Friendly reminder: Click the blue text above to follow "FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting" for more marketing and distributor internal management insights.
A new product launch is a massive systematic project. The pace and efficiency of product promotion are constantly improving, and mature market promotion has become the key to a distributor's success in the market. To ensure the orderly progress of the entire new product launch process, distributors must learn to formulate clear and feasible launch plans, effectively break down the plan's objectives, track and provide feedback on the execution process, and also make timely adjustments based on the feedback results.
Launch Plan First
Mao Zedong wrote in "On Protracted War": "Preparedness ensures success, unpreparedness spells failure. Without prior planning and preparation, one cannot win a war." This statement also applies to a distributor's new product launch promotion. However, when facing a new product launch, many distributors lack necessary planning and only promote blindly, and the success rate of such promotion is predictable. In today's increasingly competitive market, to win the new product launch battle beautifully, distributors must "strategize" and formulate reasonable and effective launch plans, having a clear understanding of the new product launch promotion work.
Sales and Outlet Development Goals: The formulation of sales goals and outlet development goals is the most important part of the launch plan. Only when goals are set clearly and feasibly can the new product launch work proceed in an orderly manner. The so-called sales goals mean setting corresponding sales volumes at various time periods during the new product sales. The sales volume setting should be based on analysis of factors such as the product, competitors, and market capacity. It should not blindly pursue sales volume, and must abandon the Great Leap Forward mentality of "the bolder the person, the greater the output." Practical and feasible sales goals bring not only sales volume but also the sales team's confidence and cohesion.
Furthermore, for outlet development, do not sacrifice quality for quantity. As a strategic reserve resource for the distributor, the quality of outlets affects the distributor's long-term development to a certain extent. During the outlet development process, distributors should conduct research and analysis on terminal outlets, and match sales outlets based on product attributes, trial sales areas, trial sales channels, etc. For example, if a county-level distributor controls 300 outlets, during the initial one-month distribution period, the distributor must learn how to effectively select 30-50 outlets for distribution. The process of selecting outlets is the key to terminal distribution.
Product Strategy: When selecting a new product, distributors have already gained a macro understanding of the product's industry trends and competitive landscape, and have also learned about the company's regional planning, marketing model, and business promotion model. After fully understanding these, distributors must also understand the company's product system, including the manufacturer's main promoted products and the price system. Then, combining their own capital and outlet resources, they should mobilize their own resources, fully utilize manufacturer support policies, and formulate appropriate product launch strategies to ensure good market performance after the product launch.
Terminal Distribution Policy: The so-called terminal distribution policy is essentially a process of how to "tempt" outlets to stock up, falling under channel promotion. Currently, sales channels are increasingly flattening, and "terminal is king" has become a consensus among distributors. Formulating flexible and appropriate terminal distribution policies is crucial. Distributors should formulate appropriate promotion policies based on the different needs of outlets to attract them to actively stock up, such as gifts, tiered rewards, cumulative rewards, etc. In essence, the distribution policy is about using promotion models that outlets "love to see" to win customers' "hearts," not only actively stocking up but also striving to sell.
Sales Personnel Incentive Policy: Special incentives must be set for sales personnel in new product promotion. The sales enthusiasm of sales personnel largely determines the effectiveness of new product sales. In the sales personnel incentive policy, distributors must grasp the intensity of the incentive policy. If the incentive is too large, distributors will have to give up more new product profits and bear more sales costs; if too small, it will be difficult to stimulate sales personnel's enthusiasm.
Additionally, the incentive policy for new product sales personnel is not a unified plan. Distributors must combine multiple factors, effectively analyze and judge, and set different incentive measures based on different product attributes and profit margins of different price systems. A one-size-fits-all incentive policy is absolutely not allowed. Generally, for new product promotion policies, an additional commission of 1-3 yuan per box can be set on top of the original commission and reward mechanism.
Profitability Analysis: Most distributors do not have a corresponding budget system for new product launch promotion expenses, nor do they conduct profitability analysis for new products. This is also the root cause of losses for many distributors during new product promotion.
First, distributors should calculate new product promotion expenses based on the price system, distribution policy, and personnel incentives, conduct expense consolidation, form a systematic expense budget, and fully reflect the performance of the new product launch. Then, through target breakdown, forecast sales volume, and combine with the new product's sales situation to conduct product profitability analysis, identify profit points, maximize the added value of the new product, and thereby improve the distributor's profit margin in new product promotion.
Efficient Target Breakdown
During the new product launch process, the core tasks for distributors are only two: chasing sales volume and chasing terminal customers. By effectively breaking down these two major tasks and seriously executing according to the target requirements, new product launch promotion will definitely achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Outlet Development Goal Breakdown: Breaking down goals for new product promotion channels aims to strengthen the distributor's control over channels. Distributors should, based on the promotion strategy for new product outlet development, screen terminal outlets and break down outlet development goals by sales region to each salesperson. This is only the first step in outlet development; more importantly, effective tracking of target execution is needed. To this end, distributors should formulate a comprehensive feedback mechanism, requiring salespeople to provide timely feedback on development progress.
Sales Goal Breakdown: Many distributors do not have a deep understanding of goal breakdown, thinking that as long as salespeople have the intention to sell seriously, everything will be fine. This is not the case. Distributors must learn to break down sales goals. The so-called sales goal breakdown means breaking down the predetermined sales amount for the new product launch, concretely implementing the sales tasks into each salesperson's daily task volume. Distributors must understand that sales volume is actually chased. Only by clearly conveying sales tasks to each salesperson can salespeople have clear goals, become more proactive, and distribute with passion.
Adequate Business Training
For business team training, the comment "sharpening the axe will not delay the work of cutting wood" is most appropriate. Only by improving salespeople's sales capabilities can distribution efficiency and sales volume be improved. Training for the business team mainly includes industry conditions, company conditions, product conditions, sales policies, etc. Among them, industry conditions mainly provide a macro explanation of brand status, market capacity, sales situation, and price systems in the industry; company conditions mainly include the company's current situation and future development plans; product conditions mainly introduce production equipment, production processes, ingredient composition, core selling points, etc.; sales policies mainly include incentives for new customer stocking, display rewards, gift policies, etc.
Training the business team is a consensus among all distributors, but how to conduct effective training is a problem for many distributors. In fact, the most effective training method is to invite the manufacturer's sales personnel to provide training. During the process of persuading distributors to take on agency, the manufacturer's sales personnel have already provided detailed explanations of industry and company conditions. This is also part of the manufacturer's sales personnel's duties, but distributors easily overlook this resource.
Distributors must fully utilize manufacturer resources to improve their own capabilities, especially the capabilities of salespeople. Only when salespeople have a corresponding understanding of the product and manufacturer policies can they provide detailed explanations to outlet owners during distribution, improving sales efficiency. Additionally, distributors can explain sales policies to salespeople, focusing on performance incentive parts to stimulate sales enthusiasm.
Follow-up Analysis and Adjustment
"Plan-Execute-Summarize-Analyze" is a complete execution plan. Control and adjustment are always the most important tasks in a distributor's daily management, especially for new product launches. After a new product launch, it is in a stage of running-in with the market, and some strategic problems may inevitably arise, affecting marketing activities. This requires marketing managers to conduct marketing analysis at any time, and carry out marketing control and moderate adjustments.
Morning and Evening Meeting Summary Analysis: Morning and evening meetings are actually processes of stimulating enthusiasm and summarizing work, where team managers inject excitement and provide business guidance to sales personnel. Seemingly cumbersome, morning and evening meetings are very critical. Many distributors operating major brands maintain the tradition of holding meetings, and their team's mental state and sales performance are very good.
The biggest role of the morning meeting is to maintain the sales personnel's mental state and stimulate sales enthusiasm. Main contents include praising the best-performing salesperson from the previous day, conducting sales rankings and awarding bonuses on the spot; breaking down and conveying the day's outlet development goals and sales goals, and having sales personnel shout out tasks every day. The evening meeting mainly summarizes the sales work of the day, including analysis of goal achievement, solving problems in the sales process, etc. Among them, employees with poor performance should be helped to adjust their mindset, and negative emotions should not be allowed to affect the entire team's sales passion. Individual communication can be used.
Weekly and Monthly Summary Analysis: The main role of weekly and monthly summary analysis is to diagnose problems in the execution of various policies during the new product launch, correct them in a timely manner, and integrate the direction of new product promotion. Are actual achievements consistent with goals? Are sales policies effective and need adjustment? What problems exist in the distribution process, and have solutions been found? How is terminal sell-through? These are questions that need to be answered in weekly and monthly meetings.
Of course, not all distributors need to hold weekly and monthly summary meetings; instead, they should choose a summary cycle that suits their actual situation. Additionally, in summary meetings, excellent sales experiences must be shared, wrong cases criticized and corrected, and sales personnel's enthusiasm and work efficiency improved.
After formulating a clear and feasible launch plan, the timing of the new product launch is also crucial. An appropriate launch timing can bring good sales results for the new product. Generally, before the peak season, before holidays, and when competitors face major problems are the times with the least risk for new product launches. The most critical is to complete distribution, stocking, display, and atmosphere creation before the peak sales season. Distributors must ensure the maximum distribution rate, maximum terminal stock, best display, and best sales atmosphere during the peak sales period.
(This article's author, Meng Lingyu, is the Project Director of Beijing Meisi Meiyu Management Consulting Company)
--------------------------------------------
......................Cooperation Promotion..............................