Short-term products are so named because of their short characteristics: short product life cycle, short promotion period, short channel length, and so on. However, once a short-term product is hyped up, its advantages become obvious: it can quickly increase distribution and coverage, effectively attack competitors, and make a quick profit in the short term. Therefore, flexibly applying the marketing 4P strategy to guide the operation of short-term products has significant practical relevance.

I. Product Strategy Since it is a short-term product, its market positioning and operational level should differ from other regular products. The product positioning of FMCG companies is generally divided into three categories: first, high-end products, positioned to build brand and image; second, mid-range products, positioned to increase sales and seek profits; third, low-end products, mainly to participate in market competition and protect the market.

Which category a company's short-term product falls into should be determined entirely by market attributes and the needs of market competition. For example, in a relatively mature home market, once attacked fiercely by competitive brands, the company should launch a counterattack product based on the competitor's performance, and this counterattack product is often the company's short-term product.

Short-term products generally have the following characteristics:

  1. They are often initiated out of competitive needs or launched for specific periods, such as products suitable for holidays or seasonal products.
  2. They come quickly and go quickly. Since they are short-term products, they often carry a certain market mission, whether to fight competitors, obtain short-term substantial profits, or lead the market through differentiation. Once the mission ends, the product's life often ends immediately.

Given the above characteristics, short-term products generally adopt the following strategies:

  1. Use a sub-brand, and avoid using the main brand as much as possible. Because short-term products have a short life cycle, and many companies often use "suicide-style" marketing to counter competitive impacts, it is not suitable to use the main brand.
  2. Set a reasonable survival period for the product. Since it is a short-term product, after completing its mission, it should exit quickly to avoid affecting the market share of leading products, causing market chaos or self-competition, and also to avoid more market legacy issues.

For example, a instant noodle company always launches some gift-pack products suitable for holiday sales during the Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival each year. Targeting the demand characteristics of the Spring Festival, which emphasize atmosphere and external packaging rather than practicality, it launched a short-term product with a life cycle of only 3 months from launch to exit—a 20-pack double-sided block gift-pack instant noodles.

Because this product was positioned for gifting, with exquisite and generous packaging and moderate pricing, at only 12 yuan per box (actually more expensive per pack), compared to the regular 40-pack small block noodles at 15 yuan per box, the price was more advantageous. Therefore, this product was favored by distributors during the holiday season. Moreover, the manufacturer stipulated that this product was a short-term product, no returns allowed, and only produced and supplied for three months. Thus, the company had no return or exchange risk. By producing this short-term product, the company gained significant economic benefits.

II. Price Strategy In consumers' minds, the concept of "you get what you pay for" is fixed. No matter how good a product is, once its price drops, or if it starts with a low price, consumers will question its quality. This is human nature and common sense.

Therefore, to avoid being undervalued, short-term products must put effort into pricing. Short-term product pricing should adhere to or follow these principles:

  1. Price is not the only factor determining product sales volume. Studying the market, we find that products that sell well in the market are definitely not low-priced products, but products with good quality, high prices, and active channel performance.
  2. Stick to high price and high promotion. Short-term products should not be priced with the intention of losing money. While aligning with the market, they should still aim for profit maximization from start to finish. Therefore, under the premise of ensuring product quality, short-term products, especially seasonal or holiday-oriented products, should still use high price and high promotion as pricing principles. Only with high prices can the profits of short-term products be guaranteed, allowing the product's mission to be fulfilled as perfectly as possible.
  3. Prices should remain firm until exiting the market. When a product's price drops, it means the time for the product to be questioned has arrived. Therefore, to ensure that short-term products can make money and maintain a good reputation, so that the product "comes in greatness and leaves in perfection," it is necessary to keep prices consistent, ensure profits for all channel links, and thus allow the market to operate healthily, stably, and orderly.

A few years ago, I participated in the operation of a short-term product in a certain market for an instant noodle company. At that time, the company's product, as the attacker, was fiercely counterattacked by local competitive brands. At this point, I suggested the company launch a follow-up product with the same specifications and the same number of seasoning packets, but with 2 grams less per pack, while keeping the price consistent with the competitor.

At the same time, adopting a high-promotion strategy, we trained salespeople to be good at calculating bottom-line prices and profit accounts for channel partners, making distributors at all levels understand that selling this product could earn more money than competitors. After mobilization and extensive ideological work with distributors and sub-distributors, the product was warmly welcomed by channel partners, and the product quickly spread throughout the streets and alleys, allowing the company to make a handsome profit.

III. Channel Strategy Whether it is a long-term product or a short-term product, its launch should emphasize rapid hype and momentum building. By creating a hot-selling atmosphere, the product gets a quick opportunity and reason to contact channels and consumers.

In the process of launching and promoting short-term products, to achieve a more ideal profit level, some special strategies need to be adopted in channel construction to find better opportunities to enter the market. These include:

  1. Use short channels. Through short channels, the number of channel links can be reduced, thereby reducing channel costs, allowing profits to be optimally distributed, and enabling products to face channels and consumers more quickly and better.
  2. Focus channels. Every product has a specific consumer group, and therefore, corresponding matching channels. For example, high-end products entering low-end channels is definitely not feasible; similarly, low-end products entering high-end channels will not be accepted. Short-term products should adopt a focused strategy, attacking one point, influencing opinion leaders, and then expanding from point to area, finally forming a climate, achieving the effect of "a single spark can start a prairie fire."
  3. Be good at opening up second channels. For short-term products to seek higher profit values, opening up second channels is also a relatively quick and effective method. By taking a roundabout path, avoiding the red ocean of competition, the product can obtain a relatively rich profit space in a certain field.

For example, a beer company, facing the aggressive posture of a local strong brand's boxed beer attacking its base market, adopted a tit-for-tat strategy: launching a product with the same specifications and grade as the competitor, at the same price, but with greater promotional intensity, engaging in a "bloody fight" with the competitive brand.

In addition, actively developing second channels, by publishing group purchase information, organizing professional personnel to develop channels such as nightclubs, bath centers, and KTVs, reducing market operating costs, thus "in a narrow encounter, the wise wins." Through differentiation strategy and unconventional tactics, it not only achieved a good market share in the "fight" with the competitive brand, but also obtained good product profits by opening up second channels, killing two birds with one stone.

IV. Promotion Strategy The promotion of short-term products should still be budgeted, calculated, and invested from an overall perspective. Otherwise, the approach of promoting when you think of it and not when you don't can easily make the market half-baked, causing market troubles and hurting the company in future market operations.

Generally, the design of promotion plans for short-term products should consider or follow the following principles:

1. Emphasize systematization, progression, and continuity. Short-term products also need to create momentum, do displays, terminal activation, advertising, etc. Therefore, these promotional activities must have corresponding budgets, clarify the stages of investment, the time of investment, the intensity of investment, the total cost, etc., and pay attention to the input-output ratio of promotions and the progression and continuity between promotion stages.

2. Big first, then small. For short-term products to make money, they need to use skills and strategies in designing promotional intensity, never evenly distributing effort. Instead, they should be big first, then small. By investing heavily in the early stage, they can attract the attention of channel partners and consumers, satisfy their psychology of seeking bargains, and encourage and motivate them to sell or consume products more vigorously and devotedly.

By reducing the intensity in the later stage, the company can achieve better profit levels. However, it should be noted that the reduction in promotional intensity should not be too obvious; it should be gradually decreased in stages and steps to avoid channel partners and consumers feeling deceived, so that promotions can proceed seamlessly as planned, and finally, the product ends its mission amid everyone's regret.

3. Promotions should be moderate. Promotion is sales promotion, a short-term stimulus to the market. Therefore, short-term product operations must pay attention to moderation. By being moderate, channels and consumers will not rely too much on promotions, allowing the product to better fulfill its market functions and enabling short-term products to make profits when they should.

For example, a liquor company launched a mid-range liquor in the Zhengzhou market. The mission of this product was to quickly seize market share and, through its entry, drive the penetration of other long-term products. To stand out among numerous liquor brands, the company adopted the following promotional strategy:

It placed 50,000 boxes of this product in the Zhengzhou market, with an investment of 10 yuan per box. The specific promotion method was the "Drink XX Liquor, Win Gold Buddha" activity. The promotion was carried out in 5 stages, with 10,000 boxes per stage. In the first stage, the winning probability was the highest, reaching 20%, and then decreased gradually in each subsequent stage. Through this novel promotional activity design, especially the heavy early investment, combined with on-site promotions by promotional staff, and supplemented by bus advertisements, roll-up banners, and POP displays, it greatly stimulated the curiosity and participation enthusiasm of channel partners, restaurants, hotels, and retail terminals. Due to the high winning rate in the early stage, the manufacturer promptly publicized and hyped the winners in the media, plus the word-of-mouth promotion from winners themselves, the product quickly became popular in the Zhengzhou market. Later, the manufacturer timely introduced other long-term products, thus combining long and short, playing the market chess game well. As a company, after enjoying the thrill, it also made a substantial profit.

In summary, whether it is a long-term product or a short-term product, in the increasingly fierce market competition, the market should be prioritized, and profits should be prioritized. Only by balancing both can the market operate deeply and sustainably, and under the guidance of the 4P strategy, while completing the product's mission, achieve a win-win situation where the company profits, distributors benefit, and consumers are satisfied, making short-term products not short on spirit and earning more money.

Source: Cui Zisan Marketing World -END-