---
title: "Winning Terminal Marketing: 22 Key Concepts You Must Know"
description: "This article outlines 22 essential concepts for terminal marketing, emphasizing that without a clear terminal strategy, evidence, and support, attracting distributors is difficult. It covers topics from defining terminals and strategic planning to core terminals, promotional terminals, and management tools, providing a comprehensive framework for effective terminal operations."
author: "曾祥文"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2014-11-11"
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# Winning Terminal Marketing: 22 Key Concepts You Must Know

> This article outlines 22 essential concepts for terminal marketing, emphasizing that without a clear terminal strategy, evidence, and support, attracting distributors is difficult. It covers topics from defining terminals and strategic planning to core terminals, promotional terminals, and management tools, providing a comprehensive framework for effective terminal operations.

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Not doing terminal marketing is death: without a clear terminal strategy, terminal evidence, and terminal support, attracting distributors becomes difficult! Thus, you fall into a simple cycle: "Hire salespeople—reimburse travel expenses—basically no distributor falls for it—fire salespeople, rehire."

With sufficient funds and heavy advertising, you can stimulate distributor cooperation, but the return on investment is not as good as doing terminal marketing.

To boost corporate confidence in terminal marketing and reduce detours, we have distilled the 19 most critical concepts of terminal marketing, aiming to help readers grasp the basic principles and laws of terminal work.

**1. Terminal**
A terminal refers to the end point of a product.
Products differ from "supplies." Products are "for sale" (made for sale or bought for resale); supplies are for personal use. As a product "for sale," it can only reach the terminal; after the "critical jump from product to money" at the terminal, it becomes the consumer's own "supply," losing its product nature. Retail locations are terminals; group-buying organizers and intermediaries are terminals; in multi-level marketing, the second-to-last level (the last person who buys to sell) is also a terminal.

**2. Terminal Strategy**
Strategy is choice: choosing which terminals to target, which models to use, and which terminal resources to allocate.
The basis for formulating a terminal strategy is the "three marketing elements": customer strategy, competitive environment, and core capabilities. Based on your customer goals and the location of core customers, choose your terminals. For example, Coca-Cola's "3A" policy—availability, affordability, and acceptability—are all customer elements of terminal strategy. Based on the competitive landscape and your competitive approach, determine your terminal targets, quantity, and tactics. Finally, terminal selection must align with your core capabilities. Overreaching to develop terminals you cannot serve will lead to exhaustion and failure; using a sledgehammer to crack a nut wastes resources.
Thus, the terminal is the "face of core capabilities": your financial strength, profitability, performance systems, product capabilities, and salary levels are all visible at the terminal.

**3. Core Terminals**
Whether to differentiate terminal value and formulate separate strategies depends on corporate strategy.
Some companies adopt "undifferentiated terminal coverage," with "air advertising bombardment + ground street-sweeping terminal coverage and interception." Without core terminals, no terminal will actively promote the product, nor do they expect them to; product sell-through relies on brand and consumer brand-name requests.
Some companies rely on terminal recommendation power and actively support core terminals. Examples include McDonald's and Coca-Cola, KFC and Pepsi, Walmart and P&G, Carrefour and Unilever—all are "core terminal strategies."
How to distinguish ordinary terminals from core terminals? Common errors and misunderstandings are based on terminal size, grade, or sales capability. In fact, relative to different core capabilities, different terminals have different values. Value is relative to corporate core capabilities and strategic goals, not objective.

**4. Core Sales Terminals**
Core sales terminals are typically high-traffic retail locations such as large supermarkets for daily goods, and specialized stores for electronics, furniture, and pharmaceuticals. Their characteristics include high customer volume, shallow interaction between staff and customers, and customers choosing products based on simple criteria. Core sales terminals are heaven for mature products: products that already sell well can amplify sales 10-fold or 100-fold when entering these terminals.
Core sales terminals are also the hell or grave for "not-yet-mature" products. Countless excellent products with rich features that consumers have not yet understood fail because companies do not realize that "core sales terminals are just amplifiers." When the product is not yet accepted and consumers' existing mental scales are unfavorable, blindly entering core sales terminals results in 0 amplified 100 times, still 0. Meanwhile, entry fees and promotion costs for "amplification" are wasted.
Bosses with a trading mindset often make this mistake: they do not know, or pretend not to know, about "brand cultivation." They rush straight to core sales terminals, and upon failure, blame "heartless terminals that charge high fees and use my promoters for their own work; incompetent promoters; talent is hard to find."

**5. Core Promotional Terminals**
Simply put, any terminal that can deeply communicate with core customers and fully express the brand's overall benefits is a promotional terminal. Its function is not primarily to increase sales but to convey the company's and product's overall value, change consumer values and evaluation criteria, and cultivate the market and consumers.
Gree Air Conditioning is a successful case of the "dual-terminal model": its specialty stores are promotional terminals, where technicians introduce Gree's unique advantages, installation, and maintenance knowledge, and may build personal relationships. Gome, Suning, and department stores are only sales terminals, attracting customers mainly through simple criteria like price, and their customers and staff are always strangers. For baby products, some community baby stores can be upgraded to promotional terminals, becoming mentors for baby growth in formula, clothing, and bath products; department stores remain sales terminals. For imported wine, wine cellars, tasting events, and canteens of provincial government agencies can be upgraded to promotional terminals; retail wine shops, supermarkets, and some "supermarket-condensed" wine cellars, clubs, and specialty stores are sales terminals.
Promotional terminals, by changing consumer evaluation criteria and purchase behavior, have earth-shattering significance for changing industry competitive structure.
Pepsi was long bullied by Coca-Cola; then an employee discovered that low temperature makes cola tastier. Pepsi secretly deployed tens of thousands of new vending machines nationwide, signed exclusive agreements with terminals, and on the same day offered free tastings to millions of consumers. Consumers found the taste delicious, thought "Pepsi tastes better than Coke," and Pepsi overtook Coke. Coke panicked, abandoned its original formula to imitate Pepsi, triggering protests from old consumers and further market share decline—after a long time, Coke woke up, reorganized its attack, and regained the top spot, but Pepsi had also established a foothold and could now compete as an equal.
Guangdong Shuijingfang, during its growth, discovered many promotional terminals, such as golf courses. If they had signed exclusive contracts with golf courses back then, the later "Moutai Golf Exclusive" might have been strangled in the cradle.
Insurance, which lacked good promotional terminals, was greatly boosted when a smart person discovered the "bank" terminal. If exclusive monopoly contracts had been signed with banks in advance, the first company to think of bank terminals could have surpassed all competitors overnight.
Giti Tire's sister company, Giti International Paper, has achieved low-cost, high-speed growth in recent years. One key success factor is the strategy of "attacking big-box stores and supporting new terminals," i.e., the "promotional terminal wins" strategy. Doing well in sales terminals can add icing on the cake; doing well in promotional terminals can create miracles.

**6. Three-Dimensional Layout**
Terminal layout is part of terminal strategy and greatly impacts "terminal expense ratio" and sales performance.
Most companies only understand geographic layout, knowing to protect core terminals regionally based on strategy; they calculate the number of terminals needed based on purchasing power within "unit radiation range."
"Business format layout" is a more important terminal layout. For example, wine involves specialty stores, restaurants, party and government canteens, big-box stores, clubs, and community stores; pharmaceuticals involve hospitals, community stores, clinics, pharmacies, and drug superstores. Each format has different value; proper layout promotes mutual reinforcement and cover, while poor layout causes conflicts. Some companies, unable to resolve conflicts, develop separate brands to segment formats; this reduces conflict but sacrifices interaction and wastes resources.
The third important layout is time layout: the pace and structure of terminal expansion. For a bottle of wine in a specific regional market, you can choose to do group buying first, or restaurants first, or supermarkets first; any can succeed or fail. The key to success is not what you do first, but what you are suited to do first and whether you understand the costs of doing it first.
The three key factors determining your choices remain: customer positioning, competitive landscape, and core capabilities.

**7. Terminal Interaction**
When terminal layout is rational, sales can promote each other.
In the wine market, we tested that with optimal layout, group buying, restaurants, and supermarkets can achieve a ratio of "1:5:25": if group buying achieves 10,000 per month, restaurants can achieve 50,000, and supermarkets can return 250,000.
Interaction is of two types:
(1) Linkage: Concentrating terminal marketing in a specific format or region can multiply effects. For example, this month, offer a free drink with meals at all Sichuan restaurants in the city; or concentrate on placing arches and banners in a "food street" and run buy-and-give promotions.
(2) Chain reaction: Based on objective correlations between terminals, focus on several types to drive others. For example, in 2001, Guangdong Shuijingfang used training marketing and other advantageous resources to serve "restaurants that do not charge entry fees," forcing ultra-high-end restaurants like Harbour City to lower their stance and waive entry fees. In the imported wine industry, the model we found most suitable for SMEs is "marketing channel + promotional terminal + customer network engineering + sales channel sales terminal."

**8. Innovation in Terminal Cooperation Models**
This is a highly misunderstood issue. Many self-righteous bosses and professional managers do not acknowledge "cooperation model differentiation," thinking models are fixed, e.g., entering restaurants requires entry fees, and costs for supermarkets are the same.
In reality, cooperation models are ever-changing. Choosing different three-dimensional terminal layouts, changing "front-loaded investments," and building different core capabilities can all alter terminal cooperation models.
Anhui is China's second-largest liquor province; Hefei is a must-win market for all Anhui liquor brands. The most popular terminal model in Anhui's liquor industry is "plate-in-plate," where companies compete to buy out restaurant supply and promotion rights at high prices. In such an environment, Shahe Business King Wine still managed to enter any bought-out restaurant with cash (only Business King did not pay entry fees and even forced restaurants to buy with cash). The main reason was my innovative "angle vs. force" systematic method, which persuaded restaurants to "grant special favors." Later, Shanghai Shenxian Distillery borrowed this model, reportedly achieving a 50% acceptance rate in Fengxian and Nanhui areas.

**9. Entry Fee Strategy**
How to choose cooperation models with terminals? Whether to pay entry fees? How much?
This depends not on a single factor but on the company's terminal strategy.
We simplify as follows:
- Deliberately overpay: Speculation; terminal value underestimated; competitive point; reduce future competition; eliminate certain threats.
- Can overpay: Value chain; sign exclusive agreements; portfolio strategy; single-store losses for overall profit; total cost; exhaust competitors.
- Change payment method: Value chain; joint promotions; differentiation; training marketing; financial capability; flexible payment terms and prices.

**10. Terminal Quality**
Terminal work is difficult to evaluate, and rewards and punishments become formalities.
Together with colleagues from the American Kotler Consulting Group, I established the "Terminal Quality Management" system, successfully applied to companies like China Tobacco Shandong Industrial and Guangzhou Zhujiang Brewery, and borrowed by P&G and Master Kong.
Simply put, terminal quality is the quality of the following 9 elements:
- Location, quantity, form
- Product
- Materials
- Personnel

**11. Terminal Visual Management 9 Elements**
- Store environment, plasticity
- Material combination layout
- Product combination display
- Color
- Shape
- Sound

**12. First Recommendation Rate**
This is a concept from the "ancient" Red Peach K company.
Red Peach K can be considered the "father of terminal marketing" in China, although its terminal techniques were inspired by Coca-Cola.
In the 1990s, Midea's "comeback" defeated Chunlan and Kelon; Shulei once surpassed P&G, becoming the only company in the world to suppress P&G through frontal attack. One key factor must be revealed: they heavily hired Red Peach K's former team and learned Red Peach K's terminal techniques.
First recommendation rate, first proposed by Red Peach K, means the rate at which retail terminal salespeople or service staff recommend your product first.
There is a real case. I accompanied a leader of a liquor company to inspect the market. As soon as we landed, the regional manager accompanied us for a meal. When entering the restaurant, the waitress warmly asked, "How many in your party, sir?"
After sitting down to discuss local business, the manager cited many objective difficulties. As a consultant, my role was to be the "bad guy" so his superior could be the good guy. So I said, "If I said your work is very poor, do you think that's reasonable?" The regional manager naturally disagreed, saying, "You just arrived and don't understand the situation." I said, "Think about why I have reason to say your work is poor; if you don't even know the reason, you're even worse."
Later, I told him a rule: you have entered fewer than 100 restaurants, yet the waitress doesn't recognize you and treats you as a stranger asking "How many in your party?"; and the waitress who just came in did not recommend our product.
Red Peach K placed great emphasis on first recommendation rate, considering it one of the most critical factors for sales performance. The significance of first recommendation is far greater than second or third recommendation!

**13. Promoter Quality**
This is another thing everyone thinks they understand, but few truly grasp.
Some bosses whimsically say: hire fresh graduates because they are easy to mold; others think: attractive women over 25 will definitely perform better.
Alas, it's not that simple. Terminal promotion is about rational allocation of terminal resources. We can only provide an allocation decision model, not fix every configuration. Promoter age, appearance, education, and salary are all elements of terminal resources. The key to choosing promoters is not their objective characteristics but the terminal resource allocation strategy.
In the real market, we see 45-year-old sisters and aunties with excellent performance, and 18-year-old girls with average looks performing excellently. Conversely, poor performers are distributed across all age groups, education levels, and salary ranges.
The key is "allocation": the coordination of the "value quantities" of promoters, consumers, products, brands, and the terminal itself (the 5V model).

**14. Amoeba Management Model**
The Amoeba management model is a technique for replicating and developing promoters.
Its originator, Kazuo Inamori, is the founder of two "Fortune 500 companies" (Kyocera and KDDI). Terminal promotion is "every person for themselves," and superiors find it hard to control; promoters need to see themselves as extensions of the leader (amoeba) and work from that perspective.
Xu Xianzhong, General Manager of Liuyanghe Group's Tequ series, systematically applied and developed this "excellent promoter replication" Amoeba management model in liquor promotion and group buying: making every promoter a protagonist, achieving "all-member participation in management" and "partnership-style management."

**15. Kotler's 10 Seconds**
Kotler's "Marketing Management" (paraphrased): "Products not included in consumers' purchase plans are usually ignored; but products with eye-catching displays and attractive materials can capture customers' attention for 10 seconds."
If the product value is clear, consumers will make a purchase decision or a decision to learn more within those 10 seconds; this brief 10 seconds becomes an indispensable opportunity for product sales; the goal of image upgrading is these 10 seconds. Kotler's 10 seconds is our most important standard for evaluating terminal materials.
Some art-trained advertising designers and self-righteous people who pursue "beauty" without market effect are deliberately working against money and are unsuitable for enterprises. We only recognize this standard: whether attention can be captured within 10 seconds.

**16. Red Peach K's 30 Seconds**
Lu Caiwu, Vice Chairman of Red Peach K Group and General Manager of the Planning Center (original words): "We require our employees to explain the product clearly within 10 seconds. If the customer's time allows, no more than 30 seconds. Beyond that, customers or user units will lose interest in listening."
Many "narcissistic" companies require terminal staff to talk endlessly, saying everything they think they should say; when customers leave impatiently, they even chase after them to ask them to stay and listen.

**17. Walmart's 10 Feet**
One of the "Walmart principles" established by founder Sam Walton: When a customer comes within 10 feet of you, look into their eyes warmly and encourage them to ask for help. This is summarized as the "10-foot attitude" and has become a Walmart employee guideline.
Countless promoters, under pressure from misguided leaders, stare at customers, forcing them to refuse and abandon their purchase intentions.

**18. Terminal Seven Steps**
These are the seven fixed tasks terminal managers must perform when visiting each retail location.
The originator of the terminal seven steps should still be the famous Red Peach K company. Later, it was widely adopted by companies like Master Kong and gradually improved.

**19. One Map and Two Tables for Terminal Management**
The three most basic tools for terminal management:
- Work route map: Originating from Red Peach K, it requires terminal staff to truthfully fill in their work location for each time period each day. At that time, there were no mobile phones; the company required each market manager to be able to call and find their employees working at a predetermined pharmacy at a predetermined time.
The key to the route map is the "six fixes": fixed person, fixed route, fixed progress, fixed number of stores to visit, fixed work project indicators, and fixed time.
- Weekly plan table: Pre-lists the "six fixes" for the next week's work.
- Daily clear and daily settlement table: This table later became widely popular through its use by the famous Haier Group.
But its original creation should be Red Peach K, which rose in the mid-1990s.

**20. Kotler's "Dual Channel Strategy"**
The key to supporting terminal strategy is an important factor in building core capabilities.
Kotler summarizes as follows:
(1) Marketing channel: Refers to the set of all enterprises and individuals that cooperate to produce, distribute, and consume a producer's goods or services, such as resource suppliers and facilitators (e.g., transportation, advertising, market research agencies).
(2) Distribution channel: Refers to all enterprises and individuals that obtain ownership of goods or services as they move from producer to consumer, or help transfer ownership. It mainly includes merchant intermediaries (ownership) and agent intermediaries (help transfer ownership). It also includes producers and consumers. It does not include suppliers or facilitators.

**21. Plate-in-Plate Theory**
A terminal marketing technique widely popular in the liquor industry, adopted by brands like Yanghe and Gujing.
It originated from Zeng Xiangwen's "core terminal strategy" and matured at "Beijing Shengchu Consulting Company."
According to Baidu Baike: The plate-in-plate theory means that enterprises first focus resources on core consumer terminals, using them as marketing platforms to conduct careful PR and promotional activities for market leader and opinion leader consumer groups, cultivating their preference for the product, and using their consumption to drive a consumption boom at core consumer terminals; when the product sells well at core consumer terminals to a certain degree, quickly leverage the product's popularity in the small plate, supplemented by other related marketing and promotion strategies, to plan distribution to quasi-core consumer terminals, ordinary consumer terminals, and other sales channels; ultimately, by achieving popularity in the small plate, seize the market high ground, thereby influencing and driving sales across the entire market.

**22. Dual Terminal Theory**
The dual terminal model was proposed by Zeng Xiangwen of the Kotler Consulting Group based on Kotler's principles and many cases.
Based on terminal value assessment and a series of indicators, terminals are divided into core and ordinary terminals. Extensive practice shows that core terminals have the function of radiating to ordinary terminals; rather than allocating resources evenly across all terminals, it is better to concentrate resources on core terminals; once core terminals are secured, ordinary terminals will follow suit.
Then, based on terminal resources and roles, core terminals are divided into core promotional terminals and core sales terminals. Promotional terminals are places for consumer cultivation; they change consumer purchase patterns and industry competitive points; they change the competitive landscape and the direction of competition.
Core sales terminals are amplifiers of sales performance. Products that have solved consumer problems can multiply their benefits at sales terminals; products that have not solved these problems see "0 amplified is still 0—wasting resources."
The dual terminal model is a terminal decision model with internal driving force.

The above 22 concepts basically outline the framework of "terminal marketing"—strategy, tactics, and management.
Actively participating in terminal competition is key to winning sustainable corporate development.
Let the storm of terminal competition rage more fiercely!

**About the author:** Zeng Xiangwen, China's most important expert in "terminal marketing." Senior consultant at Kotler Consulting Group (USA). Former consultant to Guangdong Shuijingfang, Yantai Great Wall Wine, China Resources Breweries, Songchuan Machinery, Zhengye Zhongnong Pesticides, and other companies.

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