---
title: "How Can Distributors Unblock the 'Joints' of WeChat Marketing?"
description: "This article discusses how FMCG distributors can use WeChat marketing to open new sales channels, drawing on case studies and practical tips. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear goals, detailed activity design, user engagement, and leveraging external resources, while also learning from failed marketing attempts."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2014-10-28"
language: "en"
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# How Can Distributors Unblock the 'Joints' of WeChat Marketing?

> This article discusses how FMCG distributors can use WeChat marketing to open new sales channels, drawing on case studies and practical tips. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear goals, detailed activity design, user engagement, and leveraging external resources, while also learning from failed marketing attempts.

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During a visit this year to Mr. Li, a well-known liquor distributor in City X, Shandong Province, he told me that in previous years, he had exhausted himself trying to open up distribution channels—endless business entertaining and drinking. Just when he had finally secured everything and could earn money with his eyes closed, policies strictly limiting "three public consumption" (official receptions, official vehicles, and official overseas trips) were introduced, forcing the liquor industry to adjust. How should distributors adjust? What products are most suitable to sell?

In fact, Mr. Li's situation is just a microcosm of what most distributors across the country are experiencing. His words resonate with many distributors: the impact of national policies has shifted consumer interests in the broader environment, and combined with the impact of mobile internet on the traditional liquor industry, liquor distributors have found it increasingly difficult to do business over the past two years.

Many distributors say that after years in the business, they now don't know how to proceed. Based on my experience visiting companies and distributors, I'll discuss how distributors can use WeChat to open new channels.

**[Case Analysis]**

Last year, before the Mid-Autumn Festival, I visited a rice wine distributor, Mr. Liang, in Zhejiang. They were running a WeChat marketing campaign that lasted three days. The process was: users needed to scan the QR code of Mr. Liang's company, follow the account, share the activity to their Moments, and collect 10 likes. Then they could go to a designated location to receive a 50 RMB cash voucher and two 250ml bottles of wine. The cash voucher was valid until Mid-Autumn Festival. On the first day, about 200 users came to claim the wine. On the second day, the number surged to over 800. On the third day, due to light rain, about 500 users came. Over three days, Mr. Liang attracted more than 1,500 users. Later, I spoke with Mr. Liang on the phone. He said that although they had attracted over 1,500 customers, after the event ended, the final number of retained users was 376. The cash vouchers redeemed before Mid-Autumn Festival brought in sales of over 500,000 RMB. Although the profit from this activity was low, the product's visibility spread rapidly, and he was quite satisfied.

**Precautions for WeChat Marketing**

1. **Define the purpose of WeChat marketing**: Whether it's focusing on attracting followers, increasing sales, or brand communication, this will determine the activity budget and ensure a balance between income and expenditure. Although Mr. Liang's activity was successful, it didn't achieve high profits, which could affect distributors' expectations for future activities. Before organizing an activity, set expectations and then determine the budget to ensure overall success.

2. **Make the activity process thorough and detailed**: Mr. Liang's activity had an oversight. When users scan the QR code, you can record their phone numbers for later tracking and management, to promote products or new activities.

3. **Track user engagement after the activity**: After the event, the connection between the company and users is broken. How can you increase user stickiness? We've all heard of Xiaomi's success story, but do you know that Xiaomi holds local meetups every week? These meetups increase user loyalty, maintain the bond between users and the company, and turn users into the company's salespeople.

4. **Manage the WeChat backend**: As users gradually increase, distinguish between active fans and zombie fans. Turn active fans into brand promoters or salespeople, and convert zombie fans into active ones. This requires backend managers to view issues from the user's perspective and cater to customer needs.

5. **Seek manufacturer support**: I put manufacturer support last not because it's unimportant, but because it's unstable. Generally, manufacturers prioritize supporting large distributors, so distributors should try their best to secure manufacturer support. If such support isn't available, they must be thorough and detailed in other aspects.

**[Case Analysis]**

This year, during a survey in Hubei, I met distributor Mr. Tian, who shared a successful WeChat marketing case.

When e-commerce first entered the liquor circle, Mr. Tian saw it as a rare opportunity. He partnered with a local food company for an activity. Three weeks before the Dragon Boat Festival, they used Weibo, WeChat, flyers, and other tools to fully promote the WeChat marketing activity. Two weeks before the festival, they again used these tools to promote the activity process, and the number of users reached over 4,000. One week before the festival, the activity began.

The specific process was: first, follow the company's public platform account, then share the activity, collect 10 likes and 5 comments to receive Dragon Boat Festival gifts (wine and zongzi) and cash vouchers. After receiving the gifts, users needed to share again in their Moments. Mr. Tian's partner also followed this process. The activity was held at two major commercial plazas in the local area. On the third day, the activity attracted over 1,000 users on-site.

Mr. Liang and his partner achieved record sales and profits during the Dragon Boat Festival, with the number of users reaching over 5,000. Two months later, I called Mr. Liang again to follow up on the activity's effects. Mr. Liang had since run another activity—a thank-you event—where they held a customized bottle promotion, offering users a free personalized bottle of wine. Subsequently, they successfully received many orders for wedding banquets, teacher appreciation banquets (it was graduation season), full-month celebrations, and birthday parties. Although the current user count isn't very high, it's stable.

The success of these two activities attracted invitations from companies in other local industries. Mr. Liang participated in WeChat marketing for various other sectors, which not only gave his company's brand unprecedented exposure but also earned a group of loyal customers in corporate group purchases. The annual sales from group purchases basically met this year's expectations.

**Finding Opportunities for WeChat Marketing**

1. **Effectively choose a marketing hook**: Like Mr. Tian, during the Dragon Boat Festival, he partnered with a local zongzi company, which provided both a hook and seasonal relevance. This saved costs and increased both parties' follower counts. Additionally, this kind of promotion not only added new sales channels but also boosted traditional channel sales; it greatly spread the product brand and attracted resources from other industries.

2. **Develop new users further**: In Mr. Liang's case, I mentioned the importance of increasing user stickiness, but how to do it becomes the question. Many cases in mobile internet are not replicable; if they were, there would be many Xiaomis, but there aren't. So cases can only be used for reference, and you should upgrade based on consumer interests. Ultimately, our goal is to turn users into potential consumers, promoters, and salespeople.

3. **Effectively integrate resources outside the industry**: On holidays that consumers find meaningful, partnering with suitable partners can achieve twice the results with half the effort. After successfully integrating external resources, develop these users into active fans.

4. **Good promotion and dissemination**: A good event marketing campaign cannot succeed without good pre-promotion. Like Mr. Liang, who used two weeks and various low-cost communication tools, frequent promotion activities yielded very ideal results. Pre-promotion directly determines the number of new consumers and your sales volume. Just like the movie "The House That Never Dies" (京城81号), its pre-release publicity and 3D features made it a dark horse upon release, disrupting all theater schedules and eventually making it the highest-grossing horror film in Chinese history and the best-selling movie ever.

5. **Choose the right venue for user experience**: Many times, we overlook the venue, but it's a decisive factor for the activity's experience and authenticity. Today's consumers are often skeptical of external activities; if there's doubt, they won't participate, and user numbers won't be guaranteed. Once the credibility of the event is confirmed, its dissemination value increases unprecedentedly, and distributors will naturally gain "considerable" value.

**Learning from Failed Marketing Outside the Industry**

I personally experienced a WeChat marketing campaign outside the industry. Recently, the movie "The Continent" (后会无期) was very popular, and the car driven by Feng Shaofeng in it was a Volkswagen. When we went to the cinema, we happened to see Shanghai Volkswagen running an activity there. All we had to do was scan a QR code to get a free movie ticket for "The Continent," a drink, and a bag of popcorn. Before the movie started, the staff interacted with us, briefly introduced the car, and then we watched the movie and left. A few days later, we found that the WeChat public account hadn't sent us any messages, nor were there any follow-up activities, so we all forgot about the movie. From this failed case, I've summarized a few points:

1. **Appropriate promotion**: Although Volkswagen's activity was promoted in advance, they only promoted it to their potential customers, which led to "missing" a large portion of non-potential customers. In fact, the result was that neither potential customers bought the car, nor did non-potential customers, making the activity largely meaningless.

2. **Register information**: We only needed to scan a QR code to get the necessary movie materials, but what value did the QR code bring to the company? Why not turn us into their promoters? If they had asked during registration whether we currently owned a car or had potential demand for a Volkswagen, they could have obtained targeted information, which would be very helpful for future customer development.

3. **Provide customer "follow-up" service**: When I registered, I asked the staff about the car's price and features, indicating my interest in purchasing, but later no one called me, and the public account didn't send any information to reinforce our impression of the activity.

The advent of the mobile internet era brings both opportunities and challenges. No matter how successful any WeChat marketing case is, you can't replicate others' success; you can only learn from it. Distributors must continuously upgrade from the perspective of consumer interests to gain unexpected rewards.

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