When a concept is absent from your mind, you tend not to think about issues in that area. Worse, when your concept is wrong, you tend to let erroneous cognition guide your behavior. The former is a blind spot; the latter is a misconception. Marketing cognition upgrading helps you clear blind spots and step out of misconceptions. Do you know the 4Ps of marketing? Many can quickly say: product, price, place, promotion. But can you define these seemingly simple four words? Many will scratch their heads and find it not so easy. Next, can you interpret these four words from different perspectives? It seems the difficulty increases. Finally, do you know under what circumstances to use which perspective for interpretation and application? Indeed, ordinary people don't think that deeply; aren't they just two characters? Kotler used these four words, eight characters, to highly condense his understanding of the marketing system. Today, let's break down the blind spots and misconceptions most people have about channels. Many marketers think that channels refer to third- and fourth-tier markets, those distribution outlets that cannot be directly controlled, as opposed to retail terminals that can be directly controlled. Is that really so? What exactly is a channel? A channel can be understood from one point and one line, using different cognitions to guide behavior in different situations. One line: Marketing channel value chain A marketing channel is the set of all enterprises and individuals that acquire ownership of a good or service or help transfer its ownership as it moves from the producer to the consumer. —Philip Kotler This is the textbook definition of the channel concept. A more complete understanding should be the "marketing channel value chain," a concept that every marketer involved in regional management or channel management needs to master. (Image source: U-Sense original) Here are common marketing channel value chains for enterprises: The red line represents e-commerce channels, the blue line represents direct or direct-supply channels, and the black line represents distribution channels. The key to driving and improving marketing channels lies in making every channel member willing and able to act. Willingness is about desire; ability is about capability. How exactly do you drive each member of the channel value chain? For brand teams , to be willing, design a good team incentive mechanism; to be able, do a good job of division of labor, collaboration, and intensive training. For distributor teams , to be willing, do a good job of interest design and policy design; to be able, do a good job of joint business plans, service policies, and intensive training. For retail teams , to be willing, do a good job of interest design and policy design; to be able, do a good job of service support. For sales guide teams , to be willing, design a good team incentive mechanism; to be able, do a good job of intensive training and state guidance. For shoppers/consumers , to want to buy, do a good job of product quality, user reputation, and after-sales service; to be able to buy, do a good job of user purchase experience design. One point: User perspective (Image source: Internet) A channel is a gathering of a certain type of customers with common purchasing behavior attributes. Let's look at common channel types and corresponding user behaviors: Hypermarket: users who shop for everything in one stop Convenience store: users seeking convenience at a specific time Brand store: users with a preference for a certain brand Category store: users with a need for a specific category Shopping mall: users who eat, drink, play, and buy E-commerce platform: users who like online shopping and seek convenience Let's take the example of buying water for a family. The same group of users, under different circumstances, chooses different purchase channels. Purchase behavior 1 : On Friday evening, Xiaoniu and his mother went shopping at Carrefour Wanguo store. His mother bought a bundle of 6 bottles of 300ml Nongfu Spring mineral water (original price 12.5 yuan, special price 11.8 yuan), because his father often plays badminton and needs to bring water, which is cheaper than buying at the court. Purchase behavior 2 : After checkout, his mother also bought 20 barrels of 18.8L C'estbon water at the C'estbon barrel water specialty store outside the checkout line (regular promotion: buy 20 get 6 free), with delivery within 2 hours by phone. Purchase behavior 3 : On Saturday, Xiaoniu went out with classmates to the computer city. Feeling thirsty, he bought a bottle of 500ml frozen Mizone lychee-flavored drink from the 7-11 convenience store freezer, retail price 3.5 yuan per bottle. Purchase behavior 4 : At 10:35 AM on Tuesday, his mother brewed a cup of coffee in the office, picked up her phone, and bought a pack of Australian a2 pasteurized whole milk (1L*3 pack) on JD Mobile for 147 yuan, because Xiaoniu drinks a large glass every morning for breakfast. Let's also analyze the attributes of users' behavior when they go to a pharmacy to buy OTC drugs. (Image source: U-Sense original) We use the Dreams model to analyze users' OTC purchase behavior: Demand : Users discover symptoms of a disease and want to cure it, or realize they may get a disease and want to prevent it, thus generating the idea of buying medicine to cure or prevent the disease. Search : Users will search for categories related to symptoms, including drug brands, prices, efficacy, and treatment courses; they may ask pharmacists or clerks at pharmacies, ask friends and relatives who have had similar symptoms, or search for relevant information online. Evaluation : Users will evaluate the collected information to make a decision: whether to buy, and which brand and product to buy. When evaluating OTC drugs, users generally focus on efficacy and price. Purchase : Users will choose the purchase channel: whether to buy at the small pharmacy near the community or at the Laobaixing Pharmacy 3 kilometers away? Users will choose how much to buy: buy one box first to see the effect, or buy a full course directly? Use : Users may use the OTC drug according to the usage requirements, or they may use it as they please, resulting in different efficacy outcomes. Share : If users find the efficacy good, they will recommend it to friends and relatives with similar needs. As a regional manager or channel manager, your daily challenge is: how to increase sales and achieve growth targets ? When considering channel growth: From the value chain perspective, you can ask yourself: 1. What members are on the channel value chain? 2. Is each channel member willing and able to act? 3. How should you drive channel members who are unwilling or unable? From the user perspective, you can ask yourself: 1. Where else might my target users appear, and could that become a new channel? 2. What is the purchase behavior of users in this channel? 3. How can you encourage users to make more purchases? Source: U-Sense Marketing Institute -END-