5 marketing strategies for online and offline brands

Different types of brands engage in different forms of street fighting.

01

Just as both offline brands and new brands moved online starting in 2012, the return to offline that began this year also turned attention to offline, regardless of whether they were online or offline.

Online brands originated from Taobao brands. Later, traditional giants basically maintained the TOP10 position by relying on their brand power and capital strength. The rise of new consumer brands in recent years is considered an important achievement online.

When all brands gather offline to fight street battles, we have to ask: Whose battlefield is offline? The biggest possibility is that different types of brands will engage in different forms of street fighting, forming a diversified new street fighting model.

02Traditional brands: fighting a new high-value street battle

They are born offline brands and have been based offline since their inception. These are most likely fast-moving consumer goods giant brands! Offline, these areas are basically big brands + a small number of long-tail small brands. The industry concentration is high, and the TOP3-5 brands occupy the vast majority of the market share. Channel barriers and industry barriers have been consolidated, making it difficult for latecomers to break through! For example: instant noodles, beverages, milk and other industries.

The path for the existence of these brands is basically the advantages of the entire industrial chain and the development strategy under the overall cost leadership strategy. Occupies the top of the industry food chain and is in a leading position.

The fate of original brands: originated offline, succeeded in street fighting, limited online, endangered by upgrading!

Therefore, product upgrades and new street fighting have become two key points in the offline battles among traditional giants.

They can fight traditional street fighting, but not new street fighting. Good at B-side, but not good at C-side. The offline organizational capacity is strong, but the online C-end is inactive. This is a new challenge for traditional giants returning to offline.

At the same time, without continuous product upgrades, they are still fighting price wars. Even if they win the new street war, they will find themselves lagging behind. This is the first key point in the new street war for traditional brands. That is, to launch a new high-value street battle.

The traditional giants are large enough, and the new street fighting is also a protracted war. The traditional giants do not need to rush, as capital cannot create huge waves in the channels. The new street fighting still needs to be fought steadily and cautiously.

03 New brands: Winning light street battles

The new street fighting will definitely be a heavy street fighting against traditional brands, because deep distribution itself is a heavy channel model. When new and cutting-edge brands get involved in street fighting, it will definitely be light street fighting.

In 2021, when Three Squirrels entered the offline market, it proposed to engage in "medium distribution", which is different from the deep distribution of traditional giants. Whether moderate distribution is effective remains to be tested. Turning new street fighting into light street fighting must be the ideal of emerging brands.

If the original brands are the product of the past 40 years, then the emerging brands are only about 10 years old! The seats in the offline arena are won through street fighting, and emerging brands cannot escape this logic offline!

The characteristics of emerging brands represented by Jiang Xiaobai and Yuanqi Forest are that they have Internet genes and the ability to operate offline! The Internet has endowed them with brand spirituality and organizational youth; the new street fighting has also enabled these brands to drive marketing teams of tens of thousands of people offline and control millions of terminals.

The terminal operation capabilities of Jiang Xiaobai and Yuanqi Forest are incomparable to those of ordinary enterprises. Perhaps they can compete among hundreds or thousands of terminals in a certain area, but from a national perspective, it is not something that guerrilla enterprises can accomplish to perform consistent terminal executions among millions of terminals!

These emerging brands seem to have started online, but in fact their main force has always been offline. Judging from the performance distribution, offline sales contribute almost 90% of sales, and online sales are just the icing on the cake.

If the new street fighting of traditional giants is bC integration, then the new street fighting of emerging brands is Cb integration. The core of light street fighting is to use the strengths of emerging brands online to divert traffic offline, thereby activating the B-end.

From B to C, this is the advantage of traditional giants; from C to B, this is the advantage of emerging brands.

04Niche Brand: Precision Street Fighting

Traditional channels are the graveyard for niche products. Market segmentation has been talked about for many years. Why is segmentation so difficult to achieve? The reason is that traditional channels are mass channels, and the last-in-first-out system does not distinguish between the mass and niche channels.

The new street fighting is a combination of online and offline, providing a new way out for niche brands.

There are many controversies about the concept of niche. Many friends believe that the public is niche when it is small, such as cars and mobile phones.

In consumer goods, niche is a complex concept. There is a type of brand that is not large in size but has a high value, such as Li Du, Taishan Original Liquor, and Ubrow Craft Beer. These brands are not limited to high-density possession in a certain area, but use a niche national approach and a point-based penetration strategy to exist vaguely in the market. Li Du Kaoliang Liquor has set a benchmark for bulk liquor with a price of over a thousand per bottle; Taishan original liquor is brewed fresh for 7 days, which has promoted the formation of the industry's original liquor standards; Ubrow has taken up the banner of the craft beer industry!

From an online perspective, these brands have almost no sales on e-commerce platforms; from an offline perspective, these brands do not have much distribution at the terminal. However, they exist really, seeming to be there and not there, sealed and closed!

From a classification perspective, these brands have a high proportion of offline attributes. Our offline presence is mainly in the form of circle communities, identifying precise groups of people, establishing connections, and then conducting marketing operations.

The survival of niche brands does not form any head-on competition with original brands. Instead, they exist in a staggered manner, existing in parallel in different dimensions and heights.

Without offline experience, it is difficult for users to feel the value of niche brands. Therefore, offline experience is an important part of niche marketing. Without the connectivity of a community, it is difficult to gather highly fragmented niche user groups. Without mini programs, it would be difficult for scattered users to place orders.

The precise street fighting of niche brands has three main characteristics: first, emphasis on offline experience; second, expansion of circles; and third, expansion of mini-programs.

05 Online Brands: What’s the point of fighting street battles without organization?

The probability of a brand successfully moving from online to offline is about the same as the probability of a brand successfully switching from exports to domestic sales.

The offline street fighting and jungle warfare will make these online brands extremely uncomfortable and difficult to implement. Solving organizational problems and adapting to the human wave tactics are hurdles these brands must overcome.

It is said that offline, 99% of new brands will eventually face elimination! Therefore, the probability of success for online brands entering offline is the same as that of offline brands attacking offline. It’s nothing more than doing it again!

In the new street fighting, whether it is sweeping the streets or sweeping people, an offline team is needed. Team building is a long-term endeavor, unlike platform marketing, which is a one-time effort.

Any brand can fight a street fight if it has the courage to rebuild its organization. It depends on whether traditional brands have the courage to do so.

06Long-tail brands: There is a chance, but no chance of success

In many industries, there are a large number of tail brands, which rank at the bottom of the industry and survive by relying on marginal markets and garbage sales. The scale of their enterprises accounts for a very small proportion of the industry, and they go in the same direction as the industry giants, just like a bicycle and a large truck going in the same direction on the same road.

These brands are like the bottom of the food chain, and are often the victims of the law of the jungle. They are the first to be thrown off by unexpected fluctuations in the industry. They have little surplus food and very little savings, and they are the first to collapse when faced with uncertainties such as the epidemic!

Returning to offline, long-tail brands still have opportunities, mainly in two aspects: one is the opportunity of new channels; the other is the bonus of new gameplay.

Returning to offline, we found that some new channels have emerged. For example, the growth of Yuanqi Forest is related to the new convenience store channel.

In addition, the new way of combining online and offline gameplay is still in the exploration stage by the giants. If long-tail brands can seize the bonus period of the new gameplay, they may be able to make a partial comeback.

07

The reason why offline business has suddenly re-emerged in the seesaw game today is that while changes have occurred on the other end, the total amount of the cake has entered the game. The tide recedes, the foam retreats, and the reefs are exposed, and the reefs may be a definite handle offline!