to make great efforts in organizational construction and management, practice internal skills, pay close attention to management, and seek benefits from management.
For example, at the beginning of brand-oriented management, Manager Zhang focused on the following five aspects: first, organizational management, achieving institutionalization, standardization, process orientation, and quantification; second, market management, doing a good job in terminal network construction, downstream distributor management, and market promotion management; third, capital and financial management, achieving daily settlement and monthly closing, balanced debits and credits, cost accounting, and fully computerized warehouse and finance management; fourth, team building, strengthening team building, promoting team spirit, and comprehensively improving execution; fifth, information and logistics management.
- Control Channels "in the Palm of Your Hand" Channel control capability refers to the width and depth of a distributor's channel resources. Width refers to how broad the channel surface is, mostly composed of market areas (how large a sales area) and different distribution channels (hotels, supermarkets, famous tobacco and liquor stores, etc.); depth refers to the combination of terminal channels that the distributor can deeply control. For example, some distributors have advantages in second-tier distributors, while others focus on famous tobacco and liquor stores, hotel terminals, etc.
Since 2008, Manager Zhang has been engaged in brand-oriented management. By 2011, he directly controlled 30 A and B class hotels (out of 50), 350 famous tobacco and liquor stores (out of 400), 1,200 C and D class hotels (out of 1,300), 1,500 convenience stores (out of 1,600), and 9 hypermarkets (out of 11) in the urban area.
- Improve Differentiated Service Capability Distributors should establish differentiated service brands, which is the most critical factor for future survival and development. Most distributors need to work on the value chain, including providing customers with more high-quality, differentiated, and professional services. As market competition in the liquor industry becomes white-hot, the market forces distributors to consider establishing their service brands. The market is beyond distributors' control, but through their own efforts, distributors can truly establish their own brands.
During brand-oriented management, Manager Zhang emphasized that the company's brand is "product brand plus company brand." If there is only a product brand without a distributor brand, then the distributor's brand-oriented operation will not succeed.
Based on the fact that other distributors in the local market only sell products for the sake of selling, and considering his company's capabilities and strengths, Manager Zhang proposed being the "professional brand marketing service provider" with the best service locally. He required salespeople to strictly follow regulations, conducting street-by-street visits to terminal stores in their area every three days. Each terminal store has a customer visit card. If a company salesperson fails to visit on time, the store owner can call the complaint number on the card, and the company will reward the owner with a certain amount of products. Additionally, it is stipulated that within the urban area, if a redemption call is made, the prize must be delivered within half an hour.
- Enhance Integrated Marketing Capability Combining the product characteristics and marketing plans of upstream suppliers, distributors should formulate specific execution plans suitable for the local market, meaning they should have marketing planning capabilities. In addition, they should have strong market operation capabilities, including skilled techniques and resource organization in market development, distribution, promotion, public relations, advertising, and terminal operations.
At the beginning of brand-oriented management, Manager Zhang established a marketing department and clarified its responsibilities. He regularly invited company marketing personnel for training and also hired external industry experts for marketing planning capability training.
- Improve Business Level and Competitive Capability The size of a distributor's self-competitiveness determines the quality of their survival. Why do distributors like Manager Zhang have increasingly better business and larger scale? While most distributors are shrinking? The key lies in the lack of core competitiveness and self-improvement capability.
In an era where terminal marketing is increasingly important, many distributors are afraid of taking terminal risks and do not directly cultivate terminals. As a result, those who bravely engage in terminal brand-oriented management gain the first-mover advantage and steadily advance.
Facing the future, liquor distributors must change outdated ideas, actively learn and absorb modern management concepts, improve their ideological level and professional quality, and keep up with the pace of market and manufacturer marketing reforms.
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