Preface: I have been engaged in the sales management of bottled water for twelve years, including more than six years serving the top bottled water brand in first- and second-tier cities, and three years serving the top bottled water brand in third- to fifth-tier cities. Now I have been serving a small and medium-sized mineral water enterprise for two years, and I have deep feelings. Its brand advantages, regional advantages, and operational routines can be said to be completely different. Recalling that two years ago, I laid out my market according to the thinking of laying out a first-tier brand, the result was a lack of supporting resources, brand power, platform coordination, and other factors of large enterprises, leading to large market investment but little effect.
-01- As we all know, strong brands are those with high brand awareness and a clear, good impression in the minds of consumers; while weak brands have low brand awareness, or even no awareness at all. They generally have a vague impression in the minds of consumers, leaving no impression. In the product sales process, weak brands are often in a passive position, such as being unable to find good agents, difficult to get key recommendations from merchants and terminal personnel in stores, unable to get good display positions, and so on, let alone allowing consumers to specify purchases.
So under the heavy suppression of strong brands and many other similar brands, how can weak brands focus resources to achieve regional dominance? Today, I will discuss this with you based on my own experience.
Let me give an example: A certain bottled water entered a terminal sales point, placed a cut-case display in the best position, and did a perfect merchandising build near the cash register. It can be said that the momentum was carefully built and absolutely first, but sales were still not ideal. One day, Nongfu Spring was out of stock, and sales increased by 30%. Then, C'estbon in this store was out of stock, and sales increased by another 30%. Finally, Ganten was also out of stock at the same time, and sales increased by another 30%.
What does this show? Why is the decisive factor for the significant increase in sales in this store the competitor's stock-out, rather than its own product display?
The reason is simple: the brand's top effect. Consumers have become accustomed to fragmented advertising. Your product entering the store is not the first choice in the consumer's subconscious, but may be the third, fourth, or even later choice.
Through my visits to thousands of terminal sales points, I found a data pattern: for example, a terminal store can sell 100 cases of bottled water in a month. The sales of the product that consumers choose first can account for about 70%, the second choice accounts for about 20%, and the sum of the sales of the third and subsequent chosen products only accounts for about 10%.
In this case, as long as there are competitors, no matter how much you increase investment, sales will not grow significantly. The following conclusions can be used for reference:
- Only by concentrating resources to implement exclusive sales in this terminal store will sales undergo essential changes.
- The essence of today's marketing is no longer just serving customers, because all companies follow the same principle.
- Marketing is war. It is about how to win with wisdom, skill, and strength in the confrontation with competitors. In the marketing process, competitors are imaginary enemies, and customers are the territory to be occupied.
- The mathematical law in marketing—under the same conditions, big companies defeat small companies, but companies with scale advantages attacking disadvantaged companies in a defensive state may lead to failure.
- The era of product demand has long ended. The reason why enterprises are difficult to move forward and fall into trouble is that in the era of economic surplus, they still follow consumer-oriented thinking and do not fully consider competitors.
- Companies must learn to deal with their competitors, learn how to avoid the strong and exploit the weak.
-02- A question arises: how can weak brand products operate regionally to avoid these minefields? Next, let's look at the four common strategic forms defined by Trout in his book "Marketing Warfare" for marketing campaigns.
1. Defensive warfare: Only the market leader should consider defense. 2. Offensive warfare: When attacking, find the weakness in the leader's strength and attack that weakness. 3. Flanking warfare: A good flanking attack should be launched in an area where there is no competition. 4. Guerrilla warfare: Find a market segment small enough to defend.
The actual market situation is: If there is a virgin market, companies with greater sales power will occupy a larger share of the market. Once the market is divided, companies with a larger share will continue to take business away from small companies. Large companies can afford larger advertising budgets, larger research departments, more sales channels, etc. No wonder the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Small companies have a small market share, so it is necessary to think like a commander. They must keep strategic principles in mind, as Napoleon once said: "The art of war for troops at a numerical disadvantage is to invest more troops at the point of attack and defense."
So how should weak brands operate? My suggested approach is: use guerrilla warfare as the conventional strategy, and conduct offensive warfare in relatively mature areas.
I. How to fight guerrilla warfare well? What are the principles? In marketing warfare, most companies should fight guerrilla warfare. Small companies can achieve significant victories as long as they do not try to imitate the "giants" in the same industry. This is also a common reason why managers from large enterprises feel inadequate when they are responsible for marketing in small enterprises. Therefore, guerrilla warfare needs to follow three principles:
The first principle of guerrilla warfare: Find a market segment small enough to defend. The traditional method is to rely on geographical location; a small place is enough to make you the leader. To survive, you must stubbornly resist the temptation to disperse forces, otherwise it will only lead to disaster.
The second principle of guerrilla warfare: No matter how successful you are, do not act like a leader. Our advice to companies that want to establish a solid guerrilla position is: be agile and quick.
The third principle of guerrilla warfare: Be ready to retreat at any time if there are signs of failure. As long as the company survives, it can continue to compete.
Speaking of guerrilla warfare, Chairman Mao is the number one expert in this field. One of the important core tenets is: do not care about the gains and losses of one city or one pool; concentrate advantages, eliminate the enemy's effective strength, and establish your own base area.
What matters more than your own size is the size of your competitors. The key to success in marketing warfare is to formulate strategies and tactics against your competitors, not against yourself. In terms of tactics, they can be divided into 6 categories:
1. Geographic guerrilla warfare: Narrow the scale of the battlefield to gain numerical advantage. 2. Demographic guerrilla warfare: Another typical organic tactic is to attract a specific group of people, that is, using demographic variables as the key entry point. 3. Industry guerrilla warfare: Concentrate forces on a specific industry. The key is narrow and deep, never wide and shallow. **4. Product guerrilla warfare. 5. High-price guerrilla warfare: High quality and high price will produce the corresponding effect (mystery), thereby triggering demand. (Demand can be created) 6. Developing alliances, ubiquitous guerrilla warfare: Big companies may occupy news space, but small companies control the terrain.
II. How to fight offensive warfare well? What are the principles? Offensive warfare is suitable for companies in the second and third positions in the market. One of the main principles is to find the inherent weakness in the leader's strength and attack that weakness. Therefore, offensive warfare needs to follow three principles.
The first principle of offensive warfare: The focus should be on the leader's strength in the market. The leader occupies the customer's mind. To win the battle in the mind, you must first seize the leader's position and then replace it. A better strategy should be to keep an eye on the leader and ask yourself, "How can we reduce their market share?"
The second principle of offensive warfare: Find the weakness in the leader's strength and attack that weakness.
The third principle of offensive warfare: Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible.
Several issues need to be thoroughly understood: 1. Weakness in strength: Strength has weaknesses, depending on whether you can find them. If a company pursues market share beyond a certain limit, it will not become stronger but weaker. Some good offensive strategies are difficult to promote because these concepts are essentially "reverse," which is just the opposite of most managers' "forward." 2. The benefits of "narrow thinking": You should invest the greatest force in the area where you seek a decisive battle, and only deal with other areas with necessary force. You must unhesitatingly invest your last "soldier" from the beginning. 3. The disadvantages of "broad thinking": The larger the battlefield, the smaller the relative force. 4. Attacking monopolists: You must find the weakness in their strength. First, the focus should be on the leader's power in the market; second, find the weakness in the leader's strength and attack that weakness; third, launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible.
-03- The above has elaborated on the strategies and tactics for weak brands to achieve regional dominance from a theoretical perspective. So how should it be implemented in actual operation? For beverages, I have the following views for your reference.
1. Lock onto small channels and make efforts in channels where competitors use little or no effort For example, if your market's main competitor is Product A, after observation, A has little effort in the tea house channel, basically radiated by wholesalers. Organize a team as soon as possible to focus resources and personnel on tea houses. Achieve dominance in this channel.
2. Implement exclusive sales for specific sales points For example, for channels such as internet cafes, ball courts, and bathhouses in the market, focus resources to sign exclusive agreements, establish good customer relationships, and cooperate long-term.
3. Cooperative symbiosis, unite all forces that can be united For example, wholesalers in the market care more about profits and have low brand loyalty. They have strong control over channel sales points, but for after-sales considerations, they value customer relationships heavily. So you can build closer relationships, exchange gifts, sign annual profit sharing, and bind growth together.
4. Localized offensive to occupy the first position Even strong brands have weak areas. For example, establish model stores, model streets, and model areas in the weak areas of the regional first brand. Set benchmarks.
5. Modify game rules in specific blank channels and establish new order For example, there are more and more car wash and car beauty institutions, but limited by sales conditions and space, they rarely sell things unrelated to cars. Then this channel can be defined by you: what to sell? How to sell? You are the creator of the channel and the maker of rules, and you have absolute control.
6. Abandon the whole, seek one area, and be king independently Do not use fixed thinking to define a market as a county or a city. When your human and material resources are limited, you can define a small section of a county (a district, a town) as a market, occupy it, and be the "mountain king."
7. Follow the core principle of the first brand: learn what it has, do what it doesn't. What it has is competitiveness; what it doesn't have is opportunity.
Final words: Weak brand is not terrible. The key is that on the road from a weak brand to a strong brand, you must have brand strategic awareness, and support it with competitive sales policies and sales plans. Set and implement practical sales goals in stages, and steadily advance. The reason why strong brands become strong is precisely because they also grew from weak brands.
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