---
title: "Four Channel Coverage Priorities for Bottled Water Success"
description: "A product placed anywhere will find buyers, but not every location qualifies as a distribution channel. The essence of channels is how to reach consumers efficiently, cost-effectively, at scale, and through diverse touchpoints. Manufacturers must assess whether a channel is worth the investment, considering current and future profitability and its impact on other channels. Channel selection should align with product attributes to find the most suitable sales venues."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-10-21"
language: "en"
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# Four Channel Coverage Priorities for Bottled Water Success

> A product placed anywhere will find buyers, but not every location qualifies as a distribution channel. The essence of channels is how to reach consumers efficiently, cost-effectively, at scale, and through diverse touchpoints. Manufacturers must assess whether a channel is worth the investment, considering current and future profitability and its impact on other channels. Channel selection should align with product attributes to find the most suitable sales venues.

A product placed anywhere will find buyers, but not every location can be called a distribution channel for that product. Of course not; otherwise, many companies would not need a channel department—they would simply stock every place that can sell goods.

The essence of channels is how to make products reach consumers efficiently, at low cost, at scale, and through diverse touchpoints. At this point, manufacturers need to calculate: Is it worth stocking this channel? Can this channel make money now, in the future, and can it drive profits in other channels?

Channel selection must be based on product attributes to find the sales venues that best match the product.

A few days ago, a friend who makes sesame balls planned to expand offline and invited me to do market research together. Based on the product attributes, I proposed several research directions:

1. Gift attribute channels: hospitals, gift shops, premium supermarkets
2. Snack attribute channels: office buildings, snack shops, schools, convenience stores, KA, CVS
3. Health attribute channels: wellness centers, hair salons, bath and leisure venues
4. Research products: packaging forms, net content, price range, competitive landscape
5. Research regions: consider per capita disposable income, population, or areas where competitors have established offline presence
6. Research channel targets: snack food distributors, understand profit requirements at all supply chain levels, channel costs, etc.

The essence of these six research points is to filter out matching channels in the vast market.

Today, we won't discuss other topics; we'll only talk about the five major channel types that new bottled water companies can use for breakthrough expansion based on market cost-effectiveness.

**Campus is the most worthwhile channel to invest in**

The relatively closed environment, concentrated consumer base, and relatively high spending power of the campus market make it a very important piece of the FMCG industry's pie.

Capturing student consumption trends is equivalent to capturing the consumption trends of future mature consumers. Incubating the future family-stage consumer group from the student era can set up a big picture.

Conquering this channel can be divided into three steps:

1. **Buying out stores is a simple, direct, and effective method**
For campuses, target consumers are relatively fixed with low mobility, so total consumer goods volume is also relatively fixed. Buying out stores is the fastest way to see results.
The core is: **Centered on existing sales points, through buying out sales points and adjusting displays, enhance single-point selling power to drive overall performance, thereby establishing a product sales base and squeezing competitors out of campus through gradual encroachment.**

2. **Continuously conduct consumer communication activities**
**Strive to reach consumers through multiple touchpoints**
One thing to be clear: students are a special consumer group with good receptivity to new things. If brand indoctrination is done well, it affects not just the individual consumer, especially for students below university level, but also their parents, siblings, and the whole family.
Amplify online voice for activity promotion, lock down offline themes for activity promotion, organically combine online and offline, lock in student fan groups, and convert fans into consumers.

3. **Create model stores to radiate to surrounding markets**
From a broad definition, campus channels can be divided into on-campus and off-campus channels. Off-campus channels mainly refer to sales points within a certain radius centered on the campus. To do well in campus channels, it is necessary to achieve internal and external unity. The core is: create model stores on campus, and radiate to surrounding consumer groups off campus.

**Hospitals are a channel that must be developed**
For brand owners, the market can be segmented to designate a hospital distributor, especially in provincial capitals. Taking Zhengzhou city hospital channels as an example, according to surveys, just for bottled water alone, annual sales are no less than 600,000 cases, showing the huge consumption potential of hospital sales points. If hospital channels are developed effectively, sales will not be lower than an ordinary county-level market.

There are three points for developing hospital channels:
- First, do pilot projects to seek an operating model that matches the market.
- Second, replicate the successful model quickly to all hospital sales points in the region.
- Third, use hospital influence to create a model area centered on the hospital.

**1. First step to break into hospital channels**
**Clarify the following five questions:**
1. The product's usage logic and purchase logic need to be sorted out separately, redefine consumers, and avoid deviations in target customers.
2. Hospital outlets have inherent cooperative relationships in operations; you can first use the resources of the outlet's suppliers to enter the store, then gradually expand from point to area.
3. Hospital sales points have small business areas and a single product structure. Before entering, be sure to analyze the profits and cost inputs of similar products, calculate your core advantages as precisely as possible, and pay sufficient attention to the competition for core display positions, as different positions can lead to vastly different sales.
4. Hospital sales points do not stock up, so delivery is more frequent, and the store requires timely delivery.
5. Building customer relationships is difficult and requires dedicated service; in-store service staff may occasionally ask for freebies or promotional items.

**2. Second step to break into hospital channels**
**Select high-energy sales points in the region to create models:**
1. **Lock down high-energy sales points**: High-energy sales points in hospital channels generally have the following characteristics:
   1) Many potential consumers: large hospital scale, many doctors and patients, and even more visitors.
   2) Dense on-site sales points: convenience stores, restaurants, and small shops at both ends of ward floors.
   3) Prioritize development of top-tier hospitals: consumers in top-tier hospitals have relatively higher spending power.
2. **Visit with agreements**: Do not make exploratory visits to hospital channels; be clear on two points:
   - First, competition in this channel is fierce, and 90% of products entering will incur costs.
   - Second, it is not easy to meet the person in charge of the store, and even if you meet, it is not easy to have a quiet few minutes of communication. So prepare a plan, that is, a plan written into the agreement.
3. **Build sales points delicately**:
   1) Lock down main products: Hospital sales points are limited by business area, so pay attention to channel matching when selecting products. After selecting products, ensure the best display position for the main push product.
   2) Invest in distinctive shelves as much as possible: The user and buyer of the product are generally not the same person, so invest in as many shelves or special display points with brand logos as possible.
   3) Materials should have thematic elements: Hospitals are an important window for brand communication. Product packaging should have unique visual effects, such as combining the brand logo with slogans like "Wishing you a speedy recovery" to make gift-givers feel the manufacturer's thoughtfulness and gift-receivers feel the giver's care. Only then can you truly enter consumers' hearts and make word-of-mouth more effective.
   4) Four follow-up items for outlet displays: a. Number of new store displays developed; b. Number of bought-out displays; c. Number of displays such as shelves/freezers/floor stacks; d. Number of special display positions/multiple display points.
4. **Personnel configuration, visits, and performance assessment**: personnel configuration, visit requirements, performance assessment.

**3. Third step to break into hospital channels**
**From easy to difficult, from large to small, rapid replication:**
1. **Review the development process of model hospitals**: Focus on discussing the development process of model hospital channels, form written materials, and deepen team memory.
2. **Review information on all hospitals in the region**: This time, conduct a detailed survey of the regional hospital market.
3. **From easy to difficult, from large to small, rapid replication**: Outlet development should follow the principle of easy to difficult, large to small. Whether for team morale or the market influence of model stores, time cannot be wasted.
4. **Increase influence to radiate to surrounding markets**: Doing well in one hospital can influence the surrounding market (in fact, surrounding sales points also focus on hospitals for sales output). Leverage the momentum of hospital sales points to drive point-to-area and quickly connect areas.

**Business districts are the channel to capture the city's high ground**
All core cities have business districts. Business districts are generated by reasonable layouts such as government urban planning and real estate company projects. Their ultimate purpose is to serve the regional population. They are the window of the city and also the window of the brand.

**If brand owners and distributors capture the consumer group in business districts, they capture the mainstream consumption trend of consumers.** Taking the business district as the breakthrough to occupy the city, and then radiating to surrounding consumer groups, achieving networked interaction of points, lines, and areas, can ultimately quickly improve the overall distribution rate and market share of the regional market, achieving the goal of brand regional dominance.

**1. First step to build business district channels**
**Clear definition of business districts:**
1) A model business district must have sufficient pedestrian density, and your product must meet the spending power of most consumers.
2) The model business district should include as many target outlets for your product as possible, so that future promotional activities can reach more audiences.
3) When choosing a target business district, you must have confidence to make your product the number one brand in the district, both in momentum and sales, surpassing competitors.

**2. Second step to build business district channels**
**Clarify the initial work for building a model business district:**
1. **Lock down the business district and unify thinking**: Based on the three principles of business districts, lock down the first batch of development targets. The team should discuss collectively and instill the idea of what final effect we want to achieve.
2. **Remove employee execution concerns**: The purpose of doing business districts is to drive point-to-area, focus resource investment, use advantageous terminal stores to drive disadvantaged terminal stores, gradually encroach on competitor market share, and eventually suppress brand share to the lowest value.
3. **Set order and determine stores**: The order of conquering outlets: existing cooperative outlets should have the best visual merchandising; for non-cooperative ones, prioritize core outlets (high foot traffic, large business area, comfortable environment), with efficiency first.
4. **Offline activities, continuous voice**: Activities should be done continuously, the louder the better, to boost business district advancement.

**3. Third step to build business district channels**
**Emphasize displays to establish a high-end brand image:**
1. Modern channels in business districts are the face of the brand; they must be done with enough face.
2. **Secure high-energy sales point visual merchandising and establish standardized channel displays.** Product display is the best advertisement for the brand, allowing close contact with consumers, building awareness through physical perception, and then generating transactions.
3. **There must be promoters next to the displays to assist sales.**

**4. Fourth step to build business district channels**
**New product interaction, create private domain traffic:**
1. **New product interaction, create experience atmosphere**: Large-scale roadshows (can be combined with the business district, increase consumer participation through interactive games) + multi-point experience promotion tables (one person, one table, multiple free samples) + key in-store promotions (experience + purchase with gifts), ultimately creating a city card for this business district and this brand.
2. **Coordinate media resources to do well in business district private domain traffic**
   1) Traffic with traffic: If there is a celebrity endorsement, the business district should display a large amount of bundled promotion of the celebrity and the product.
   2) Content with traffic: Products can be empowered through differentiation, culture, etc., for bundled promotion.
   3) Search with traffic: For example, if a product is an official designated sponsor of the Olympic Games, attract consumers to search for information through free sample activities to gain traffic.
   4) Social with traffic: Brand networking events and interactive meetings in the business district are the best venues.

**Communities and office buildings are the channels that reach the most consumers**
Young people are the main consumer group, and many modern young people work around 996. So their daily path is between the community and home. Therefore, for bottled water, it is necessary to fully tap this channel and match corresponding products.

**The core of the community channel is the penetration of household water.**
Household water needs continuous segmentation, not just large packaging. For example: kitchen water for cooking rice and porridge, living room water for tea and daily drinking, study and bedroom water for learning, working, resting, and hydration, baby room water for formula, etc.

Different scenarios require different SKUs, including water type, capacity, and special attributes. New water companies should work hard in the household water field and strive to be the first.

**The core of the office building channel is the penetration of office water.**
Sitting at the computer, besides work, it seems there is only drinking water left. Employee water is generally large barrels, while guest hospitality and meetings generally use small bottles.

The products involved here are best customized, with the company logo designed on the bottle. To be more thoughtful, design a signature area to avoid waste from not knowing whose water has been drunk when there are many people and much water. New water companies should work hard in the enterprise water field and strive to be the first.

As for how to build community and office building channels, it is very similar to the large circulation channel, so I won't go into too much detail here. The only thing to mention is how to **use the network of outlet owners to divert consumers to your products and achieve BC integration**. This requires further thinking and is the first lesson in connecting online and offline. We will discuss this in depth later.

**Final thoughts:**
For new bottled water companies laying out offline channels, it is not recommended to directly compete with mainstream bottled water brands in large circulation channels. Although the above four channels are also involved by big brands, as long as new water companies focus their efforts on one channel, they can carve out their own space, find their niche in the market, and survive.


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