What is channel marketing?

Question 1: What does channel sales mean? Sales channel is one of the most important assets of an enterprise, and it is also the most changeable asset. It is the path taken by enterprises in the process of delivering products to consumers. This path includes sales organizations, agents, distributors and retail stores set up by enterprises themselves. For products, it is not to multiply the products themselves, but to increase the added value of products through services; For enterprises, sales channels play the role of logistics, capital flow, information flow and business flow, and complete tasks that manufacturers are difficult to complete. Enterprises with different industries, different products, different scales and different stages of development have different forms of sales channels, and most sales channels go through these two links from dealers to retail stores. In order to meet the needs of retail stores and maximize their own profits, few dealers only represent one product, but have their own product portfolio.

In the past two years, super terminals represented by Beijing Gome, Shandong Sanlian and Nanjing Suning have surfaced and even openly challenged industrial enterprises. Some home appliance enterprises have to produce according to the orders of super terminals, which is an irresistible historical trend. Although HyperTerminal is the object that enterprises pay attention to, in actual marketing, domestic enterprises mainly face problems at the dealer level. Dealers sell more than one product. Enterprises hope that dealers will invest capital, personnel, network and other resources to expand local market share and increase the driving force of products in the local area. Some enterprises want to control their distributors in some way and form a strategic alliance with distributors for common development. Some enterprises even form joint ventures with distributors.

We know that dealers guard a market, have sufficient social relations, have a perfect sales network and have a market-tested sales team. His short-term interest is making money, his long-term interest is development, and his goals are different from those of manufacturers. So what means do enterprises rely on to "control" dealers? The following five methods may give you an answer.

First, visual control:

As mentioned in the fifth discipline, corporate vision is the primary task of business leaders. An enterprise without vision is an enterprise without soul, an enterprise that can only make money, and an enterprise that has no future. Although the quality of domestic distributors is generally low, it is normal not to have their own long-term planning, but manufacturers must have their own long-term planning. Because every business should consider the development of the last home, the market opportunities are limited. I mainly do the distribution of products of company A, that is to say, I probably gave up the distribution of similar products of company B ... If there are problems in the operation of company A after a few years, and company B is booming. Then the banker chose to go home and paid a huge opportunity cost.

Based on this consideration of dealers, on the one hand, enterprises should use market performance to prove their Excellence, on the other hand, enterprises should constantly describe their bright prospects to dealers, which is what we call "spitting birds." The distributor has recognized your company's concept, the development strategy of the enterprise and the main leaders of the company. Even if the temporary policy is inappropriate and the temporary products have problems, the dealers will not care. Specific practices are as follows:

1. Senior management patrol visit: directly let the senior management communicate with the dealers, and let them establish personal contact. By conveying the development concept and looking forward to the development prospect of the enterprise through senior leaders, such measures can make dealers know more about the present situation and future development of the enterprise.

2. Internal publications of the enterprise office: regularly publish speeches of enterprise leaders and local market conditions. It is best to set up a dealer column, so that the opinions and suggestions of dealers become part of the publication. Send publications to distributors regularly.

3. Dealer meeting: The company holds regular dealer meetings to praise and encourage dealers with good performance. The introduction of company policies requires a dealer discussion meeting in advance. In this way, dealers have a sense of participation as a member of the enterprise, and feel that they are part of the enterprise, and their own development is inseparable from the development of the enterprise.

Second, brand control:

Modern commercial society is a society with homogeneous products, and the only feature that often distinguishes products is brand. Brand is the most important asset of many enterprises, so the boss of Coca-Cola Company dares to say: Burn all my factories, as long as I get the brand of Coca-Cola, I will still achieve today's scale. Some brands, such as McDonald's, Pepsi-Cola and MTV, have separated from products and become a culture, a value and a religion.

From the perspective of channel management, products >>

Question 2: What does a channel manager do? In modern society, sales channels include online sales, telephone sales, retailers, distributors, business partners and sales teams. The channel manager here refers to the manager who indirectly sells and provides service support through the sales channels of partners (including retailers, distributors and business partners). This position is a window for manufacturers and agents to contact. Generally speaking, the account manager is the person who directly deals with the end users, while the channel manager is the person who leads the sales teams of multiple partners and indirectly deals with the end users through leverage to create a win-win situation for the partners and the company. ? Plan the overall channel strategy and operation mode, and implement the sales and marketing plan; ? Formulate channel strategy and provide channel service support; ? Communicate with customers in time, feed back market information and put forward treatment suggestions; ? Assist regional manager to develop, communicate and manage important customers in each region. Channel is a limited resource, and whoever owns the channel will win the competitive advantage. Channel managers should pay close attention to the development process of different types of channels, set goals, plans, standards, diligent evaluation and diligent guidance, maintain the benign development of various channels, and form the real core competitiveness of enterprises. Seven habits of successful channel managers: people who have a little knowledge of channels tend to be superstitious about the effectiveness of skills and tactics. However, real channel managers clearly know that it is habit that really determines the success or failure of channel operation. Because channel construction is a long-term or even endless project, it is not enough to have skills, because channels are absolutely needed, and any short-term tactics and strategies are difficult to last. If you are superstitious about specific prescriptions, you will only accomplish nothing in the end. Therefore, channel managers who expect success should remember the following sentence: morality determines ideas, ideas determine habits, and habits determine success or failure. The habit formation of successful channel managers will also go through an evolutionary process from low to high, and gradually improve. First of all, we need to cultivate communication skills and adaptability to make ourselves have the basic qualities of channel managers; After acquiring the above basic abilities, the next step is to cultivate the correct ideas and methods to influence the channel system, including balancing interests, adapting to the overall situation, and being inclusive and fair. Finally, channel managers should further cultivate the ability of value exploration on the basis of the first two, so as to enhance the competitiveness of the entire channel system, achieve a win-win situation, and seek long-term and stable cooperation with partners.

Question 3: What does channel sales mean? What kind of sales is it? What's the difference from general sales? Channel sales means that you dare not develop agents and let others help you sell products. General sales are direct sales, that is, directly facing the end customers (product users).

Question 4: What is channel sales? Channel sales means that the manufacturer or its agent's sales company supplies the products to the first-class distributor, and then sells them to all grassroots outlets on a large scale within its business scope.

Question 5: What does the channel in marketing mean? The channel in marketing refers to the channel of marketing activities, not only refers to sales agents and retailers, but also includes all aspects of publicity, promotion, information feedback and other related channels and process carriers.

For the specific definition, it is recommended to read Philip? Kotler's book Marketing Management has specific explanations and explanations.

Question 6: What's the difference between direct selling and channel selling? The difference between direct sales and channel sales lies in whether products are sold directly to customers through production enterprises or through middlemen.

Direct selling generally refers to the company's own sales team selling products and reaching users directly.

Channel sales generally refers to selling products by recruiting agents or distributors, and then selling products to customers through distributors.

Question 7: What is omni-channel marketing? Marketing channel is a traditional circulation planning task, that is, putting the right amount of products into the right point of sale at the right time and presenting the products to consumers in the target market in an appropriate display way to facilitate consumers' purchase.

Includes four parts:

(1) Business flow: generally speaking, it refers to the buying and selling of commodities.

(2) Logistics: refers to the flow of commodities brought about by commodity trading activities.

(3) Information flow: information accompanying the flow of goods, such as what is the fastest-turning commodity? What products are customers most interested in? Daily and monthly sales of goods ... and so on.

(4) Capital circulation: refers to the coordinated application of the financial system in the circulation process, such as credit card and bank transfer.

Most manufacturers do not sell their products directly to the final consumers. Between producers and final consumers, there are wholesalers and retailers who buy goods and resell them after obtaining ownership. Brokers, manufacturing representatives and sales agents are responsible for finding customers.

Marketing channel decision is one of the important decisions of enterprises, which will affect other marketing decisions. For example, pricing will change with the adoption of large distributors or high-level entrustment. The company's direct sales personnel are also equipped with different numbers according to the strength of channels. In addition, the company's marketing channel decision is a long-term commitment to other companies and must be observed. For example, after the authorization of marketing regional distribution, the original agreement must be observed.

Marketing channels depend on the combination of external forces, and it takes a lot of time to establish them. It represents the long-term commitment between the company and the middlemen, and also represents the company's choice of a marketing mix strategy. Therefore, when choosing marketing channels, we must pay attention to the trend change of marketing environment and plan the marketing channels of enterprises with a long-term vision.

It should be noted that the current channel marketing is different from the traditional channel marketing, because with the development of the market, there are many marketing methods of enterprise products, such as network. Of course, in the specific marketing strategy, we also divide the marketing crowd and place, and choose the marketing plan because of the different products. In short, channel marketing is how to deliver goods to final consumption.

Question 8: What do channel marketing and terminal marketing mean? Channel marketing refers to marketing through specific channels, such as old customers and related households, and terminal marketing refers to direct sales to consumers, such as supermarkets, shops and convenience stores.

Question 9: What is channel sales? Before we know what channel sales are, we should know what "channel" is. The so-called channel (called "channel" by Hong Kong and Taiwan) can be understood as the mobile network of goods. The typical structure is: manufacturer-distributor-agent-distributor-customer. According to the characteristics of different regions, the level can be increased or decreased. In addition to logistics, there are also information flow and capital flow in the channel. After understanding the "channel", it is easy to understand the "channel sales", that is, all levels of the sales network push logistics to the next level and feed back information and funds to the next level. If you are a dealer, then you are pushing the goods to the agent, feeding back the information of the agent and the lower level and market to yourself and the shopping mall, recovering the funds and passing them up. In other words, logistics is transmitted layer by layer, while funds and information are transmitted from bottom to top. Then the work of channel sales is mainly divided into two parts: market development and promotion; The so-called development is to develop new downstream businesses or eliminate existing businesses in the original market; Marketing, that is, improving the quality of merchants and realizing the promotion of sales under the condition that the original merchants remain unchanged. The content of channel sales is very extensive, and you can write a book just by selecting merchants, so you need to accumulate more, especially in the game with merchants. Manufacturers and agents are contradictory. The core of channel sales is to control the upstream and seize the downstream. I hope I can help you!

Question 10: What's the difference between distribution channels and sales channels? Distribution channel is a detailed item in sales channel.

Sales channels refer to all the contacts and channels between enterprises and the end users of goods produced or represented by enterprises. Generally speaking, sales channels are divided into distribution channels and direct sales channels, and distribution channels refer to the channels through which middlemen at all levels complete the final sales. However, direct sales channels only refer to the channels through which enterprises directly provide goods to end users, including store direct sales, online direct sales and personnel direct sales.

Distribution channel generally refers to the commodity circulation channel under a certain middleman. For example, if a manufacturer uses agents to sell in a certain regional market, then the manufacturer has the responsibility to supervise and train agents to establish and improve their own distribution channels in this region.

The sales channel is the inevitable result after the goods are put on the market. Distribution channel is the result of the improvement of market competition level and service consciousness.