Marketing channel expansion plan-channel expansion plan

Step 1: Plan an attractive product to attract investment.

Investment promotion is often the first step to establish sales channels, so the success of investment promotion also indicates that the enterprise has a good start, because the next thing will be much easier. However, due to the limited planning ability, many small enterprises do not attach importance to investment promotion or operate improperly. It is a good product, but few people are interested.

Therefore, before the establishment of investment promotion, we should solve three major problems: first, the refining of product selling points, second, the design of promotion plans, and third, the supporting sales policies. On this basis, enterprises can formulate feasible investment schemes.

The investment proposal must be clear about the following points: first, scientific market potential and consumer demand forecast; The second is to analyze the profit point of distributing this product in detail. How much does the dealer need to invest? Third, let dealers know how this product market operates. What are the problems? How to solve it?

At present, there are many investment scams, and dealers are very cautious in choosing manufacturers to cooperate. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to establish their own brand awareness. Merchants should undergo strict professional training, warmly receive dealers without losing their discretion, and use standardized reception terms.

Dealers who usually have ideas or want to make a difference pay more attention to the following five points, which attract the attention of enterprises in investment planning: first, the strength of enterprises; Second, the quality of enterprise marketing managers; The third is the operability of the promotion scheme; Fourth, the market demand and potential of products; The fifth is the profitability of operating products.

The success of investment promotion is inseparable from sensational investment promotion advertisements. However, the phenomenon of excessive exaggeration and empty boasting is widespread in the investment advertisements seen in the media at present. Small enterprises should be realistic, simply state their weaknesses, make clear their determination, and strive for the attention of dealers. Sometimes advertisements that exaggerate the market effect can only attract pure speculators, while real advertisements will attract dealers who pay attention to business ethics.

Step 2: Choose the right dealer.

Distributor is the only pillar for the survival and development of small enterprise products in the market. Due to the lack of economic ability, it is impossible to take the initiative in the overall promotion or negotiation with channel providers. Therefore, it is particularly important for small enterprises to choose the right dealers and cooperate with them. Powerful big dealers are bound to be demanding, and at the same time, because such dealers often cooperate with big brand enterprises, they are often domineering, and ordinary small enterprises are often difficult to control.

Choosing a distributor for a business is like falling in love alone. If you come from a humble background, but you like a noble and beautiful lady, then your relationship is either unrequited love or will end in vain. It is important to know that the good is not necessarily suitable, and the right channel partner is the most important.

Therefore, the dealers that small enterprises choose to cooperate with must have just started to do the market, and their economic strength and market operation ability are relatively general. However, due to these factors, such dealers need the support of enterprises very much, and their loyalty to cooperative enterprises is also high. Besides, they don't want this and that like those big dealers. If the enterprise's sales policy is perfect, it can basically attract them and the enterprise can completely control them.

Choosing such dealers to join us can enable dealers to operate the whole market according to the development strategy of the enterprise and promote the stable development of the whole channel network.

The crux of the problem lies in that due to the limited financial strength and market operation ability of such dealers, enterprises need to be highly vigilant and have a strong market management team to guide and coordinate sales, so as to help dealers and enterprises grow together.

Step 3: Choose the appropriate channel model.

The choice or planning of channel mode is an inevitable step for small enterprises to establish sales channels. However, due to the weak brand awareness, economic strength and market management ability of small enterprises, the initial channel model of the market is more suitable for the provincial total distribution system, that is, each natural province only chooses one dealer, because your product sales strength is not enough at this time, and if the sales area is too narrow, the dealers will be dissatisfied, resulting in the occurrence of regional goods smuggling. Therefore, there is a distributor in each province, and then the provincial distributors will independently attract investment to the downstream, forming a sales network in this province. If the enterprise has manpower, it can help the distributors attract investment and open up regional markets, so that the distributors will be grateful for the help of the enterprise, even if it grows stronger in the future, it will not do anything to the enterprise.

If ambitious dealers want to sell across regions, enterprises can also consider it as appropriate. If there is no suitable dealer in the area that the dealer wants to enter, and the dealer has ready-made outlets, it is better to follow suit. When the conditions are ripe, it is not too late to re-divide the area. After all, what enterprises need at this time is a lot of marketing and product marketing, not rigid norms.

The author used to attract investment for a cosmetic, and adopted this method in the early stage of establishing a sales network. Dealer A agreed to be a distributor in AB province because of its network ability, which made the company's products widely known in the market and had enough cash flow. Three months later, the whole market began to sell, and the dealer was too busy because he was a market in two provinces. At this time, I took advantage of the opportunity to recruit another dealer in B province.

In the initial stage of establishing channels, small enterprises don't have to stick to excessively standardized sales policies. Just like a beggar, they need temporary food and clothing instead of nutritional value, but they need to make a systematic plan for their future development in advance.

Step 4: Design a controllable channel structure.

Channel structure usually refers to the width, depth and length of the channel, and the width also refers to the singleness and complexity of the enterprise in selecting channel members. For example, an enterprise has set up several independent distributors in a province to operate different small areas. There is also a layer of width, which is the diversity of channels. At present, many multi-channel enterprises, such as IBM computer, adopt: agents, distributors, direct sales and so on. Multi-channel structure requires enterprises to have strong channel management ability, and small enterprises are not suitable for adopting multi-channel structure because of their lack of certain management ability. At the same time, it is difficult for small enterprises to control because the multi-channel structure is easy to arouse the resentment of dealers.

The depth of channels mainly refers to the diversity of retail terminals. For example, cosmetics dealers can sell their products in supermarket counters, facial makeup lines and pharmaceutical chain systems. The diversity of terminals can make products penetrate the whole market more effectively and realize the scale effect of sales.

The length of the channel means that from the first-class dealer to the sales terminal, it needs to go through several checkpoints. For example, some products need to go through the provincial first-level distributors, and then the provincial distributors wholesale them to the second-level distributors, and then the second-level distributors distribute the products to the terminals or wholesale them to the lower-level third-level distributors. The more levels, the more difficult the channel management, and the slower the market information feedback.

Small enterprises have weak capital and management ability, so it is more appropriate to adopt narrow and long deep channel structure for the time being. When the market is sold, the enterprise has the capital to withdraw, and the market management ability is strong, and then gradually shortening the channel level will further broaden and the focus of channel management will move down.

The fifth step is the management of channel providers.

The management of channel members is actually a headache for many enterprises, because everyone knows that channels need to be managed, but how to manage them? Who cares? Who cares? Many enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, are vague about this.

It is popular in the industry to evaluate dealers as mothers with milk or mercenary, because any business group or individual, profit is always the first, which is understandable. It's a little too much to have milk as a mother. After all, in order to establish a healthy sales channel, enterprises regard dealers as a pawn in the whole network layout. If we say betrayal, the enterprise will be more than one bargained for.

Therefore, once the sales channel is formed, enterprises should have special channel managers to strictly manage the channel members, including the dealer's inventory, capital credit, sales of various products, competing products operated by dealers, overall sales statistics of regional markets, assisting dealers or terminals to promote sales, putting in promotional materials of the company, and the dealer's specific response to the company's products. The management of dealers not only stays in control, but more importantly, it keeps the dealers consistent with the market strategy of the enterprise at all times and integrates into the enterprise culture. This requires managers to timely train the employees of dealers and distribution agencies on professional knowledge and skills of products and marketing in addition to daily market management, so that dealers can rely on and have a good impression on the enterprise.

Channel managers are usually completed by regular visits by regional managers, sales salesmen and company headquarters leaders. Some enterprises set up special channel management specialists and channel directors to manage different channel members respectively.

Step 6: Perfect channel policy and effective dealer incentive.

Incentive to distribution channel members is a very important link in enterprise channel management. The paralysis of many enterprises' sales networks is largely due to the imperfection of enterprise channel policies or the lack of effective incentive mechanisms. For example, a beer company in Fujian promised a dealer in a city that if the annual sales volume exceeded 5,000 pieces, the headquarters would send a Buick car worth 280,000 pieces. After hard work, the dealers exceeded the incentive targets. However, due to the change of leadership of the enterprise, the new leadership refused to admit that the reward of the dealers became a blank check that could not be cashed. So the dealers held a grudge and planned to rehearse a cargo smuggling case involving four cities. As a result, the sales network spread all over more than half of the provinces.

Channel incentives must match the overall sales policy and fully estimate the sales potential of dealers. When designing an incentive assessment system, there should be an appropriate width. It is too easy to meet the standard, the enterprise is not worth the loss, it is too difficult to meet the standard, and it lacks practical significance. The reward target is too big, the enterprise is not cost-effective, and it is too low to attract dealers. Therefore, it is very important to formulate incentive indicators and objectives.

The usual practice is to set a minimum sales target, that is, a guaranteed sales target, and then set a sales incentive target. The distance between them can be 20% to 50%. For example, the minimum sales target is 6,543.8+0,000, so the sales target can be between 6,543.8+0.2 million and 6,543.8+0.5 million. Incentive policies can be implemented according to the actual number of achievements. If 1 10,000 is just completed, it will be rewarded and cashed according to the completion index. Those who overfulfilled 200,000 yuan will be rewarded in addition to the due index completion award. Usually the excess reward base is higher than the index base. If the indicator rewards 3 points, the excess reward is at least 5 points. Of course, this can be reasonably formulated according to the actual situation of the enterprise.

The basic indicators can be determined after full evaluation according to the dealer's historical records and actual market sales, and it is best to be confirmed by both parties.

Step 7: Contraction in a planned way and flattening step by step.

After one or two years of normal operation, the market has also improved greatly. At this time, if the enterprise has great channel ambition, it can adopt the strategy of gradual contraction and gradual flattening, that is, during the initial network construction period, because the management ability, economic strength and brand awareness of the enterprise are very weak, the provincial general distribution model is not allowed. Because the general distribution model has limited channel control ability for enterprises, especially for customer service and market information collection, it has a great impact. However, because most provincial distributors are used to being provincial bosses, it is generally difficult to shake their distribution status. It is more difficult for enterprises to make them shrink areas or give up some areas. If they don't do well, it will affect the security of the network.

Therefore, at this time, enterprises should gradually shift the focus of the channel down. First of all, they should send more managers to the secondary level or even the terminal to carry out daily maintenance of the channel, and tightly control the downstream network of the general distributor in the hands of enterprises. Secondly, the market penetration index will be further expanded, making dealers feel that it is difficult to achieve according to the existing strength. Then, enterprises took advantage of the trend to persuade dealers to give up local wholesale, and control the sphere of influence of the general distributor within the provincial capital cities without affecting the profits of dealers, while the local (original secondary) dealers gradually rose to the level of first-class dealers who took goods directly from enterprises and were on an equal footing with the general distributors. At the same time, enterprises can also conduct supplementary regional investment promotion on the grounds of new product investment promotion. The object of investment promotion can be the original secondary dealers, or the new dealers in real blank areas. In this way, the task of flattening enterprise channels is basically realized, the distribution of the network is more scientific, and the desire of enterprises to control the whole network is also successfully realized.

Of course, it's easier said than done. In practice, we need to master the sense of proportion, especially pay attention to the strategy. When developing new dealers in the existing dealer areas, it is best not to arouse the resentment of dealers. Therefore, before taking action, enterprises need to make careful arrangements and improve the post-event disposal mechanism so as not to affect the overall situation.

In today's flood of information dissemination or the future of information explosion, sales channels will assume more important functions of enterprise marketing. The so-called channel wins the world, although it is exaggerated, it also shows the importance of channels to the development of enterprises.

Starting from scratch and carefully weaving the marketing network, even an unknown small enterprise can occupy a place in the fiercely competitive market, from weak to strong.