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The eight steps for rapid breakthrough in regional markets are as follows:
- Background Analysis As the saying goes, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated." Before doing anything, you must understand your environment and your position. Only by having a clear picture can you remain calm. To achieve a rapid breakthrough in a regional market, you must at least analyze the environment from the following three aspects:
1.1 Consumers Consumers are the end users of the product and the key to realizing its value. What should you analyze about consumers?
First, who are the consumers? Age, gender, physiological characteristics, etc. That is, you should be able to draw a clear portrait of your consumers.
Second, what are the consumers' needs? That is, why do they use this product, and what do they use it for or aim to achieve?
Third, what are the consumers' values? That is, what are they willing to pay to achieve their goals? This includes price, quality, packaging, brand, and other factors.
Fourth, what are the consumers' living and working conditions? That is, their usual living and working environments, their social interactions, and their daily schedules. Of course, every product has consumers with different purposes. For example, purified water is typically consumed to quench thirst, but some consumers may use it to wash hands when convenient. Focus on analyzing the main consumer group—those with the largest numbers—and their characteristics.
1.2 Competitive Products Analyze competitive products from the following aspects:
First, how is the competitive product itself? That is, its price, quality, specifications, packaging, brand influence, etc.
Second, what is the competitive product's market competition strategy? Product strategy, pricing strategy, channel strategy, and sales promotion strategy.
Third, what are the reactions and expectations of consumers and customers towards the competitive product?
Fourth, how is the competitive product's market operation team? Their spirit, professional skills, and inter-departmental collaboration.
The fourth point is about execution capability and is also the key. Wrong strategies and tactics, if executed forcefully, will produce greater errors; classic and brilliant strategies and tactics, if not implemented forcefully, will be of no avail. In a highly competitive society, the role of people is crucial.
1.3 Own Product Strength First, the physical or chemical characteristics of your own product: quality, specifications, packaging, etc.
Second, consumers' evaluations and expectations of the product.
Third, channel customers' evaluations and expectations of the product.
Fourth, how effective is the current market competition strategy?
A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) can help you understand the above analysis.
- Goal Setting Through the detailed analysis above, you should now have a clear picture of the market. You can set your goals. Remember, the road is walked step by step.
First, sales goals. This includes goals during the sales process, such as product distribution rate, shelf placement rate, display compliance rate, and the efficiency of promotional activities. Of course, the ultimate goal is the actual consumption of the product (not the product remaining in the warehouses of distributors, sub-distributors, or retail terminals). Sales goals usually refer to annual sales targets, which need to be broken down into quarterly and monthly targets based on market conditions.
Second, brand goals. This mainly includes the awareness and reputation of the product or brand. Awareness solves the problem of how loud the product's voice is in the market, while reputation solves the problem of how long consumers support and prefer the product. Building awareness is relatively easy—it can be achieved through strong media or clever marketing planning. However, reputation must be built and consolidated through long-term, arduous market service. Awareness tests the manufacturer's courage and boldness, while reputation tests the manufacturer's perseverance and determination.
- Key Issue Analysis A product suddenly stagnating in the market is always due to constant changes in the surrounding environment. When we fail to notice these changes or respond to them in time, the cost often manifests in the product.
Therefore, analyze the reasons for the product's current predicament. One method is as follows:
Phase 1: Take a blank sheet of paper and list all possible factors affecting the product's market performance from three directions: consumers, competitive products, and product strength. In this phase, the only consideration is to list as many influencing factors as possible, using brainstorming.
Phase 2: Classify the listed influencing factors into four quadrants based on two dimensions: importance and urgency. The four quadrants are "important and urgent," "important but not urgent," "urgent but not important," and "neither urgent nor important." Each quadrant should be ranked according to importance and urgency.
Phase 3: Analyze the sensitivity (degree of impact) of the influencing factors in each quadrant on achieving the goals, in the order of "urgent and important," "urgent but not important," "important but not urgent," and "neither important nor urgent." Of course, this requires professional market research methods (I will later write specifically about some common market research methods; please continue to follow) and your experience. If you can achieve your goals by addressing the "urgent and important" factors, then other factors can be postponed for a while. During this time, you should focus on overcoming the challenges posed by the "urgent and important" factors. If you still cannot achieve your goals after solving all problems in that quadrant, continue to the next quadrant. But if you have solved the problems in the first two quadrants and still cannot achieve your goals, it indicates that your goals are set too high, the market problems are unlikely to be solved in a short time, and rapid market breakthrough is unlikely. It also indicates that your marketing system has many problems, which are basically "important but not urgent." As for the "neither important nor urgent" factors, you can basically ignore them, or solving them will only waste your time and energy.
Brand Strategy Brand strategy is an important but not urgent issue. The gains or losses of a single battle do not explain any strategic problem. Brand strategy determines whether you want to win by service, price, quality, or a combination of these. Brand strategy determines the way and method of your forward direction. For example, if you want to go from Guangzhou to Beijing to attend the Olympic Games, you first need to determine that Beijing is directly north of Guangzhou. That is your strategic direction and the foundation of your brand strategy. In this process, brand strategy is your thinking about choosing railway, highway, aviation, or waterway.
Product Strategy, Pricing Strategy, Channel Strategy, and Sales Promotion Strategy Once the goals and general direction are determined, you need to implement specific operational strategies based on the goals and brand strategy. Using the example of going from Guangzhou to Beijing for the Olympics, suppose you choose to go by road. Then product strategy is like choosing the vehicle you will drive—whether to take a bus or drive yourself, and what model of car to use. In product strategy, you must fully consider the mission and profitability of each product. What about pricing strategy? Pricing strategy is your thinking about determining your speed. High gross margins are good, but whether the market can accept them is a risk. Just as the faster the car, the better, but safety is a risk. Channel strategy is your thinking about choosing highways, national roads, or rural paths. Sales promotion strategy is your choice of lubricant. I believe you can infer by analogy. Some may say, "Many factors I cannot change, only accept. How do I analyze?" Doing market work is the same: channel customers' demands for gross margins and competitive products' market behaviors are hard to control. You can only accept them first and then find ways to improve. Remember, for anything you do, there are a thousand reasons to do it or not to do it. What determines is your values and mindset.
Additionally, note that product strategy, pricing strategy, channel strategy, and sales promotion strategy are interrelated. A change in any one factor may lead to changes in the other three strategies.
- Core Communication Idea and Integrated Marketing Architecture The core communication idea requires you to distill a selling point that consumers cannot forget. For example, Wanglaoji's selling point is reducing heat, though it can also quench thirst. So, what is your product's selling point? Don't say your product has dozens of selling points. Even if it does, please distill only one. The explosion of information makes it impossible for consumers to have much time and energy to listen to your rambling. Worse, even if over 90% of your selling points exceed consumer expectations, if just one fails to meet them, consumers will label you a liar, affecting the credibility of other selling points. So, please distill one selling point to communicate to consumers, and leave the others as surprises for them. Let consumers enjoy the charm of discovery, making them tirelessly research and discover the surprises you bring.
The integrated marketing architecture is the combination of online and offline market activities, including product packaging, media publicity, shelf and display placement, personnel-assisted sales, event marketing, sponsorship of charitable causes, etc. Build this structure based on your strengths and advantages.
- Budget and Resource Allocation There is no free lunch in the world; any market operation comes at a cost. Additionally, any enterprise's resources are limited, and compared to consumers' infinite needs, they are but a drop in the ocean. Just as large enterprises are ocean liners and your enterprise is a small fishing boat, both are but a drop in the ocean when facing the sea. As long as you don't collide head-on, you still have vast space to survive.
Remember the "avoid the enemy's strength and strike at their weakness" strategy and the story of "Tian Ji's horse racing." Plan and allocate your budget and resources wisely.
- Execution Timeline Paper talk cannot prevent the fall of the Zhao state. To achieve rapid market breakthrough, execution is crucial. It is the prerequisite for strategy to be effective. Break down the goals to each market personnel, break down the goals to each quarter, month, week, and day, and formulate a strict execution timeline. If there are places where execution is not in place, analyze the reasons and correct them immediately without affecting the next stage's goals.
Conclusion: This article aims to make it easy for newcomers to marketing to understand through plain language, and also hopes to help more marketing friends master and skillfully use the above eight steps, bringing systematic thinking to everyone. I believe you now have some ability to solve the confusion you are currently facing. I hope this article brings you the feeling of "a sudden glimpse of hope in the dark."
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