---
title: "Frontline | A Comprehensive Overview of Tactical Strategies for FMCG Regional Markets"
description: "This article is a companion piece to the previous one, focusing on practical tactics rather than strategy. It addresses common questions from distributors and brand managers about how to grow their market share, offering a systematic breakdown of tactical approaches based on different competitive scenarios."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-04-24"
language: "en"
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# Frontline | A Comprehensive Overview of Tactical Strategies for FMCG Regional Markets

> This article is a companion piece to the previous one, focusing on practical tactics rather than strategy. It addresses common questions from distributors and brand managers about how to grow their market share, offering a systematic breakdown of tactical approaches based on different competitive scenarios.

This article is a companion piece to the previous one, which focused on strategy; this one focuses on practical tactics. Readers are encouraged to read both together.

Often, friends ask me: "As a distributor in a certain market, how can I grow bigger and stronger?" or "As a brand manager in a certain market, how can I operate to meet the sales targets set by the company?"

These questions are broad, but the core issue is the same: **Faced with the current market situation, market managers don't know where to start, how to change the status quo, or which thread to pull first.**

The usual fallback is a follow-the-leader strategy: the brand points, and the manufacturer's staff and distributors follow.

But the problem is that the brand's strategy is not a universal formula for market success. It often doesn't fit local conditions, leading to accumulated and escalated conflicts between manufacturers and distributors.

Different competitive landscapes require different tactical approaches. Today, I will outline various market scenarios and corresponding tactics to help distributors and brand managers think from a macro perspective about their market operations.

**-01- Three Forms of a Product After Entering the Market**

Any healthy product in the market exists in one of three forms:

**1. New Product Launch:** During the introduction phase, the goal is to carve out a niche in the target market or a specific segment, survive first, then plan for growth.

**2. Expanding Market Share:** As the product enters the growth phase, each step forward requires a price. With FMCG shifting from incremental to stock markets, every additional unit you sell means one less unit for your competitor. Will they take it lying down?

**3. Market Leadership:** In the maturity phase, it's lonely at the top. Once you become the regional leader, challengers will emerge, and you become a target, with competitors nibbling at your share across various segments and channels.

**-02- Tactical Approaches Under Different Competitive Landscapes**

**A. New Product Launch – Guerrilla Warfare**

The first priority is survival (aside: for distributors new to FMCG, the fewer new products the better; the fewer and more focused, the higher the success rate).

Typically, new products lack innovative features or overwhelming marketing resources as catalysts, so a steady, step-by-step approach is safest. Three tactical strategies are recommended:

**1. Build Fortresses: The core is to select target areas, channels, or outlets and create your own fortress zones.**

Selection criteria:
> **1) The target should be small enough to control; 2) The target should be easy to capture, avoiding prolonged battles; 3) The target should offer sufficient sales and profit—a "fat piece of meat."**

Then quickly establish points, connect them into lines, and expand into areas, preparing for a base.

Example: A friend recently worked with selenium-rich water. My advice: based on selenium's benefits, first capture the hospital channel, narrowing down to top-tier hospitals in the region, or even a few specific hospitals, and build a fortress there.

**2. Cyclical Warfare: The core is periodic strikes and intermittent operations.**

New product launches should be gradual. After capturing a target, take a short break to review and consolidate, ensuring long-term stability.

Summarize lessons to pave the way for the next step. Meanwhile, for captured targets, conduct periodic market assaults to maintain a competitive edge.

Using the water example: After securing most outlets in two or three hospitals, review what worked and what didn't, how to speed up progress, how to conserve energy, and how to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Then, conduct periodic concentrated strikes on captured hospital outlets—such as intensive merchandising, heavy distribution pushes, and focused relationship maintenance—to ensure these outlets hold a favorable competitive position.

**3. Attrition Warfare: The core is to burn your own resources to deplete the competitor's, coordinating operations until the competitor withdraws.**

One point to emphasize: Don't compare market "pressure" with competitors; compare market "intensity."

The essential difference between pressure and intensity is the "area of force." Market leaders have abundant resources, but after spreading them thin, the resources allocated to any single point may not be much.

Market followers have limited resources, but when focused on one point, they can overwhelm any competitor. In this case, use focused resources to exhaust competitors within the target until they disappear.

**The core idea of guerrilla warfare: Aim for profitability, suitable for the weak to challenge the strong.**

**B. Expanding Market Share – Offensive Warfare**

As the product enters the growth phase, each step forward requires a price.

With FMCG shifting from incremental to stock markets, every additional unit you sell means one less for your competitor.

Once in the growth phase, basic survival is assured, but to develop, you must start crushing competitors and proactively initiate warfare.

**1. Base Area: The core is that establishing a base is the foundation for launching offensives. The base is a resource hub—offensively it can attack, defensively it can retreat, sustaining warfare and radiating expansion.**

In short, war requires capital. Where does it come from? Without a base to generate resources, don't launch an offensive. Battles without logistical support rarely win.

**2. Continuous Strikes: The core is to define territory, advance step by step, and encircle and erode.**

Once you have a base, seek target areas for continuous strikes (targets can be defined by channel, region, or competitor weak spots; however defined, boundaries must be clear).

Example: A instant noodle brand's base is a township market with sufficient share. The next offensive target is an adjacent township.

The method: Define geographic boundaries, don't cross them. You can start from the center, capture the township's central market, then steadily expand outward; or infiltrate from border villages toward the center, encircling and eroding.

**3. Demolish Watchtowers: Market offensives won't always go smoothly. Even a broken ship has three thousand nails. Any brand has its core customers. If these customers don't switch, they may stage a comeback, undoing all previous investments.**

**The specific approach: First identify these core customers, understand the competitor's value proposition, know your product's competitive advantages and disadvantages, then concentrate resources to quickly eliminate them.**

Example: Competitor core customers often exist as wholesale-retail stores with displays, rebates, or even personnel support. In an offensive, if you understand their cooperation terms and increase your offer, betrayal is likely, because in the market, there are only eternal interests, rarely eternal friends.

**4. Precision Strikes: The core is that once you've made progress in the target market, execute precision strikes—concentrate forces, focus resources, achieve total monopoly, and ensure absolute competitive advantage.**

Example: Within a channel, if your product has gained a foothold and formed a competitive landscape, the offensive tactic is to implement exclusive distribution, driving competitors out.

**The core idea of offensive warfare: Everything revolves around focusing resources to capture target market share.**

**C. Market Leadership – Defensive Warfare**

At this stage, the product is mature, and it's lonely at the top. Once you become the regional leader, challengers will emerge, and you become a target, with competitors nibbling at your share across regions and channels. The initiative shifts from offense to defense.

**1. Positional Warfare: The core is to maintain the status quo, moving when the enemy moves. Positional warfare is viable when there's an absolute gap between the leader and the second-place player.**

For example, if the market leader's share is more than double the second-place player's, the leader should maintain the status quo as much as possible: follow routine customer visits, maintain relationships, and conduct normal promotions, conserving strength.

Keep a close eye on the market moves of the first and second competitors. If you notice anomalies, concentrate your conserved strength to eliminate threats in their infancy.

Example: A milk brand has annual sales of 50 million in the market, while the top competitor has 20 million. The brand should grow healthily and build strength. When the top competitor launches heavy promotions or buys store placements, respond with matching countermeasures.

**2. Defensive Counterattack: The core is rapid replication, over-investment, expanding scope, and widening the gap.**

This tactic is used when there's no absolute gap between the leader and the second-place player—the leader is only slightly ahead.

Consider the Matthew Effect: Any individual, group, or region that achieves success in one area (e.g., money, reputation, status) gains an accumulative advantage, leading to more opportunities for greater success. It's the phenomenon where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the more get more, and the less get less.

So, it's crucial to widen the gap quickly and avoid prolonged stalemate. Use all available resources—display fees, promotion expenses, personnel investment—with the sole goal of increasing the distance between you and the competitor.

**-03- Summary**

**Offensive and defensive warfare are essentially the relationship between "spear" and "shield." The key is the ability to spot market opportunities. Every tactic has its counter. In general, the longer you immerse yourself in the market with dedication, the higher your chances of winning.**

Finally, a note to readers: This series of articles focuses on breaking down individual market actions, discussing specific market points, with the aim of passing on operational experience to frontline managers.

For example: How to run a successful themed promotion? Steps for launching a new product? How to develop campus channels? How to acquire target consumers? How to turn around a "bad market"? How to develop urban commercial districts? Several ways for distributors to reduce costs and increase efficiency—these are all summaries of practical frontline experience. I hope more distributors and frontline staff can see them and make a small contribution to FMCG operations during the pandemic.

**Extended Reading:**

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**If you wish to communicate with the author**

Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.


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Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671