The rapid development of an enterprise requires sustained profits from successful markets to support the development of new strategic markets, forming a virtuous cycle of marketing strategy. There is a wealth of articles on strategies and experiences for developing new markets, but how to win in already-developed markets seems to have been forgotten. In fact, after witnessing many star enterprises rise and fall, we believe that managing existing markets is even more crucial. Here, the author wants to fully explore how to maintain old markets to secure the profits necessary for enterprise development.
In the competition of every enterprise's strategic regional markets, the ultimate result of intense competition is the continuous sinking of channels. The full sinking of channels ultimately makes the fight for and interception of terminals one of the most lethal and effective weapons, but also the heaviest burden. Therefore, attention and investment in terminals have become a difficult pain point for enterprises: high investment, slow returns, and sometimes no returns at all. When faced with terminal challenges, the scene of heroes leaving with tears in their eyes is truly sad, because in the market, no matter how much emphasis is placed on process management, success is ultimately judged by results.
For old markets, the art of developing and maintaining terminals is even greater. Terminals are luxury items for aristocratic enterprises: high investment, trivial management, and difficult returns. However, terminal operations are also the most solid fortress against competitors. Once built as solid as iron, they are easy to defend and hard to attack, giving advantages in channels. Therefore, enterprises need continuous profits for survival and development, while also investing reasonably according to their actual situation without wasting resources. This is indeed a difficult equation for corporate strategy.
Thus, integrating and coordinating various resources for terminal management in old markets—such as strategic management, promotion management, expense management, personnel management, and customer management—is extremely urgent and important for enterprises.
Enterprises should attach great importance to the development of terminals in old markets to avoid repeating the tragedy of the bear breaking corn. When senior management faces mature markets, they often make the strategic mistake of a great leap forward. The biggest feeling might be that they can finally breathe a sigh of relief, having paid so much, it's time to reap returns, and the next focus is to conquer a new market. So they allocate all resources to develop new markets, even if it means low returns, while giving minimal support—both human and material—to mature markets, and only skimming the surface in terminal development and maintenance. This leads to continuous development of new markets while old markets decline, ultimately causing the enterprise to lose core competitiveness due to lack of follow-up resources and profit support. After significantly reducing investment in old market terminals, the old markets initially still return considerable profits, but facing fierce competition, the enterprise adopts evasive and conservative approaches in pricing, promotions, and new product launches, gradually exhausting the product strength and customer loyalty accumulated over the years. When facing declining share and sales, the most likely response is to occasionally launch a major promotion to shock the terminals, but often it's hard to turn the tide, resulting in mature markets becoming low-yield or even half-baked markets, along with helplessness and sighs from senior management. This is more evident in mid-sized consumer goods and pharmaceutical companies, so we see many seemingly grand enterprises collapse overnight—a truly tragic ending.
So how can we better grasp and win at terminals in fierce market competition? How can enterprises integrate these resources? The author would like to discuss this with industry peers based on years of marketing experience.
(Case) The author recently provided consulting services for a beverage company that had a large market share in the three northeastern provinces, definitely a strong local brand. The regional market contributed substantial profits annually, with market investment accounting for less than 5% of sales. In 2004, the company aggressively developed the national market. To ensure certain profits and sufficient promotional resources for new markets, the company drastically cut terminal maintenance and promotion expenses in the mature northeastern markets. Facing aggressive competition at terminals, they were unwilling and unable to fight back: they didn't want to engage in promotion wars, didn't compete in display contests, avoided price wars, and forced new products through channels and manpower. The result was indeed unimpressive: new markets yielded little, and old markets saw sharp declines.
This is a somewhat extreme but typical strategic mistake. Senior management, facing mature markets, often makes the great leap forward error. The biggest feeling might be that they can finally breathe a sigh of relief, having paid so much, it's time to reap returns, and the next focus is to conquer a new market. So they allocate all resources to develop new markets, even if it means low returns, while drastically reducing terminal investment in mature markets, only skimming the surface in terminal development and maintenance. This leads to continuous development of new markets while old markets decline, turning mature markets into low-yield or even half-baked markets, ultimately causing the enterprise to lose core competitiveness due to lack of follow-up resources and profit support. When facing declining share and sales, the most likely response is to occasionally launch a major promotion to shock the terminals, but often it's hard to turn the tide. In the competition of every enterprise's strategic regional markets, the ultimate result of intense competition is that the fight for and interception of terminals becomes one of the most effective weapons, but also the heaviest burden. There is a wealth of articles on strategies for developing new markets, but how to continuously win in already-developed old markets seems to have been forgotten. For old markets, the art of developing and maintaining terminals is even greater. Integrating various resources and coordinating strategic management, promotion management, expense management, personnel management, and customer management for old market terminals is extremely urgent and important.
Necessary high-level publicity cannot be ignored While fighting for sales at the terminal, high-level brand display should not be overlooked. For an enterprise's sales to continue progressively in a region, consumers ultimately value brand value, whether brought by advertising or product strength. What enterprises most easily overlook is the promotion and enhancement of old products and the expansion and publicity of brand image. For example, a company made a huge product display lightbox at the train station, regularly updating with new product ads and old product promotions. These are favorable guarantees for ground terminals to achieve expected results and are the foundation for maintaining advantages and continuously contributing profits in competition.
Establishing hierarchical customer data management Terminal development is a time-consuming and laborious task: numerous outlets, wide distribution, scattered sales, and difficult management. If you manage hundreds or thousands of terminal customers horizontally, grabbing everything at once, efficiency will be low. Therefore, establishing a scientific, orderly, and focused terminal management strategy that doesn't abandon secondary points is very practical. ABC hierarchical management based on customer distribution, business area, and sales volume is a common tool. Generally, A-class customers are visited daily, B-class three times a week, and C-class once a week. Different strategies are applied to different levels, gradually bringing terminals into effective management, achieving both refinement and lean development.
For old markets, enterprises should gradually build customer files based on historical data, then upgrade to matrix analysis and sales-expense parabola charts, providing a foundation for further market development and avoiding losses from crossing the river by feeling the stones.
Strengthening the form system for terminal operations Enterprises should have a complete set of processes for recruitment, compensation evaluation, and employee training to respond orderly to uncertainties like high personnel turnover. Among all factors in the terminal battle, the biggest role is not played by investment or strategy, but by the executors. Supervision follow-ups, actual checks, and form verification are effective means to improve terminal execution. The implementation of form management depends on the diligent checks by local supervisors. Wrong information is more terrible than no information. During the implementation of the form management system, the head office should provide clear management guidelines to branch offices.
Intensive cultivation and moderate innovation For old markets, we are used to original thinking, including price, channels, and models, often lacking the courage to change. But the market environment is constantly changing, and the product structure and strength of enterprises are also changing. Therefore, while intensively cultivating, enterprises must innovate moderately with the times. For example, channel management requires both deep development and detailed maintenance of existing channels, as well as exploring new channels and upgrading marketing management models. A small and medium-sized beverage company relied on a network of postal wholesalers and a limited direct sales system. With market development and concept updates, they later developed supermarket distributors, education channels, internet cafe channels, and entertainment channels, enriching channels, increasing sales, and enhancing brand image.
Facing price wars without exhausting enterprise advantages For old markets, once you have a dominant position, competitors will constantly attack. The most troublesome is malicious promotions or disguised price cuts by competitors. Because you have the advantage and a much larger share, tit-for-tat can only lose your advantage and sink together with competitors. A steady marketing strategy, not blindly following, and not caring about temporary gains or losses are the basic principles. Gradually, competitors will lose their attacking strength. This requires the market leader to keep a clear head, both to fight back and not fall into traps. The degree is important. If you counterattack recklessly, it will disrupt the entire marketing deployment and lead to exhaustion. A feasible strategy is to fully utilize the product structure: carefully protect strategic profit products, let tactical products charge into battle, ensuring profits and effective suppression and counterattack against competitors.
Effective management of channel transshipment For market transshipment, enterprises should see the essence and resolutely crack down. Whether it involves company marketing personnel or dealers' autonomous behavior, severe punishment should be meted out according to the severity. Only when market order is stable can prices be stable, marketing personnel can work with peace of mind and accept the compensation system based on work, and the market can have a healthy marketing environment. Only then can enterprises extend the success of developed markets as long as possible, and through market improvement and product structure updates, the product life cycle can circulate within the enterprise, allowing the enterprise to remain invincible in fierce market competition. Almost all transshipment is accompanied by price system chaos, greatly affecting terminals. One or two transshipments can cause the carefully cultivated price system to collapse. Therefore, effective management of channel transshipment is a prerequisite and necessary condition for terminal control.
Let new products activate terminals and block disruptors Once a market matures, dominant products with large sales will quickly attract followers and parasites that nibble away at market share, causing price confusion and consumer perception misalignment. In such cases, on one hand, we must severely crack down on counterfeit and shoddy disruptors; on the other hand, under the strategy of enriching the product chain, we should do a good job of distributing new products in segmented markets, so that new products, led by old products, fully leverage the influence of marketing channels, gradually forming a comprehensive three-dimensional pattern in promotions and displays, blocking the market space of competitors and disruptors.
In summary, for an enterprise to stand firm in fierce market competition and maintain the success and share of old markets, it needs to strengthen terminal management and development, establish a fortress advantage in target market terminals, implement the established terminal strategy unwaveringly, build a terminal interception and anti-interception system, and respond to changes with both change and constancy. At the same time, every micro-link must be done well, and every detail must be refined. Only then can the enterprise develop healthily in the long term and remain flexible and resilient against competitors' attacks.
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