Introduction Very long and dense, proceed with caution. It takes ten minutes to read; whether you understand it depends on your luck. In recent years, online traffic has become expensive, and the offline decline shows no sign of stopping. As a result, Lao Miao is often asked questions like:
"Do you think my product should go online or offline?" Or those originally offline ask, "Should we go online?" And those originally in e-commerce ask, "Should we do offline?" To be honest, this is not a good question: because it focuses on the form of the terminal, not the essence of the terminal—its function. Let's look at a simple example given by Uncle Ke. Bible bread is a high-quality bread with Jewish flavor. When it was placed in hypermarkets, sales were very poor.
Through research, they found that American consumers do not treat the store as a place to browse; they go straight to the planned products (note that Chinese consumers are now showing this trend too, and the communication value of stores is decreasing). The attention rate of consumers to unfamiliar brands like Bible bread averages no more than ten seconds! And ten seconds cannot convince consumers to try a new brand.
So, marketers shifted Bible bread to terminals that allow deep communication, such as nutrition and health shops, and community stores concentrated with Jewish people (terminals that do not require much information communication), and ultimately succeeded. Product attributes: Low-value, low-attention specialty products; Marketing purpose: At product launch stage, need to convey more information; logistics requirements are low; information flow requirements are high. Result: Hypermarkets with high natural traffic are not suitable terminals at this stage, while nutrition and health shops (high information flow) and Jewish community stores (already educated market) are suitable terminals. Another example from daily life, slightly more complex. Parents with parenting experience know that when babies are born, they are often fed "first mouthful of milk" in the hospital for various reasons, making it difficult for children to accept other flavors of formula.
Thus, hospitals that do not sell formula become the most important terminal for formula. The four major formula brands form a monopoly by occupying such terminals. We call these terminals "pre-terminals."
Other formula brands must do "brand switching" to gain market share, which requires a lot of information transmission. So, maternal and child stores that position themselves with a professional image have a huge advantage, and e-commerce also has an important place because it can convey more information. Traditional supermarkets have a weaker position, and buying infant formula at community convenience stores or mom-and-pop shops might be considered abnormal. Product attributes: Extremely high attention, relatively high value products; Marketing purpose: First mouthful of milk or brand switching; logistics requirements are low; information flow requirements are high. Result: Pre-terminals—medical terminals—occupy the commanding heights of the formula market, maternal and child stores hold half of the market, e-commerce (especially overseas purchasing) is significant, supermarkets have a small share, and convenience stores have no value at all. Through these two examples, you might see a clue: The concept of "terminal is king" is based on the era of "channel is king," where the logic is to concentrate resources on the most effective channel link; terminal process reengineering is based on the comprehensive application of product attributes, marketing purposes, and information flow and logistics. It does not treat the terminal merely as a place to sell goods, but as a communicable scene. This is the marketing logic under "content is king." We must return to the origin of marketing: marketing and changing consumer behavior. Let's revisit a basic concept in consumer behavior—the five-stage model of purchase decision-making. Problem recognition—Information search—Evaluation of alternatives—Purchase decision—Post-purchase behavior. The old terminal approach emphasized "the final kick" and "terminal interception," hoping to place products more and more prominently in front of consumers, or to make consumers switch brands, mainly targeting the third and fourth stages: evaluation and purchase decision. But once we define terminals as not only carrying logistics functions but also more information flow functions, the terminal landscape must undergo drastic changes. The boundaries between terminals, media, PR, and advertising carriers become increasingly blurred. The medical terminal mentioned earlier for infant formula is both a pre-terminal and the most important promotional front. Again, the essential impact of the internet on marketing is the huge change in consumer behavior. The internet has penetrated all stages of the five-stage model. For a product with high attention, searching Baidu first has become essential. This provides a broad space for "pre-terminal interception." Search rankings, official websites, forums, etc., can all become excellent "pre-terminals." We might book a hotel we've never stayed at because of Dianping, try a restaurant we've never eaten at, watch a movie because of a review on Douban, or enter a nearby pharmacy via Baidu Maps. This is the first element of terminal-driven model reengineering—building pre-terminals. In 2016, the clients Lao Miao served had a common point: whether they sold online or offline, they all required internet promotion services, not only various hard promotions but also more soft information. This is both using internet promotion as a promotional tool and building it as a pre-terminal. Marketing relies on information; the carrier that can provide the most effective information is the most valuable carrier. If your audience is glued to their phones all day and hasn't watched TV for half a year, but you insist on a big TV commercial creative, Lao Miao can only praise you as "rich," nothing else. The second element of the terminal-driven model is building core terminals. According to the five-type terminal classification, core terminals must be deep terminals. The value and significance of deep terminals have been extensively discussed in the article "Terminal Classification," so I won't repeat it. The wine tastings for imported wines, Yakult's "face-to-face" sales, and the meeting sales of Zhen'ao Nucleic Acid and Zhuhai Tiannian are all core terminals that allow deep communication. As the most typical FMCG, beverages have many suitable terminals. Wanglaoji initially chose catering terminals as its core terminals because, compared to ordinary stores, catering terminals communicate much more deeply with consumers, especially hot pot restaurants, which can strengthen its "fear of getting heaty" product positioning. The third element is the "post-terminal." This sounds like a new term, so let me explain: Usually, companies have a consultation hotline where consumers can call with questions, or they can go to the sales site to find company representatives, or even the company sends people for door-to-door service. Later, it evolved so that consumers can leave messages on the official website or flagship store, give a "good review" or "bad review," etc. We usually call this marketing link "after-sales service." The evolution from "after-sales service" to "post-terminal" is a fundamental change in philosophy. After-sales service still follows the "logistics" logic, emphasizing services around the product, such as repairs and complaints; while "post-terminal" follows the information flow logic, emphasizing interaction between brand and consumers, and between consumers themselves. In addition to traditional after-sales services like phone, repair, membership, online messages, it also includes emerging self-media interaction, fan interaction, and broader forum interaction. The popular "community economy" in recent years, besides being wrapped in the cloak of the internet, more fundamentally carries the function of a "post-terminal." The first three elements mainly carry information flow functions. The fourth element is the logistics terminal, which carries another important function. This includes high-value terminals, volume terminals, and ordinary terminals in the classification. Pre-terminals, post-terminals, and core terminals solve the problem of communicating with consumers, "placing goods in consumers' hearts," while logistics terminals solve the problem of purchase convenience, "placing goods in front of consumers." The first three types of terminals are the market's engine, while logistics terminals are the market's wheels. Consumers experience and accept products in the first three types, interact with the brand, and may complete their first purchase. Once brand familiarity, awareness, and purchase habits are formed, consumers may shift their purchase location to logistics terminals. A common mistake companies make is investing heavily in logistics terminals before their products are recognized by the market, attempting to win through "decisive terminal" or "terminal is king" tactics, only to end up going in the wrong direction and falling into the trap of "bloody terminal competition" and "terminal consumption." Lao Miao has witnessed companies making bold investments in logistics terminals, with investment ratios as high as 1:2 or even 1:1, and business owners and marketers still charging forward bravely. They naively believe that through huge investment, once product sales reach a certain level, the investment ratio will naturally decrease. They don't realize that most logistics terminals cannot bear the burden of brand information transmission. If product value is not recognized by consumers, the result is "big promotion, big sales; small promotion, small sales; no promotion, no sales." Companies will fight to the last drop of blood, then be abandoned by the market and kicked out by the terminals they once paid huge fees to. Companies falling into such "terminal traps" is closely related to their choice of benchmark companies. In the daily chemical industry, P&G and Unilever; in food and beverages, Coca-Cola and Master Kong; in pharmaceuticals, Janssen and SmithKline—these are all models for domestic companies to learn from. However, the difference in terminal model construction is that these big brands have basically completed their communication with consumers through advertising, PR, and various brand promotions. Their terminal model construction is based on their strong brand appeal, so they emphasize more on meeting rate and direct visual stimulation. In terminal classification, they do not strictly distinguish between logistics terminals and information flow terminals. The so-called "display is the life of sales" does not hold for a brand lacking awareness. Even for big brands, new products without market awareness are not suitable for mass entry into ordinary logistics terminals. In 2005, due to the immaturity of the children's juice beverage category, Coca-Cola's heavily promoted new brand "Qoo" failed miserably in the Chinese market. Salespeople scattered across the market returned products bottle by bottle, box by box, truckload by truckload to terminals and distributors, taking months to complete. That scene is still vivid. Another common situation is that for some low-attention products, purchase behavior is random and immediate. In such cases, using the product itself to convey information is the most efficient. For example, Three Squirrels is very popular online, but Lao Miao has said before, "It's not only losing money but also has no hope of profitability," because for a snack, the cost of driving consumer behavior through online information transmission is higher than offline. Spreading stories and concepts online is more expensive than setting up a stall on the roadside to sugar-fry chestnuts, attracting customers with the aroma. So seeing Three Squirrels also going offline is a bit late, but the direction is right; it depends on how they do it. In the past two years, e-commerce has had a devastating impact on offline industries such as clothing, books, cosmetics, mobile phones, small appliances, and even large appliances, and it will intensify further. However, in food, beverages, daily chemicals, and other areas, the impact is minimal. Alibaba and JD.com are "angry," and the consequence is that they are now focusing on building B2B e-commerce, mainly targeting FMCG products that have performed poorly on the C-end. This is determined by the product attributes; the most effective way to convey information is through on-site product display. This is the fifth element of terminal reengineering that Lao Miao advocates—scenario-based logistics terminals. If your terminal cannot communicate with consumers, it is just a consumption place for them; but once you can communicate with consumers at the terminal, it becomes a consumption scene. If you don't have advertising support or communication coordination, and you are a relatively new brand, the only way out for your terminal construction is: Use the terminal-driven model reengineering to turn shopping places into consumption scenes. This is not a word game. A place is just a place for transactions; with goods and traffic, it's a sales place. A scene is a place where interaction can occur, where memories are created, and where people are willing to share. It may have games, interesting content, helpful information, social aspects, or sharing value. Enough talk, let's give examples! Due to the natural attributes of foodies, restaurants easily become terminals with consumption scenes. Just having a distinctive dish can make foodies unable to resist taking photos and posting them on their Moments. If your restaurant has a story, like President Xi once ordered the "Chairman's set meal" or it was featured in "A Bite of China," then your restaurant's scenification is even higher. Previously, eating hot pot at Chuanguo Yanyi, the Sichuan opera performances left a deep impression; it's a typical example of turning a consumption place into a consumption scene. Uniqlo once launched Uniqlo Clock and Uniqlo Calendar, combining beautiful women, music, dance, and images with Uniqlo clothing. In 2010, they started playing SNS online queue games, then try-on activities. This series of combinations is a global marketing classic. Even typical logistics terminals like supermarkets can be made to communicate with consumers through some means. The most common is to "do tricks" on the packaging: an ordinary Coke, because of the "cute series" packaging, instantly turns a simple terminal consumption place into a communicable consumption scene. Mengniu also launched themed bottles for Youyi C: "Big Row Party," "Small Waist Demon," "Belly Second Generation," "Holy Acne Warriors" were also warmly received by consumers. There are also many actions that can be taken at the terminal. Liuliumei, which Lao Miao has always been jealous of, pays special attention to "themed" displays, using various means to spread its annoying advertising theme "Eat Liuliumei when you have nothing to do." Once, they even used the terminal to convey the knowledge that "plums are the fruit of plum blossoms." Lao Miao, who prides himself on being well-informed, also learned for the first time: "Oh, so the 'green plum and bamboo horse' and 'green plum boiling wine to discuss heroes' refer to this!" This is the scenification of logistics terminals. Okay, let me finally summarize the "terminal-driven model reengineering" that Lao Miao has been advocating for several issues. Terminal-driven model reengineering is based on the marketing origin of "influencing and changing consumer behavior," starting from the five-stage model of consumer purchase decision-making. Terminal-driven model reengineering abandons the traditional "channel is king" marketing logic, plans terminal layout from the functions of terminals, and emphasizes both information flow and logistics functions. Pre-terminals, post-terminals, and core terminals mainly carry information transmission functions. They are the market's engine and the key link in terminal construction. Logistics terminals carry the function of "placing goods in front of consumers." When information transmission is in place, it means an increase in sales opportunities. For products with low consumer attention and reliance on immediate consumption, relying solely on information terminal construction is costly, so scenification of logistics terminals is needed. The means can be packaging, themed displays, themed promotional activities, or combined online activities, etc. Lao Miao says: If you think the terminal proposition is unsolvable, you must be struggling at the tactical level of "decisive terminal" or entangled in terminal forms. If you can jump out, think from a different dimension, start from the essential functions of terminals, and combine them with product attributes and marketing purposes, I believe you will see a completely new outlook. -END- The best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for companies and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operations | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brand | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]