---
title: "Eight Strategies for Distributors to Expand Their Markets"
description: "Teacher Wei Qing will launch the industry's first live video training on the WeChat public platform on September 10, and this platform is honored to be one of the first to broadcast it. For those who want to improve their sales skills but cannot spare time for on-site training, this is an opportunity not to be missed. Details are at the bottom of this article. Looking at the overall food industry, facing fierce market competition, distributors are pondering the 'hard truth' of 'making big money,' wanting to plant dense 'little red flags' on their territory..."
author: "师顺宽"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-09-08"
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# Eight Strategies for Distributors to Expand Their Markets

> Teacher Wei Qing will launch the industry's first live video training on the WeChat public platform on September 10, and this platform is honored to be one of the first to broadcast it. For those who want to improve their sales skills but cannot spare time for on-site training, this is an opportunity not to be missed. Details are at the bottom of this article. Looking at the overall food industry, facing fierce market competition, distributors are pondering the 'hard truth' of 'making big money,' wanting to plant dense 'little red flags' on their territory...

Teacher Wei Qing will launch the industry's first live video training on the WeChat public platform on September 10, and this platform is honored to be one of the first to broadcast it. For those who want to improve their sales skills but cannot spare time for on-site training, this is an opportunity not to be missed. Details are at the bottom of this article.
Looking at the overall food industry, facing fierce market competition, distributors are pondering the 'hard truth' of 'making big money,' wanting to plant dense 'little red flags' on their territory, and wanting to turn the terminal outlets they develop into a 'network diagram' that is tight, well-arranged, and reasonably laid out. However, due to differences in the products distributors represent, target markets, customer positioning, resource abundance, market promotion and management capabilities, as well as the quality and capability of sales teams, the market development strategies they need to adopt also differ. We often say: 'Big bosses develop big markets to catch big fish; small bosses develop small markets to touch small fish.' In fact, this tells distributors that market development and expansion must analyze their own resource status and formulate specific development and expansion strategies. Without specific and feasible development strategies, market expansion will inevitably lead to unbalanced market development, unreasonable market layout, and intense channel conflicts.
So how do distributors design their market expansion strategies? How can they 'plant a tree and achieve a forest'? The following market development strategies can be used by distributors according to local conditions. At the same time, distributors can also organically combine multiple development strategies according to their specific circumstances to achieve the goal of effectively expanding the market.
1. 'Snowball' Expansion Strategy
Developing a market is like fighting a war. If you have strong soldiers and horses, excellent equipment, and high morale, you can use the method of 'capturing strategic points' to strike at the enemy's heart; if you have few people, a weak team, and a disparity in strength, you cannot 'seek trouble and run into the gun barrel' but must first establish your own 'base area,' survive, develop, and then counterattack through the base area. The snowball strategy is similar to the above military theory. The 'snowball' expansion strategy is the most commonly used strategy by distributors, that is, within the same region of the existing market, adopt a regional expansion approach, and after developing one area, march into another new area. Specifically, this expansion strategy takes a certain regional target market as the 'base area' for the distributor's market expansion, cultivates it intensively, makes the 'base area' market bigger, stronger, deeper, and more thorough, and makes it the foundation and backing for the distributor's future expansion into other regions. After gaining absolute advantage and stability in the base area market, gradually roll out and penetrate into adjacent surrounding areas, finally reaching 'a single spark can start a prairie fire' and occupy the entire regional market.
This strategy is relatively stable and orderly in market operations. The key is that distributors can concentrate their limited resources on the most important markets, avoiding the situation where the front line is too long and the scale is too large, leading to major fluctuations and losses due to insufficient subsequent support.
2. 'Mushroom Picking' Expansion Strategy
Unlike the snowball strategy, the mushroom picking expansion strategy is a leapfrog expansion strategy. The order in which distributors develop target regional markets usually follows the principle of 'first superior, then inferior' for target markets, regardless of whether the selected regions are adjacent. That is, first select and occupy the most attractive target regional market—picking the biggest mushroom; then select and occupy the region that is relatively attractive to the distributor—picking the second biggest mushroom, regardless of whether this region is adjacent to the original one. This strategy is essentially a 'golden market' priority occupation strategy. It is generally more suitable for well-known first- and second-tier brands. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure the effective matching of funds, manpower, and material resources. For distributors, they can jointly formulate market expansion strategies with upstream manufacturers. At the same time, effectively integrate the resources of the enterprise and the distributor. Quickly seize the market and prioritize establishing their own competitive advantage in the regional market.
3. 'Divide the Whole into Parts' Expansion Strategy
Divide a certain regional market into several interrelated 'war zones,' each 'war zone' into several echoing 'war points,' and each 'war point' can be linked into several closely connected 'war lines.' Sort out the market context, highlight key points, grasp the key, and drive the overall situation. Especially distributors with relatively large regional markets need to analyze and study this carefully.
The strategy of dividing the whole into parts must highlight the flexibility of market development and the unified deployment and coordination of each war zone, because this strategy requires effective coordinated operations to achieve the start of the overall market. Therefore, distributors must find the entry point for each region, and then drive the overall market radiation through each entry point.
The strategy of dividing the whole into parts is a typical market expansion method of defeating the many with the few and the strong with the weak, but it requires distributors to have strong market control capabilities and resource integration capabilities, to give play to the market synchronization effect of each war zone, and thereby achieve the goal of strategic development.
4. 'Scatter the Net and Bloom' Expansion Strategy
The 'scatter the net and bloom' expansion strategy is when distributors, when expanding their target regional markets, adopt the method of scattering the net everywhere, blooming everywhere, launching attacks on all regional markets simultaneously, and occupying all markets at the same time. The net-scattering strategy has great market expansion power and can achieve the simultaneous occupation of the entire market in a very short time. However, the conditions for the success of this strategy are extremely harsh. Expanding in the entire regional market at the same time requires manpower, material resources, and financial resources that are obviously beyond the capacity of ordinary distributors; at the same time, when distributors launch attacks in the entire market, whether they open mountains and channels themselves or borrow chickens to lay eggs, they may encounter many unexpected situations and uncontrollable market chaos. Therefore, without extremely strong coordination and control capabilities, distributors will find it difficult to cope with various unexpected situations that occur simultaneously. As a distributor, if you can adopt this strategy, you must make an objective assessment of yourself and be prepared for no market returns in the short term. The most important thing is to consider whether your team building and comprehensive strength can support this strategy.
5. 'Storefront Echo' Expansion Strategy
The distribution points in each region should try to take a certain central township (or county town) as the center, integrate points and areas, and it will have a radiating effect. Many times, you can actually form a tripod, like a triangle, choosing three townships as strongholds. When the three township markets are fully occupied, the triangular regional market among the three townships will be affected to a certain extent, and the circular regional markets around the three townships will also be affected. According to the different actual conditions of the local market, you can adopt the 'tripod' method, the 'fan-shaped' stronghold method, or the 'concentric circle' method.
6. 'Bowling' Expansion Strategy
Bowling has this characteristic: there is a certain internal connection between the bowling pins. As long as you hit the key first pin appropriately, this pin will knock down a large number of pins.
Distributors can also use this method when expanding their markets. To occupy the entire target regional market, you must first attack a certain 'key market' in the entire target market—the first pin. Then use the huge radiating effect of this key market to influence the surrounding vast markets, achieving the goal of occupying a large area of the market. This market expansion strategy is called the bowling strategy. Of course, this is a market expansion strategy that is difficult first and easy later. The key market is often a must-fight place. To capture this strategic market point, you must spend a lot of financial and human resources, but once occupied, other markets will be 'swept away like a rolling wave.'
7. 'Rural Surrounding the City' Expansion Strategy
Opposite to the bowling strategy of difficult first and easy later, this is a market expansion strategy of easy first and difficult later. That is, first nibble away at the surrounding markets that are easier to occupy, accumulate strength, form an encirclement of the target market, and also form an intangible influence on the target market. When the time is ripe, capture the target market in one fell swoop. For small and medium-sized distributors, if they first choose to attack the most difficult target market, they will not achieve their goals quickly, and the possibility of success is very small. At this time, it is better to choose the surrounding markets that are easier to attack. On the one hand, accumulate their own strength and marketing experience; on the other hand, give a subtle influence to the target market. In practice, the implementation of the rural surrounding the city strategy is often accompanied by the use of the 'time-space interruption method.' When distributors surround and occupy the surrounding markets, they will carry out certain advertising and publicity for the target market, but there is no product follow-up, intentionally creating a market vacancy, causing a period of interruption between sales and publicity, making consumers go from curiosity to seeking, from seeking to desire, forming an increasing accumulation of consumption potential energy, like the water of a dam and the Yangtze River, artificially creating a water level difference, and finally forming a momentum of ten thousand horses galloping, providing a basis for capturing the target market in one fell swoop.
The rural surrounding the city strategy is more suitable for distributors operating low-profile second- and third-tier brands. It is also a market development strategy of avoiding the strong and attacking the weak, using points to drive areas, and gradually penetrating.
8. 'String of Pearls' Expansion Strategy
After completing the initial market development work, distributors will inevitably encounter the problem of how to establish a marketing network. Experienced distributors will use an almost artistic approach to develop a perfect network structure, among which the typical one is the string of pearls. That is, taking the transportation trunk lines within or between regional markets as the main line, stringing the transportation hub areas into lines, forming a crisscross network pattern.
For distributors, network structure marketing is the key to the distributor's market effect. A reasonable layout can ensure good market radiation between terminals. Therefore, it is very important for distributors to first occupy the target markets at transportation hubs, and then through the interconnection of target markets, form a market network with effective coordination of market resources. A good market structure can not only effectively mobilize market resources but also save logistics costs and reduce overall market investment.
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《Excerpt from the General Model of Terminal Visit Sales》
September 10, 2015
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