Keywords: marketing; Channels; Competition; superiority
Marketing channel is the channel that products are transferred from producers to consumers, the link between producers and end users, and the focus of enterprise marketing strategy construction. If an enterprise wants to be invincible in the competition, it must abandon the traditional and outdated practices in the past, boldly innovate the marketing channel strategy and explore a new marketing channel model suitable for the development of China market under the guidance of modern marketing theory and according to the actual situation of the enterprise itself.
First, the formation of deep marketing channel theory and its basic connotation
Marketing channel theory originated from the study of special cases of product and industry marketing in consumer-led environment, and finally formed a relatively complete marketing channel theory system. Distribution partnership, channel partner, distributor partner and channel strategic alliance refers to a new marketing channel strategy, which emphasizes the continuous and mutual support between manufacturers and channel members in order to establish a more active marketing team, marketing network or channel partner alliance. From this perspective, the marketing channel strategy has become a strategic issue to some extent. If a channel manager designs a channel that emphasizes deep distribution, he should consider keeping close relationship with most of his channel members, not just a few or one. The concept of marketing channel partner (or strategic alliance) did not appear recently. More than 20 years ago, Webster (1986) made a creative study on the relationship between a series of manufacturers and their distributors, and mentioned the methods of establishing this partnership. He pointed out that the establishment of "partnership" between channel members will go through three stages: first, manufacturers must announce clear policy terms in possible products, technical support, pricing and other related fields; The second stage is to evaluate the ability of existing suppliers to complete the task; In the third stage, the manufacturer must regularly evaluate the applicability of the policies formulated between him and the channel members.
In recent years, Webster's thought has been further developed. Marketing channels are usually composed of many companies seeking their own interests. Because these interests compete with each other, channel members are often unable to cooperate, or even have completely opposite goals. The resulting channel conflict often leads to the decline of channel efficiency. Distribution alliance is to solve this problem. Stern and Anseli (2000) believe that a suitable alliance must meet three conditions at the same time: one party has special needs; The other party has the ability to meet these needs; Both sides are facing the threshold of withdrawing from the relationship. The first two conditions are the basis of creating special added value, which is the basis of strategic alliance. The last condition, that is, the exit barrier, is a necessary condition to protect one party from being exploited by the other. What are the barriers? Generally speaking, if there are strict rules or the two sides depend on each other, the relationship will be difficult to get rid of, so all parties would rather invest to maintain the relationship.
Louis? 6? 1 Bonn and David? 6? 1 Cortez (2003) according to the different contact and trust between enterprises and channel members in the process of enterprise marketing, marketing channels are divided into three levels:
(1) primary relationship marketing channel. The basic point of this channel is that enterprises attract different types of dealers, customers and enterprises to establish long-term trading relationships mainly through the transfer of prices and other financial values. For example, a marketing plan that gives economic rewards to dealers who buy frequently and have a stable number.
(2) Secondary relationship marketing channels. When enterprises not only attract dealers and customers with financial value transfer, but also try to understand the needs and wishes of individual dealers and customers, provide high-quality, personalized and personalized products and services, and strengthen business ties with dealers and customers, secondary relationship marketing channels are formed.
(3) Three-level relationship marketing channels. This marketing channel has changed the interdependent relationship among enterprises, distributors and customers, and formed a long-term strategic partnership. Under the conditions of special assets and repeated transactions, once one party abandons this strategic cooperative relationship, it will pay a huge transfer cost. This makes it of great value for the two sides to maintain this close relationship, thus forming a "bilateral lock-in". A good structural relationship in this marketing channel will greatly increase the opportunity cost of dealers and customers turning to competitors, and also greatly increase the interests of dealers and customers turning to their own enterprises without competitors.
Generally speaking, the first-level relationship marketing channels are shallow. Although this method seems attractive to both dealers and customers, it is difficult to establish a lasting relationship, because competitors will soon imitate it and make the enterprise lose its advantage. The reason why the three-level relationship marketing channel is profound is that this marketing channel is not only a means, but also embodies a marketing concept that is market-oriented and customer-oriented, and strives to provide customers with "excess value". The relationship between the two sides is mutually beneficial and stable, bringing long-term value to both sides and gaining a lasting competitive advantage. The secondary relationship marketing channel is between the two. This is the origin of the deep marketing channel theory.
According to the views of the above scholars and combined with long-term management experience, we can discuss the connotation of in-depth marketing channels as follows: In-depth marketing channels are carefully constructed by manufacturers on the basis of systematic thinking about themselves and their industries, with themselves as the core, including agents, distributors and end customers. In this value chain, manufacturers have formed a long-term and stable strategic cooperative relationship and close interest relationship with all channel enterprises, the channels have sunk, the market response speed has increased, and the values, strategic intentions, business ideas and management models of enterprises have penetrated into the corporate culture of all channel enterprises in various ways, thus enhancing the control and management of core distributors. Practice has proved that deep marketing channels can significantly improve the flow speed of business flow, logistics, information flow and capital flow in the marketing value chain, thus significantly enhancing the overall synergy among enterprises in the marketing value chain and gaining dynamic competitive advantages.
Second, in-depth marketing channels are an important factor to gain competitive advantage.
Michael. 6? 1 porter (1985) pointed out in the book "competitive advantage" that there are two basic types of competitive advantage in enterprise management, namely, cost leading advantage and differentiated advantage. Cost-leading advantage refers to the advantage that an enterprise obtains because the cost in the process of creating value is lower than that of its competitors. If an enterprise can achieve and maintain a comprehensive cost leading position, it will become the leading enterprise in its industry. As long as its price is equal to or close to the average price level of products in this industry, its low-cost competitive advantage will be transformed into high-yield realistic returns.
Differentiated advantage means that enterprises strive to develop and produce unique products and services according to a certain demand widely valued by target customers, which is unique in the industry and forms its uniqueness in the process of production and operation. Through its unique production and operation activities, enterprises meet the needs of target customers in a clever way and get premium returns.
Competitive advantage comes from many interrelated activities carried out by enterprises in the process of creating value, such as product design, production, marketing and logistics. Each of these activities helps to consolidate the relative cost position of the enterprise and lay the foundation for its unique image. Channel management and commodity distribution activities are important components of enterprise marketing. Marketing channels and their functions are the key links in the product value chain and an important means for enterprises to gain a certain market competitive advantage. These competitive advantages mainly include:
The cost of product distribution comes from the cost behavior of its value activities, and the cost behavior is often influenced by some cost drivers. The main driving factors that can determine the cost advantage of commodity distribution channels are:
1. Advantages of economies of scale and distribution cost. Various value activities, including distribution, are often subject to economies of scale or diseconomies of scale. Economies of scale arise from the ability to carry out a wider range of activities in different ways and more efficiently, or from the ability to share intangible costs, such as advertising fees from larger sales, or from the fact that with the expansion of an activity, the growth of infrastructure or indirect costs required to support it is lower than its expansion rate. Therefore, when the deep marketing channel has higher product distribution efficiency than any other form of circulation organization or channel because of its huge value chain synergy, it is obvious that the benefits of economies of scale can be obtained through this new channel model and higher distribution rate.
In addition, in the deep marketing channels, the selection and layout of each channel and its members are based on the demand characteristics, demand potential and profit scale of a specific target market. Therefore, each channel and its members are sensitive to the scale of its target market, and take corresponding cost behaviors, so as to obtain the economies of scale of this channel, and then realize the economies of scale of the entire distribution channel. Finally, the assimilation of some activities of deep marketing channels, such as information services and logistics services, also reflects the requirements of economies of scale. With the expansion of distribution scale, the utilization efficiency of information service and logistics infrastructure can be greatly improved without increasing a lot of investment.
2. Interconnection and cost advantage. The cost of a value activity is often affected by the implementation of other activities. Interconnection can be divided into various value activities within enterprises and vertical connection between enterprises and suppliers and marketing channels. Through the coordination and optimization of interrelated value activities, the total cost of interrelated activities can be reduced, thus making it a potential effective source of cost advantage. For example, the coordination between production and sales of enterprises can reduce the demand for inventory. Inventory is a typical expression of the relationship between various value activities, and it is very possible to reduce inventory by improving the management of this relationship.
In-depth marketing channel is formed by coordinating and optimizing the vertical relationship among production enterprises, middlemen and end users. Because channel members have the same interests to some extent, they can coordinate and optimize interrelated activities, thus reducing the distribution cost of channels and gaining cost advantages. For example, if the supply frequency and timeliness of production enterprises are related to the inventory of each channel member, we should optimize this relationship from the overall interests of the channel to minimize the total cost of the two.
3. Relationship and cost advantage. There are also various relationships between enterprises and other related business units that affect costs. The most important relationship is that when a certain value activity is used together, it can affect their relationship. For example, American medical equipment supply companies found that sharing an order processing system and sales organization with many units that produce medical supplies can greatly increase costs; Sears, Wal-Mart and other enterprises can become the same distribution system for many manufacturing enterprises.
Sharing a value activity can improve the utilization efficiency of the activity's production and operation ability, thus gaining a leading position in cost. This shows that any kind of commodity distribution channel is not an exclusive system during its formation and operation, but an open system that can be enjoyed by several enterprises. The deep marketing channel system is such an open system. Through the sharing of this open system, the operational efficiency of the channel can be greatly improved, which not only improves the input-output ratio of the channel, but also reduces the cost of sharing enterprises.
In addition, because the geographical distribution of channel members and other factors are also the driving factors that affect the cost of distribution channels, enterprises adopting in-depth marketing channel model attach great importance to geographical distribution as a cost factor when choosing dealer partners, and regard it as another potential source of cost advantage.
The advantage of differentiation is that enterprises can provide some unique and valuable products or services to customers, thus distinguishing themselves from competitors. Differences enable enterprises to control the premium, so as to sell more products and services at a certain value, or gain trust and other benefits in the cyclical and seasonal economic downturn. If the premium obtained by the enterprise is higher than the extra cost caused by its uniqueness, the company will get higher benefits. Any kind of value creation activity of an enterprise can play a role in realizing its unique competitive advantage. In-depth marketing channels can provide uniqueness for enterprises in many aspects, so that enterprises can gain unique advantages. These uniqueness are shown in:
1. The uniqueness of in-depth marketing channel efficiency. This uniqueness is reflected in the simplification of transaction process, the improvement of transaction speed and the expansion of market scale through distribution. In the marketing channel, members should reasonably divide their work and cooperate, and strengthen the trading relationship among members through the forms of property right control, contract maintenance and management support, thus greatly simplifying the trading times and procedures in the process of commodity trading, forming a smooth circulation channel and greatly improving the speed of commodity distribution. With the establishment of deep marketing channels and the extension of marketing network, the distribution channel space is expanding day by day, which can cover more and better market space, thus expanding the market share scale of enterprises.
2. In-depth marketing channels can meet the uniqueness of customer needs. The formation of members and channels in marketing channels is determined by market demand. Members and channels form a reasonable division of labor and cooperation relationship according to market demand, and supply and distribute goods according to different market demands and different market segments, so that consumers and users with different needs can obtain goods in time and satisfactorily. That is, the organizational form of commodity circulation is unique.
3. The uniqueness of the organizational form of deep marketing channels. This uniqueness lies in its diversity, dynamics and controllability. In the actual operation process, in-depth marketing channels rely on and use various forms and means including property rights, legal contracts, management, horizontal alliances and interpersonal institutional relations to strengthen and connect the trading relationship among channel members and make it long-term, thus diversifying the organizational forms of distribution channels, showing a variety of organizational forms such as loose, corporate, contractual, management, * * and mixed (comprehensive). These organizations are not fixed, but constantly adjust and change with the changes of enterprises, markets and environmental conditions. Their fundamental purpose is to effectively sell goods and meet the needs of consumers. More importantly, the in-depth marketing channel has become a whole, undertaking the distribution function in the whole distribution process from production to consumption. Channel members are no longer in a fragmented situation, with consistent interests and various mutual constraints, so they are controllable and can be distributed as a whole according to a unified goal.
A deep understanding of the relationship between in-depth marketing channel and enterprise competitive advantage is of great significance for us to formulate enterprise marketing channel strategy from the perspective of competitive strategy and closely combine marketing channel strategy with enterprise strategic objectives.
Thirdly, the enlightenment of deep marketing channel theory to enterprise marketing practice.
Deep marketing channel is an important innovation in theory and practice of enterprise marketing management. The development and change of market economy requires enterprises to re-understand and think about marketing channels, and reset the original channel organization and structure according to specific conditions, so as to change the original single and rigid channel form into a more diversified, flexible and adaptable channel form. Specifically, in-depth marketing channels can give us profound enlightenment from the following aspects:
1. Enlightenment of optimizing channel management mode. The establishment, development and innovation of marketing channels are important sources of core competitiveness of enterprises, not just a function and daily operation of marketing management. The innovation of marketing channels can enhance the core competitive advantage of enterprises, so that enterprises can always maintain the ability of effective survival and development in the fierce market competition.
In the rapidly changing environment, enterprises are faced with great uncertainty. In terms of dealers, they may lower the purchase price at any time according to market conditions, which will make enterprises pay higher costs, and they may also turn to more favorable manufacturers, which will make enterprises have to pay the cost and uncertainty of replacing dealers, especially because of uncertainty, which will interrupt sales and dry up cash flow, which will make enterprises face great risks. Enterprises can restrain dealers' behavior through supply contracts, but this binding force is very limited under certain circumstances. This kind of demand change caused by dealers often makes the production of enterprises in an unstable state, or the supply is insufficient or a large amount of surplus, which is difficult to predict.
In-depth marketing channel theory provides an effective way to solve the above complexity. In order to overcome the negative impact of uncertainty on enterprises, enterprises may choose a compromise between one-time transactions and internal transactions-long-term, repeated transactions. One-time transaction is a typical market behavior, while internal transaction is a planned organization within the enterprise. Long-term relationship transaction can just overcome the shortcomings of these two mechanisms, which is flexible and efficient. The deep marketing channel model is an effective way to allocate resources between the market price mechanism and the administrative means of bureaucratic organizations.
2. Enlightenment of enhancing the function of marketing channels. In traditional marketing management, the functions of marketing channels mainly include: classification, sorting, matching, warehousing, transportation and so on. With the progress of information technology and the development of marketing concepts, marketing channels play the role of information search and transmission media between producers and final consumers. These functions include: research, promotion, contact, negotiation, financing and taking risks; With the emergence of the buyer's market in China, the position of customers in the trading market is gradually rising, and another independent function of channels, namely service, is becoming more and more important in modern marketing.
In-depth marketing channels can effectively use external resources and enhance the functions of marketing channels. The resources of a single enterprise are limited, and enterprises must have the ability to obtain external resources. At the same time, in the rapidly changing environment, enterprises have all the resources they need, which also makes them lose their flexibility. In order to solve the contradiction between the limited internal resources and the flexibility of enterprise management, enterprises have turned from relying on their own resources in isolation to establishing relationships. The deep marketing channel model has advantages in improving the speed of new product development, establishing entry barriers and complementing capabilities.
3. Get more enlightenment about the channel value. The construction of marketing channels must take customer demand as the starting point and guide the whole marketing process. As a new channel model driven by customers' needs, deep marketing channel is more attractive and competitive by integrating the activities of manufacturers and distributors to meet customers' needs with the lowest cost, the fastest speed and the best service.