Channel Fission: Training Employees As Agents

Channel strategy is a major part of marketing mix. The combination of channel strategy and promotion strategy basically controls the change and innovation of marketing mode.

When formulating channel strategy, the most puzzling problem for manufacturers is how to ensure loyalty, coordination, credibility and operation ability of channel members, especially the ability to popularize new products.

Against this background, manufacturers are often unable to restrain themselves from the impulse to build their own channels. However, the high cost, high risk and management difficulty brought by self built channels is not a digestible business.

Three companies have achieved unprecedented miracles in the health care industry through self built channels. TCL has proved the truth of the channel through self built channels, and of course, more businesses have failed due to self built channels.

Do not think that the self built channel is a game that only big companies can play. In fact, at the beginning of the reform, the owners of some workshop factories on the coast did not understand what marketing was, and mobilized their brothers, sisters, neighbors, relatives, and set up wholesale or retail outlets. They were the primary editions of self built channels. Their successful accumulation has inspired some thoughtful people. These people have brought them to the top and have made some famous enterprises today. We need not discuss the advantages or disadvantages of self built channels, and we are more concerned about how to successfully build self built channels.

Yan Yifan, a senior marketing person who has been in Higher Vocational Colleges in three companies, has experienced great waves in the health care industry. He thought he was very familiar with the operation of health care products, but when he leaped to sea, he found that he always brushed away with success.

He summed up his failure for two reasons: first, he did not have the resources of a large company but followed the business philosophy of big companies; two, the current market environment has undergone profound changes, but his own methods have not been upgraded with the times.

He believes that in the current market highly competitive product homogenization background, the choice of proxy function differentiated products is a prerequisite for success.

At this point, through careful search for thousands of choices, he finally locked a new product of an enterprise in Shanghai.

This product is cosmetic, but its market operation is almost the same as that of health products.

The product is a hair dye with exclusive patented technology. The product has 6 colors. Users can choose their own color according to their needs. The retail price is 115 yuan, the woman can use three times, and the man can dye five times. Compared with the hair dyeing at hair shop, the product has a good performance price ratio.

After a lot of in-depth negotiations, he obtained the agent power in Southern China and Northwest China, and then began the market promotion work.

Yan Yifan believes that when the core technology barrier is not available, the speed of product homogeneity is faster and faster. Whether it is for quick profit or avoid fierce competition, it must start the market.

The means to achieve this goal is to use traditional medicine line or daily chemical line and strong advertising offensive, while advertising media preferred TV media, supplemented tabloids and outdoor media.

According to the state of their own funds and for the sake of insurance, the first few cities in Northwest China are selected as the first development market.

Considering the low entry threshold of medicine line, in the early stage of entering the market, he first chose some large chain stores and several large shopping malls in the region, and then entered the wholesale channels when the market matured. He asked professional advertising companies to plan carefully and shoot the TV commercials which felt very destructive, and released high-density publications on the mainstream TV channels. At the same time, a very popular publicity tabloid was printed, and some college students were invited to launch in large commercial areas.

After the advertisement was released, the response was good. Many people telephoned and showed strong desire to buy, and the terminal survey showed that many people had consulted and purchased, and the products were sold, which is an inspiration to the market operators.

In the first month, the total cost of promotion is more than 150000, while the actual sales amount is only about sixty thousand.

Yan Yifan, who has been on the battlefield, is not worried. He knows that advertising, especially television advertising, has a lagging effect. As long as the continuous release will usher in a comprehensive market launch.

Second months also invested one hundred and fifty thousand, the actual terminal sales of more than 70000, and not much growth.

In the past two months, although the sale of more than ten million, but the actual receipt of half of the money did not, because most of the retail business is not good, accustomed to occupying factory funds, and some customers use the pressure to make payments, if a batch of goods are not sold out, will not be paid.

At this time, Yan Yi Fan's working capital began to be overstretched. He made a comprehensive analysis of the market prospect, and finally decided that he had fallen into a game without money. The longer he played, the more he lost. The only way out was to change his mind at once.

It is the first time that the construction of the network has gone through the failure of the first trial. Yan Yifan believes that in the era of current capital success, it is a foolish act to challenge the windmill with its own meager strength to create a brand quickly.

In order to complete the basic sales tasks required by the manufacturers, we must rely on external forces, that is, to find agents and expand the products through the power of people.

This time he focused on the market in Guangdong, so what kind of agent should he choose?

The agents of the daily chemical line are very strong, but they are only good at selling some famous brand products or low price products, while the professional line agents demand higher profit margins for their products, and they can not meet this requirement. What's more, their products will face many competitors after they enter the professional line, and the differentiation advantage of the products becomes a disadvantage.

By contrast, agents in the pharmaceutical and health care industry seem to be more suitable, and their numbers and market operation capabilities are stronger.

With many years of good connections in the industry, he soon came to contact with a number of agents who are active in the forefront of the market, and set up the ideal sole agent in the local market, and they are in Guangzhou to carry out the overall market coordination.

A month passed, two months passed, and the markets were silent. He could not sit still and went down to see that the situation was not good: some agents put some advertisements into their own intentions, but they did not dare to continue to invest because of poor results. Some agents put their products in the counter they set up in the drugstore, and sent promotions for on-site promotion. However, the limited number of single products sold in the drugstore was very low.

Most of these agents operate more than a dozen products and rely entirely on scale to survive.

Another reason is that the customers in the drugstore are basically middle-aged and old people. They are obviously not the target group of products, and the market direction has been "misplaced".

Some cosmetics, for example, can be successfully obtained through the medicine line. The key is that the former has strong advertising promotion, and because of the limitation of product personality and the limited attention of consumers, even if the advertising is not effective, it seems that the new market experiment has failed again.

To build a terminal and see the dawn of the camp, I admire the persistence of Yan Yi Fan's work. I made a deep analysis of the operation failure of the product, and made suggestions for the next marketing work: hair dye is an extension product of the beauty salon professional line. It has a differentiated advantage in the personal consumer goods market. Its target audience is the fashionable young and middle-aged people, especially women. Their consumption places are mainly large business super, and are prone to impulse buying.

However, it is different from functional products such as eye patch or freckle cream, and is more different from drugs or health products. Consumers' attention and demand are not very high, and the effect of advertising is very little. The convenience of purchase has a great influence on consumers' purchase behavior, while traditional traditional channels are widely distributed, but due to the excessive channel links, the product is overloaded with dealers. Because of the complexity of information lag and settlement, the command is not good enough and capital turnover is difficult.

Later, despite the development of agents, they also face the same confusion, so the market operation results also ended in failure.

According to the characteristics of the product, I think we should adopt the marketing method of combination of sales and sales, conduct product demonstration and product promotion directly at the selling point, while the selling point is set up in the large business super stores frequented by target groups.

In order to avoid the disadvantages of traditional channel cooperation, the form of rental counters is adopted in order to achieve absolute control over the terminal.

Yan Yifan agreed with me and acted quickly. First, he chose two big business super companies in Guangzhou, set up two counters by 3000 yuan / month / counter rent, recruited several promoters and conducted professional training.

Each counter is equipped with a set of VCD demonstration devices. The original ads are burned into VCD to play live, while the promoters through the demonstration of personal products to achieve the purpose of gathering, and then promote and let customers free experience.

The new marketing mode achieved instant results, and the two counters sold more than 20 units on the first day.

Customers feel that this mode of sales is relatively new, and feel that the price of products is very good. Most buyers are buying in the spirit of trying, and some have bought friends to buy them. The brand influence has expanded rapidly. Beauty salons within a few kilometers around have sent people to reconnaissance, trying to figure out what exactly is causing their customers to drop.

Promoters are also very confident with their products and are very passionate about their work.

By the end of the month, each counter had an average sale of 200 yuan, with sales exceeding twenty thousand yuan. After eliminating the cost of sales, wages and rents, a counter could achieve nearly $10000 profit, far exceeding the expected effect.

Together with the staff to make a big cake Yan Yifan first battle victory, and opened several counters, the effect is also ideal.

At this time, under the pressure of sales tasks, Yan Yifan faced with problems such as market expansion, investment risk and management difficulty.

I analyze it: the self marketing terminal mode has been successful, and it can be replicated in batches and rapidly expand the market scale.

However, the disadvantages of self operated terminals, such as management difficulty and market risk, are becoming more and more prominent, and the speed of expansion is very limited.

In order to solve this contradiction, the promoters can be developed into agents on the premise of voluntarily, and they set up counters on their own, and the two sides only settle at the bottom price.

Unlike ordinary agents, their own experience has witnessed success and mastered the keys to success, almost risk-free business. We are not selling products to them, but passing a success.

As an agent, there is almost no threshold. As long as the funds of the renting counters can be put into operation, the products can enter the fast sales according to the sales situation, and realize the profit of the month. If they are confident of success after they succeed, they can continue to apply for additional counters, so that we can achieve the expansion of fission.

Yan Yifan announced his new deal to his employees, which immediately aroused the cheers of the staff, and three people were asked to become agents on the spot.

When they became happy agents, they soon succeeded. They kept asking for new counters, and their employees slowly joined the ranks of agents.

At present, Yan Yifan has already owned more than 40 counters, and he is finally able to get close to success.

The advantages of self built channels have been clearly reflected here. Yan Yi fan has created a unique closed sales network through his own product sales mode. The agents have become his children, and everyone has become a brotherhood who eats a pot of rice in a boat. As regards the key issues such as loyalty, coordination, credibility and operation capability of the channel members, it has been perfectly solved, and it is difficult for marketing to do so.

The author specializes in marketing strategy planning, regional competition strategy, brand strategy management, integrated marketing communication, product listing strategy, marketing system diagnosis, business investment strategy and marketing training.

At present, bottled grain provides long-term advisory services and short-term project cooperation for enterprises in Guangzhou.

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