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A One-Size-Fits-All Approach Is a Doomed Dead End
Visit a company and open its sales report, and you'll find that sales supported by the deep distribution system often account for 80%–90%, or even 100%, of total sales. Go to the market and you'll see that regardless of market type, branch management models and assessment systems are all the same.
Apart from the deep distribution system, the company has no other capabilities. To enter a blank market, you must recruit staff, set up a formation, and install a system—only then can you operate.
Little do they know that without early market cultivation and groundwork, you can't even find a local force (customer). When the regular army enters this area, they often find themselves in the dark, with no supplies internally and no reinforcements externally.
In this regard, the deep distribution system often serves as a finishing touch, built on the foundation of predecessors' extensive layout and land grabbing.
Before introducing the deep distribution system, many companies' marketing systems (from EMKT.com.cn) relied mainly on customer agency with extensive but thin returns, continuously recruiting distributors and expanding regions to form sparse horizontal sales. This horizontal sales brought the manufacturer the first pot of gold, but it was often highly risky, failed to form focused sales, and contributed little to brand accumulation!
Against this backdrop, companies would campaign-style introduce deep distribution systems, focusing on intensive cultivation to build vertical sales accumulation! This introduction was often carried out in a campaign style, with overwhelming depth and a one-size-fits-all execution. The result was often: initial performance surged, but later performance weakened.
Why?
- Neglecting the cultivation of marginal markets, confining oneself to a limited area, able to focus but not expand!
- Judging heroes by sales volume, ranking performance by sales, but forgetting that markets with high sales are built on the foundation of predecessors' extensive approach!
- Treating sales from marginal weak markets as grain, not understanding that marginal sales are seeds!
Many problems also arise in the company's marketing system:
- In markets with high share, the grassroots lose attack targets, visit efficiency is low, management is lax, and offices are in a state of neglect.
- In markets with low share, the grassroots face pressure to move products, chewing on bones every day, and sales reps lack confidence before leaving the office.
- In markets where the brand share has a leading trend, manufacturer-dealer cooperation is poor, like two separate skins.
Transformation Direction: Extensive Is Not Guilty, Intensive Cultivation Has Limits!
In the marketing world, mentioning extensive tactics often invites a chorus of criticism. When evaluating a company's marketing system, people often say the marketing is poorly done because it's not detailed—it's rough!
For companies, it's crucial to know where to be rough and where to be detailed; when to be rough and when to be detailed!
No matter how powerful an FMCG company is, it cannot achieve uniform market thickness in its layout! Most companies' markets are characterized by a mushroom-shaped layout with uneven strength—with a strong market as the core base, radiating to relatively weak surrounding markets.
This is like the structure of an egg:
The yolk is the core, forming the base advantage market, characterized by high share, high coverage, and high profit margins;
The egg white is the hinterland market, where competitive advantages have emerged but are not yet obvious, with ample room for improvement in share and coverage, requiring rapid breakthrough; the acceleration in this area leads to lower profit margins;
On the outer periphery, there are many blank or semi-blank markets with small sales, like the eggshell, protecting the company's main markets.
These three types of markets can transform into each other, and companies can use different management techniques to drive positive transformation from weak to strong!
A real problem is right in front of us: if transformation is not timely, the deep distribution system will only churn within the yolk market! Churning in markets that cannot be deeply cultivated or further deepened can only create performance bubbles! Some companies will be troubled by false flattening and pseudo-intensive cultivation!
Similarly, if the deep distribution system is applied to the peripheral eggshell markets, due to insufficient brand power or harsh competitive environment, it's unsuitable for large-scale army operations—it's a waste of effort!
Thus, the most suitable soil for deep distribution is the egg white market! Such markets have sufficient capacity and a strong growth momentum. At this time, leveraging the offensive power of deep distribution, combined with the strength of distributors, the two forces can coordinate operations, form local advantages, drive out competitors, and achieve stability!
In advantage markets, the deep distribution system is "idle"; in weak markets, it's "exhausted"!
In advantage markets, manufacturer personnel shift to a supervisory system, restore the distributor's role, manage distributors with strong bargaining power and profitability, and use the distributor's local forces to guard the market.
In balanced markets, the manufacturer...
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