Friendly reminder: Click the ↑ above for 'FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting' to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management. Introduction: Channel flattening must not be just a slogan; after going down to villages, you'll find the cake there is also big. With the improvement of rural consumption levels, farmers' brand awareness is awakening. At this time, whoever seizes and cultivates this market first may become the guide of their consumption behavior, and first-mover advantage may lead to victory. Below we analyze the path of Baijiu marketing in rural markets.

I. Consumption Characteristics of Township Markets 1. Wealth polarization causes brand differentiation The gap between rich and poor directly affects the grade of Baijiu consumption, leading to brand differentiation. Villages with higher living standards mainly consume Baijiu brands around 30-50 yuan per bottle, while villages with lower living standards mainly consume bare-bottle brands around 10 yuan per bottle. 2. Regional differences in Baijiu consumption levels are increasing With the acceleration of new rural construction, farmers' purchasing power is also rising. The overall grade of Baijiu consumption in rural markets is improving; a few affluent townships have consumption levels similar to county and urban areas, such as individual towns in Puyang and Luoyang. However, the majority of township markets still have relatively low Baijiu consumption levels. For example, in Yongcheng, Shangqiu, and Zhumadian in Henan, consumption levels are relatively low, with mainstream rural consumption prices concentrated around 20 yuan. 3. Baijiu consumption timing is relatively concentrated Young and middle-aged men who drink more often go out to work, leaving the rural population mainly as the "3861" troops—women and children—so daily consumption is limited. Therefore, Baijiu consumption is mainly concentrated in the summer harvest, autumn harvest, Mid-Autumn Festival, and around the Spring Festival. During these periods, rural wedding banquets ("rush weddings" around the Spring Festival) and visiting relatives and friends create a purchasing peak. Annual Baijiu consumption in rural markets, especially boxed wine, accounts for more than 75% of the total annual consumption during this period. 4. Category threats are weaker The off-season in rural markets has less impact on low-end liquor, and the proportion of whole-case purchases is increasing year by year. Compared to urban areas, rural markets are less affected by category threats (e.g., beer/red wine volumes are lower), mainly because rural consumers have lower incomes and hope to spend less money on Baijiu to satisfy their drinking needs. 5. Consumption tends to concentrate in townships (where the government is located) and county towns With increased national investment in rural infrastructure, roads between villages are getting better. Rural incomes have risen, and almost every household has a tricycle or even a van. For events like weddings and funerals, rural consumers are unwilling to host at home and often choose to go to townships (where the government is located) or county towns. This creates a trend of consumption concentrating in townships and county towns. As the saying goes: "Good roads, many cars, and no shortage of money." 6. Price is the most important factor in township Baijiu consumption As long as the product price is appropriate, packaging is exquisite, the taste is good, it doesn't cause a headache, and the brand culture fits the characteristics of township and rural markets, there is significant market space for most townships and rural areas. 7. Promotions play a key role in guiding consumption Research shows that promotional guidance still plays a crucial role in stimulating township purchasing power. In townships and rural areas, information channels are relatively limited, so promotional methods that guide consumption and offer practical benefits are extremely effective. Urban consumers, on the other hand, have strong brand awareness and loyalty, and are numb to promotional guidance, finding nothing novel. In townships, consumers' activity scope and information channels are relatively fixed, so they are sensitive to promotional guidance and easily moved by brands that bring them practical benefits. 8. Core township networks are the focus of channel construction and will significantly impact overall sales In township markets, consumer purchases are relatively concentrated. They typically choose fixed, reputable, and influential purchasing locations. If two products have the same price and grade, even if consumers want to buy another brand, they will abandon it and choose a substitute if the terminal service is inadequate. This is especially prominent where price leverage dominates and brand influence is not obvious. Therefore, establishing core terminals is crucial: the more core terminals one has, the higher the network quality, the larger the market share, and the higher the sales. 9. Administrative recommendation power greatly influences rural Baijiu market promotion Each township is a small group consumption cluster with commonality and mutual guidance. Due to the special interpersonal concepts formed over time in townships and rural areas, and the "administrative worship and fear" of grassroots leaders, we cannot ignore the recommendation power of grassroots administrative distribution and interpersonal recommendation. This recommendation power can be used as a public relations activity for Baijiu township promotion and extended to terminal services. If this special social concept is well utilized, especially during the peak purchasing period of the two festivals, brand promotion becomes much easier. 10. Brand awareness is awakening County and township markets, especially rural markets, have higher brand loyalty than cities. Once consumers recognize a brand, they will consume it for years. They generally have higher recognition of local liquor brands than foreign brands because local liquor resonates more with them in terms of brand, culture, packaging, and emotion, especially in rural markets where there are tastes, aromas, and even packaging patterns and colors recognized by ancestors. If a product happens to cater to these elements, it will be widely welcomed. It is particularly important to note that brand awareness in county and township markets is awakening. With the improvement of the new generation of farmers' education and the guidance of media such as TV and advertising, consumers in county and township markets are beginning to value brand awareness, brand culture, and the elements supporting the brand. They increasingly advocate healthy and brand consumption, and counterfeit and shoddy products are being gradually abandoned and unable to gain a foothold. II. Analysis of Township Market Promotion Characteristics 1. Trust in advertising: High trust in advertising; strong advertising impact will rapidly increase brand awareness In township promotion, combine local media and conduct continuous publicity during consumption peaks to achieve twice the result with half the effort. Specific measures are as follows: First, do a good job of terminal store visualization Select core stores in advantageous positions in township markets for packaging, create image stores through terminal visualization such as making store signs, and create a good sales atmosphere. Selection criteria are as follows: Good locations: traffic arteries, intersections, places with high foot traffic, and places easily seen by consumers; Good stores: stores with many customers, high popularity, and strong influence and publicity; Make them in a row: if you can make them continuously, the effect is more prominent; if not, you must choose locations and stores with good advertising effects, and don't overdo it. Strengthen terminal POP advertising. Here, POP advertising is broad POP advertising, referring to all advertising materials set up around the purchase place, inside retail stores, and where goods are displayed. For example: store plaques, store decoration and window displays, inflatable ads and banners hung outside the store, interior decoration, displays, and posters. POP advertising, due to its functions of informing about new products, arousing consumer purchase awareness, creating a sales atmosphere, and enhancing corporate image, and its strong adaptability, is increasingly being adopted by most manufacturers in townships. Second, make full use of wall advertisements Make more wall advertisements in townships, rural areas, and at the entrances and exits of traffic arteries. Cooperative stores: wall advertisements for cooperative stores must be deeply explored and done whenever possible. Wall advertisements: visible every day, an unavoidable mandatory medium. Wall advertisements have become a beautiful landscape in township markets. Whether on national highways, provincial roads, or township roads, there are eye-catching wall advertisements. Wall advertisements have five major characteristics: (1) High reach rate and low cost per thousand. TV advertising: 150-280 yuan/CPM, newspaper advertising: 50-120 yuan/CPM, wall advertising: 5-10 yuan/CPM; (2) Closer to sales terminals. Wall advertising is the most powerful weapon for developing township markets. Where wall advertisements reach, there is a hot sales scene of the product in that area. It can be a farmhouse courtyard or a standardized store; wall advertising is the closest form of advertising; (3) Effective media amplifier. The memory left by newspapers and TV is short-lived, while wall advertising is a persistent reminder that can amplify the publicity effect of newspapers and TV by 4-10 times. In other words, if you advertise on TV for a month and add wall advertisements in the publicity area, wall advertisements will extend the impact of your TV advertising to half a year or even a year. (4) Wall advertisements are generally designed in strict accordance with the corporate visual identity (VI) system. In a province, they may be repeated thousands of times. Standardized copy, logos, and powerful promotional slogans will form a lasting memory effect on the target market. For example, "Hualong Noodles, See You Every Day" was engraved into memory through wall advertisements. Third, bus body advertisements as a moving landscape Bus body advertisements are called mobile advertisements. They have a wide range of activities and many viewers, making them an ideal advertising medium. They are widely used in cities, but with the improvement of farmers' living standards, the chance of farmers taking buses has greatly increased. At the same time, due to the construction of rural transportation networks, vehicles passing through rural areas are also increasing. Therefore, bus body advertising is becoming a new rural advertising medium. When placing bus body advertisements, liquor companies should follow the bottom-up principle, that is, advertising on vehicles from townships to county towns. 2. Love to follow trends and imitate; word-of-mouth influence plays a significant role The herd mentality is relatively strong. People with status, neighbors, relatives, and friends often follow the brands they consume. This is mainly manifested in three aspects: First, influential people (township heads, village heads, police stations, teachers, electricians, helpers) and other leader consumer groups are very important. Capturing them means capturing the market. Doing public relations work with these opinion leaders will be a shortcut to quickly opening the rural market; Second, influenced by neighbors, relatives, and friends. Due to geographical and activity space limitations, rural consumers' consumption habits are mostly influenced by the word-of-mouth of neighbors. In addition, the "keeping up with the Joneses" psychology plays an important role in rural brand consumption; Third, influenced by store owners' recommendations. 3. Recognize promotions and gather; promotional stimuli play a significant role in guiding consumption In different stores or at the same price range for different brands, customers will choose stores or brands with promotional activities or strong promotional power. Before the promotion, fully inform the public; during the promotion, create a strong activity atmosphere to stimulate purchases. Specific measures: Create momentum inside and outside the store: release arch banners in front of the store, product and gift displays at the entrance, and create an atmosphere inside the store; promotional theme activities such as buy-one-get-one, lucky draws; holiday theme activities such as market days and temple fairs; entertainment theme activities such as karaoke competitions; touring activities such as float parades, roadshows, and touring exhibitions; pay attention to promotions for rural weddings and funerals; physical gifts or product bundling are widely effective in township markets. Compared with urban consumers, rural consumers are more sensitive to product price changes, especially interested in and willing to participate in promotional activities such as special offers and buy-one-get-one. Promotional items in township markets include: flyers, calendars, Spring Festival couplets, wall calendars, umbrellas, cultural shirts, lighters, rice cookers, electric vehicles, etc. These items are increasingly favored because they are close to township life. Liquor companies should cooperate with promotional activities and adopt more of these advertising forms that bring practical benefits to consumers; In rural markets, weddings and funerals are occasions where consumers use a lot of liquor. Generally, Baijiu brands seize this opportunity to carry out promotional activities, such as buying wine and getting wine or sending cigarettes (or candy), to increase word-of-mouth among villagers; Since there are few cultural and entertainment activities in townships and rural areas, if liquor companies can adopt a series of "sending culture to the countryside" methods to promote their products, they will definitely be welcomed by the majority of township consumers, which is beneficial for enhancing corporate image and product awareness and reputation. Common cultural promotions include: hiring local art troupes to perform in the countryside, sending movies to the countryside, and corporate song and dance troupes touring the countryside. 4. Like lively festivals; every festival is a peak season for rural consumption Around festivals is the peak period for township Baijiu consumption. At this time, the brand with more activities, greater promotion, and stronger publicity often sees a surge in sales. Deeply carry out theme activities and concentrated publicity for holidays such as market days, temple fairs, Mid-Autumn Festival, Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and National Day. III. Analysis of Township Market Channel Status 1. Terminals are sensitive to the quantity of new product purchases Township terminals often adopt two completely different attitudes towards the purchase quantity of new and old products. No matter how good a new product is, they can only try selling it first, while for bestsellers, as long as there are discounts, they will stock up in large quantities even if the gross profit is low. For example, in some areas, the gross profit per case is less than 1 yuan, but second-tier distributors still stock up in large quantities. Research shows that terminals have a great demand for high-profit new products. As long as the profit is greater than the products currently sold, terminals will purchase a small quantity for sale and have high enthusiasm for recommendation. 2. Purchase frequency is relatively lower than in urban areas Terminals mostly purchase once a week or every half month, and each purchase quantity is small. Most terminal goods are directly delivered to their homes by second-tier distributors. The second-tier network is very important, the relationship between second-tier and downstream customers is important, and second-tier service is even more important. The more second-tier distributors you have, the greater the market share. Due to the scattered distribution of rural terminals, urban distributors have insufficient radiation capacity, and operating cost constraints make it difficult to control terminals. They must rely on township second-tier networks to complete distribution. For example, Xianglong Commercial in Liguan Town covers 8 surrounding townships and monopolizes the sales of most FMCG products. The importance of second-tier distributors is also reflected in the fact that half of the Baijiu sales in township markets are completed by second-tier distributors, and most of the liquor for rural weddings and funerals is purchased directly from second-tier distributors. Second-tier distributors also have a great influence on the choice of terminal purchase varieties, which directly affects the local sales of products. 3. Terminal owners have a high success rate in recommending new products Due to the narrow business radiation range of terminals, many customers are very familiar with the owners, and the rare trust makes customers willing to accept and try new products when recommended. These store owners often play the role of opinion leaders. 4. Baijiu consumption has the characteristic of "two halves" Half of the Baijiu sales in county-level markets are in urban areas, and the other half are in townships and rural areas. From the perspective of sales timing, half of the Baijiu sales are concentrated in the two festivals, and the other half is concentrated in daily self-drinking. 5. Hoarding investment becomes a profit model Compared with urban areas, township markets have fewer investment channels, leading to a single investment form. Second-tier distributors and terminal owners generally stock up on certain products at ordering meetings as a short-term investment behavior. This behavior of channel merchants will become one of the profit models that Baijiu companies pay attention to. 6. Township direct sales model Baijiu companies build their own channels, using their management strength to strengthen the occupation and control of township networks. Advantages: short channels, rapid response, timely service, stable prices, in-place promotions, and favorable advertising; Disadvantages: township markets are geographically dispersed, logistics costs are high, sales blind spots are prone to appear, human and material investment is large, costs are high, and management is difficult. Non-local companies dare not adopt direct sales channels. 7. Distribution model Choose regional distributors to develop the market and build networks. Advantages: quickly enter the local market, quickly occupy the local sales network, save a lot of manpower and material resources, wide sales coverage, clear rights and obligations between manufacturers and merchants, and clear division of labor; Disadvantages: prone to price confusion and regional cross-selling, slow response to competition, requiring strong corporate management; communication problems between companies and distributors may become hidden dangers in the market. 8. Co-marketing model Choose a regional exclusive distributor, and the manufacturer assists in developing the market and building the network. Advantages: utilize the distributor's geographical convenience and financial strength, save time in market development, wide sales coverage, and easier management; Disadvantages: distributors have the risk of running goods or bad debts. 9. Deep distribution Within a certain area, choose multiple distributors, delineate sales areas, and implement deep distribution. Advantages: clear responsibility areas, small service radius, rapid response, stable network, and easy intensive cultivation; Disadvantages: small market, high competition, unsatisfied customers, cross-selling, and difficult management. IV. Suggestions for Efficient Marketing Strategies in Township Markets 1. Ensure the channel recommendation rate is first Ensure material benefits: Gross profit 1.5 rule—gross profit margin is 1.5 times that of competitors; Ensure emotional benefits: Customer relationship rule—maintain good customer relationships with terminals. Because whether in townships or existing wholesale departments, the owners are basically familiar or known, and they trust their words. "This wine is good, I just sold 15 cases" is more useful than any other publicity. 2. Disk-in-disk is very effective in townships Note: "124 Project" Activity form:

  1. Find 1 exclusive distributor, 2 image stores, and 4 store-sign (door head) stores in the target township market;
  2. The selected terminals must participate in product display activities;
  3. Manufacturer personnel regularly inspect door head stores and image stores, and promptly correct any non-compliant behavior. 3. Prize promotions never fail High-probability promotions are very attractive to township consumers, seizing the characteristics of some people who like to take advantage of small gains. Consumers—free tasting, scratch cards, buy-one-get-one, free tasting, empty bottle exchange for wine. For example, in the early stage of introduction, carry out prize sales in better-selling catering terminals in townships, such as "free tasting," "drink wine and get a dish," "empty bottle exchange for wine" and other consumer promotions; at retail terminals where products are difficult to sell, adopt activities such as buying wine and giving drinks or cigarettes (gifts must be famous brands, and "cleverly name" the bundled gifts to give a reason). Distribute discount cards in key township markets to encourage consumers to try this product. 4. Rural roadshows add icing on the cake Mainly during market days or holidays, carry out "prize sales" on site, including "free tasting," "buy one get one free," "buy wine and get a good gift" and other activities, which are also promotional strategies with radiation effects. 5. Township hotels must not be abandoned Each township market will have 1-3 local "famous" hotels. Occupying these famous hotels is very helpful for successfully starting the market and extending the product life cycle, especially for Baijiu brands. 6. Find the opinion leaders in the township market These opinion leaders are the consumption leaders. Do some work on them, such as giving wine or referral fees. As long as they are willing, a small cost can achieve significant results. 7. Township ordering meetings are very effective (order several times) Hold ordering meetings in townships, gather township customers together, deepen customer relationships, and at the same time, push inventory. 8. Core townships adopt the "1+1+1+1" deep direct sales model That is, 1 salesperson + 1 customer manager + 1 township head + 1 village party branch secretary. The specific operation process: the customer manager finds the township head, then through the township head finds the target village's party branch secretary, and through the public relations of the township head, village head, or village party branch secretary, makes the product the local internal reception wine; each village and town then finds a good retail store and core hotel with resources and social relationships, and under the leadership of opinion leaders, drives local mass consumption, ultimately achieving a network layout of "one town one store (or 2 stores), one village one store." 9. Don't miss group purchases for village weddings and funerals Pay attention to promotions for rural weddings and funerals. In rural markets, weddings and funerals are occasions where consumers use a lot of liquor. Activities such as buying wine and getting wine or sending cigarettes (or candy) increase word-of-mouth among villagers; in county or township markets, it is recommended to adopt methods such as buying wine and getting a gong and drum band/errenzhuan passionate performance, video recording, or rainbow door (set different levels of promotional methods). (Author: Zhu Zhiming, MicroWine has been authorized) --------------------------------------------