As market competition trends shift, the marketing environment has placed higher demands on manufacturers and distributors. They must adjust their positioning based on actual market needs and operate collaboratively along the marketing value chain. Only then can manufacturers build a healthy sales system, and distributors perfect a stable profit model, achieving win-win cooperation and integrated manufacturer-distributor relationships. Competition in today's marketing has escalated from competition at a single point to competition across the entire marketing value chain.
Mere manufacturer-led or distributor-led behavior harbors significant crises (manufacturer bullying distributor, distributor bullying market) and will struggle to form a strong combined force for mutual development in future market competition. Therefore, how manufacturers and distributors can unite, integrate resources, enhance resource value, save costs, and achieve mutual profitability has become the most critical issue in the new competitive era.
Collaborative marketing refers to manufacturers and distributors jointly building a resource-sharing platform covering products, channels, terminals, promotions, training, and distributors. Currently, collaborative marketing thinking mainly focuses on the following five aspects of the marketing value chain:
1. Product Collaboration Management
The core goal of product collaborative marketing is for manufacturers to develop products that align with the company's overall development while meeting the operational and market needs of distributors.
In China's baijiu marketing, many companies frequently launch new products to attract distributors, relying on media recruitment, personnel recruitment, and conference recruitment to boost overall sales. However, due to insufficient resource investment, new products often fail, becoming an unbearable burden for distributors. For manufacturers, although they achieve volume growth, it erodes corporate credibility and brand image. For example, Xifeng Liquor currently adopts a multi-brand, multi-product strategy, which is essentially a short-sighted act of drinking poison to quench thirst for sales.
How to continuously develop products that meet market and distributor needs and ensure successful new product launches is key to sustained manufacturer-distributor cooperation. But how can product development success rates be guaranteed? In this process, manufacturers should lead product development while relying on distributor participation to improve success rates.
Manufacturer sales personnel, marketing planners, and senior leaders should go deep into the market frontline, visit distributors, establish multi-channel information sources, understand distributor product needs, fully listen to distributor suggestions, and develop marketable products to meet market demands.
The author once encountered a company where, during new product development, the boss brought the new product concept—key information including raw materials, taste, ex-factory price, second-tier price, retail price, target competitors, target market and consumer groups, product selling points, packaging materials, and packaging specifications—to the market frontline, communicating with channel members at all levels, fully listening to their opinions, and summarizing and analyzing to form the new product development approach. This greatly ensured the success rate of new product development.
At the same time, channel members at all levels cooperate with multiple manufacturers and have access to product information from various manufacturers. They can combine regional sales realities to propose product development suggestions suitable for the market. Manufacturer personnel should analyze this information to extract new product development ideas.
Manufacturers and distributors should jointly monitor the product life cycle, avoid blind and unplanned product development that causes confusion in product line positioning, and prevent new products from competing with old ones, significantly shortening product life cycles. Often, when one product succeeds, another must be phased out.
In recent years, Chinese baijiu companies have preferred to operate through continuous new product development and high-altitude bombing to expand product scale and generate profits.
However, introducing numerous new products to the market, while finding some distributors to cooperate, can easily weaken the strength of leading products in a regional market if the leading product or brand is not yet mature. This can cause product line confusion, making it difficult for leading products to establish a strong brand image. Distributors become exhausted from accepting manufacturer operations, severely impacting their business confidence.
In fact, the most frightening thing is not this, but that if new products fail to enter the mainstream price point, no matter how distributors promote them, they will remain lukewarm.
For example, a famous liquor company had a distributor buy out a product priced at 400 yuan. With high-end consumption hindered, after the distributor paid 30 million yuan to the manufacturer, the manufacturer ignored them, leaving the distributor to fend for themselves. The distributor found this product like a hot potato, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Currently, they can only absorb it internally, and recruitment is extremely difficult.
Facing market competition, I have always advocated for single-product market breakthroughs. Generally, products can be divided into three categories:
First, mass mainstream consumer products. Products in this price range suit general consumers. Although profit margins are low, once education succeeds, scale can generate profits. For companies with relatively weak resources, making this price range the leading product for promotion and education can shorten the cultivation cycle and achieve rapid market breakthroughs. Second, general government and business consumer products. These products have higher unit profits, significantly contribute to sales and profits, and enhance brand image. They are also the main products influencing future markets. For companies with abundant resources and brand influence, these products can be positioned as core leading products for promotion and education upon market entry. Third, high-end government and business consumer products. These are typically brand image products that reflect product hierarchy, not mainstream consumer price points. Sales are generally not large, and they are long-term cultivation products. Companies should not make these leading products; only when the leading product's influence is strong enough or mainstream consumption prices upgrade to this level will these products truly increase in volume. When developing new products, analyze the current product line, distinguish these three categories, and then decide on developing other opportunistic or supplementary products. Organically combine these scattered products to form a synergy, maximizing each product's potential.
2. Channel Collaboration Management
Although manufacturer channels continue to expand downstream, companies still struggle to grasp the entire channel and outlet resources, lacking terminal service management and scientific sales forecasting, especially in managing and assessing sales teams.
Channel collaboration management means having channel members or manufacturers with comprehensive advantages assume leadership and management roles, focusing on long-term cooperation, alliance, and mutual benefit among all channel members, thereby forming a strategically collaborative marketing channel that maximizes overall efficiency and benefits of the marketing chain. Examples include the cooperation between Hubei Renren Dajingmao and Baiyunbian, Anhui Yili Trading with Gujing, and Hangzhou Xinyou with Taishan.
Compared to ordinary marketing channels, it has the following characteristics:
Channel members highly identify with business philosophy, align market strategic goals, and have a strong sense of cooperation to fight together, seeking maximum overall synergy benefits;
Establish a mutually beneficial, responsibility-and-benefit-equal long-term cooperation mechanism, ensuring stable cooperation foundations;
Optimize channel structure with reasonable division of labor, achieving functional complementarity and marketing resource sharing, maximizing marketing efficiency;
Clear collaboration rules, highly integrated daily business and information, enabling integrated operations;
The dominant enterprise assumes the "manager" function, promptly coordinating conflicts among channel members and aligning distributor behaviors to improve overall operational efficiency.
Currently, many companies have achieved this level of channel construction and management. For example, Wahaha's distributor joint sales system allows them to manage over 20,000 distributors with a marketing team of just over 2,000 people, controlling hundreds of thousands of retail terminals, and penetrating third- and fourth-tier markets nationwide, leaving competitors in awe! Gree Electric's joint sales system and Yanghe's 1+1 model are essentially manifestations of manufacturer-distributor integration and collaborative marketing.
Through collaborative channel management, companies establish marketing databases of major competitors, core distributors, core terminal networks, and core consumers;
Through channel collaboration management, deeply mine core data in the marketing value chain to rationally plan marketing resources, establish target management responsibility systems, and marketing system support platforms;
Through channel collaboration management, deeply understand market operations, strengthen fine cultivation of regional markets, enhance execution of terminal network control, and emphasize both quantity and quality of market share;
Through collaborative channel management, provide comprehensive service support for core distributors' business management and interests, deepen customer relationships, including cultivation, maintenance, support, and service for core distributors, improving their distribution efficiency and systematic coordination with the company and terminal networks.
3. Promotion Collaboration Management
Manufacturer-distributor collaborative promotion management mainly manifests in how manufacturers and distributors form an inseparable whole, jointly planning when, at what stage, and with what promotional methods and targets to execute promotional activities, collectively promoting product sales.
In reality, manufacturers excel at channel promotions, constantly introducing measures like "buy X get Y," "purchase rebates," and "special policies" to push inventory, resulting in large stocks and distributor distress. However, consumer promotions are rarely executed; those are often left to distributors and terminal retailers. How manufacturers and distributors proactively unite in promotion and make effective efforts is crucial to leveraging promotional effects.
Manufacturers can use the marketing value chain database, considering factors like product seasonality and development stage, and after gaining distributor approval, introduce channel promotion policies. The key is ensuring the plan is effective, genuinely drives sales, and captures consumer hearts.
For example, a baijiu company, before the peak sales season, based on marketing value chain data, introduced a "buy 8 get 1" policy to appropriately push inventory and occupy channel funds; during new product launch, based on competitor reactions in the value chain, designed policies like "display rewards" to provide display incentives to distributors and sub-distributors, encouraging channel members to push new products; and guided distributors to execute these policies thoroughly, not just at the manufacturer's arbitrary decision level.
For consumer promotions, manufacturers should use market data analysis from the marketing value chain to develop a systematic promotion plan, budget costs, assign personnel, manage customer relations, and leverage the combined advantages of manufacturers and distributors. Use practical promotional methods like "buy gifts," "tastings," "lotteries," and "promoter recommendations" to achieve maximum product sell-through and reach consumers' homes.
However, Chinese distributors are still in a transitional phase, with poor credit and a tendency to "muddle through." They often claim one period's promotion costs as two periods' costs; they attribute all promoter costs to you and then seek funds from other companies. In such cases, manufacturer marketing personnel must be familiar with each distributor's and terminal's promotion operations and know the "market rate" for each expense to prevent distributors and sub-distributors from exploiting the trust and cooperation inherent in collaborative marketing.
4. Knowledge Collaboration Management
Although "terminal is king" and "channel sinking" are clichés, they remain the most desired state for companies. However, the deep cost burdens of channel sinking and terminal dominance force companies to rely on distributor teams to manage channels and control terminals. Yet distributors have their own agendas. How to build an integrated marketing team with distributors through knowledge collaboration management is key.
In marketing team building, a recognized approach is to create a "customer consultant" marketing team, meaning marketing personnel who act as the "hub and bridge" between manufacturers and distributors should not only serve as "economic advisors" to clients but also guide and manage clients and their subordinates in coordination with the manufacturer, enhancing cohesion and promoting collaborative development, forming knowledge collaboration management in the marketing value chain.
Case: A certain baijiu brand was acquired and transformed from a local old distillery in 2006. In less than 7 years, it boasted 6 advanced production lines, sales coverage across over a dozen prefecture-level cities, and became one of the more popular brands. Most remarkably, 80% of its nearly 200 clients had been distributors for over 5 years. What "magic" attracted so many loyal customers, and where lies the "charm" of its rapid development?
- Distributor Annual Meetings
Twice a year, distributors from various regions gather in City X, where the company is located, for large annual meetings. These meetings not only announce new marketing policies but also invite external experts and scholars to train distributors on economic trend analysis, industry development directions, and future distributor trends. This educates distributors on having vision and strategic thinking from an external perspective, and provides strategies and methods from internal corporate development concepts, aligning both parties' thoughts and efforts to form a strong core competitiveness.
- Distributor University
Establish a distributor university, organizing distributors, second-tier distributors, and core terminals in batches for specialized training. Training content includes building distributor profitability, channel management, personnel management, inventory management, and financial management. From the perspective of distributor development, build a high-quality distributor team, assisting distributors in improving and developing in sync.
- On-site Guidance
Manufacturer field sales personnel integrate into distributor management teams, even holding core positions, providing timely communication, guidance, and training to clients and their staff. Content mainly covers marketing skill enhancement, channel strategies, promotion strategies, market segmentation, and core consumer public relations. They collaborate with clients to make markets and conquer territories, neither having the manufacturer dominate the market (reducing clients to mere distributors) nor having clients dominate (with the manufacturer only providing products and brand output).
These training activities are solid, effective, and consistent, not only mobilizing distributor participation but also providing direction for distributor strategic planning, clarifying thinking and specific strategies, improving client profitability, and enhancing loyalty to the company. This achieves multiple market effects, effectively realizing knowledge collaboration management and achieving common progress.
5. Resource Collaboration Management
In cooperation with distributors, how to effectively mobilize distributor enthusiasm, integrate distributor resources across work segments, achieve resource collaboration management, and leverage distributor advantages are issues manufacturers should consider.
For example: When designing tiered purchase incentives, providing market promotion expense support, offering high-value bonuses to downstream sub-distributors, or supplementing key markets or distribution clients with reasonable promotional pull to drive sales, it's best to sign tripartite agreements among manufacturer, distributor, and sub-distributor to clarify sales policies, ensure execution of sales policies and market expenses, and enhance enthusiasm of channel members at all levels.
Manufacturers should set reasonable price systems, guide distributor selling prices, and fairly allocate benefits among members. Manufacturers must ensure strict implementation of the price system to enhance channel push.
Before planning terminal coverage in a market, manufacturers must understand terminal conditions, identify suitable terminals based on product characteristics, and discuss with distributors to develop terminal coverage plans based on regional realities. Fully rely on distributor resources, provide appropriate distribution cost support, and improve terminal distribution efficiency.
When providing core consumer public relations education support, manufacturers must plan the number, sessions, scale, gift liquor quantities, and core consumer levels based on distributor resources, terminal customer resources, and the critical point of accumulated core consumers, ensuring efficient core consumer education and public relations influence.
As competition in China's liquor industry becomes more standardized and distributor development becomes more rational, the marketing values of manufacturer-dominated or distributor-dominated markets will gradually weaken. The future lies in collaborative marketing, where manufacturers and distributors unite to conquer markets.
At this critical juncture of adjustment and innovation in China's baijiu industry, regardless of whether a company is weak or strong, those who first adopt collaborative marketing models will achieve efficient growth and sustained growth in future market competition.
The advantages of unity, using practical promotional methods like "buy gifts," "tastings," "lotteries," and "promoter recommendations" to achieve maximum product sell-through and reach consumers' homes.
However, Chinese distributors are still in a transitional phase, with poor credit and a tendency to "muddle through." They often claim one period's promotion costs as two periods' costs; they attribute all promoter costs to you and then seek funds from other companies. In such cases, manufacturer marketing personnel must be familiar with each distributor's and terminal's promotion operations and know the "market rate" for each expense to prevent distributors and sub-distributors from exploiting the trust and cooperation inherent in collaborative marketing.
Source: South China FMCG Manager Group Reply with the following keywords to search and read related professional articles: Sales Supervisor, Second-tier Management, Regional Manager, Distributor Management, New Channels, City Manager, Competition, 2015, Manufacturer-Distributor Game, Product Stagnation, Terminal Visit Management, Route Management, Deep Distribution, Internal Management, Sales Skills, Profit Enhancement, Recruitment, Distribution, Daily Management, Team Motivation, Channel Promotion, Sales Misconceptions, New Product Launch, Township Market, New Product Pricing, Sales Target Achievement, Closing Deals, Market Visit Inspection, Baijiu, Beer, Sales Increase, Agency Products, Cross-regional Sales, KA, Terminal Merchandising, New Market, Market Operation, Learning, Book Recommendations, Inventory Management, Sales Novice, Consumer Promotion, Execution, Old Products, Expired Product Handling, Model Market, Recruitment, New Media, Distributor Development, Performance Appraisal, Assessment, Annual Planning, Shopping Guide, Morning Meeting, Display, Transformation, Inventory Pressure, Holidays, Distributor Cost Control, Channel Operation, Marketing Theory and Laws, Brand Truth, Order Meeting, Team Management, Training, Work Report, Work Report. Reply with number 1 to enter the document library category browsing;