A New Interpretation of Channel Functions in New Era Marketing

Channels are the market-oriented bridges for enterprises, and they have channels before they can achieve rapid distribution of products before they can achieve rapid return of sales funds. Only this can ensure the fluency of marketing activities. Channels are bridges that companies connect with consumers. Only when they have channels to pass products, services, and information to consumers can they systematically collect consumer feedback before they can ensure the smooth implementation of consumer communication.

Channels are bridges for enterprises to participate in competition. Channels are not only bridges for companies that face the market and connect consumers, but also bridges for enterprises to participate in competition, form divisions with competitors, and build competition differences. Channel resources are scarce. When a company seizes channel resources to build a high-quality channel chain, competitors can hardly build the same high-quality competition chain. Therefore, the exclusive ownership of the channel chain can help companies to establish their competitive advantages in channels, which can help enterprises and their competitors form a distinction.

Channels are the bridge for companies to connect with other internal marketing activities. Enterprises need to supply products and services to the market, need to give certain prices to products and services, need to promote and spread the brand, and need to do their best to promote more sales. All this The premise of marketing activities is the establishment of channels. Only by setting up channels can products and services be delivered to the market, and only by setting up channels can the prices of products and services be converted into real enterprise income. Only building channels can make brand promotion and dissemination meaningful, and only build channels. Only then can you find a platform for sales promotion.

1. Market-oriented bridge

In a complete market, the enterprise is the "for" party and the consumer is the "need" party, and the channel is the bridge between grafting and demand. As a "for" party, companies have more ability to provide products and services, and they need a large-scale supply of products (a large-scale supply of goods means large-scale shipments, large-volume repayments, large-scale shipments, and returns. Money is the basic requirement for the normal operation of the company) and the deficiency of the company is that it does not have the resources and capabilities that directly interface with all final requirements; the most important feature of the "needs" party is "large and decentralized," ie, a demand of sufficient size It can meet the supply requirements of any supplier's large-scale products, but these needs are completely dispersed, dispersed in different regions, different groups of people, and different time periods. This decentralized “need” is actually not scaleable. The need for large and decentralized supply cannot meet the scale of the "supplier" supply. Therefore, the characteristics of supply and demand determine that there must be a bridge between them. On the one hand, it helps the “supplier” to cover more products and services, and on the other hand, it needs to integrate the scattered products to satisfy the “supply” side. The scale of supply demand.

2, the bridge connecting consumers

Consumer communication is the norm of marketing activities. The final realization of marketing value is based on consumer communication. The activities that enterprises pass on products and services to consumers, communicate brands to consumers, and deliver information to consumers are consumers' communications. These activities constitute the basic content of marketing. These basic marketing activities are themselves consumer communication. Regardless of whether the product enters the terminal or logistics distribution, or local advertising and promotion, the promotion and promotion of activities require high costs. These high costs alone are difficult to bear. Therefore, companies need to help companies to display products, deliver products, spread brands, and transmit information through intermediate links.

3. Bridges with competitors

Competition is the normal state of marketing activities, and competitive advantage determines the performance of companies in competition. If an enterprise wants to achieve a good market performance in the long term, it must inevitably win in the competition, and it will inevitably need to have a clear competitive advantage. The establishment of competitive advantage is in essence the ability to build differentiation. When products become more homogenous, it becomes extremely difficult to build differentiation when the homogenization of communication becomes more and more common. As a result, efforts to seize quality channel resources and prevent adversaries from occupying high-quality channel resources can build differentiation in the channel segment, and can build differentiation in corporate distribution activities.

4. Bridges connecting other marketing activities

The market performance of an enterprise depends on the overall marketing ability, not just the product or channel, or the strategic ability to promote a single link. The reality is that it is difficult for enterprises to have competitive products, high-quality channel networks, sufficient strength, and attractive advertisements at the same time. Therefore, companies need to gradually develop the capabilities of various marketing links. Due to the limitations of resources and capabilities, the establishment of an enterprise's overall marketing ability can only start from a certain point. From the perspective of reality, the channel is often the most suitable link. Because, with the channel, it is possible to carry out marketing activities such as distribution of products, transmission of value, promotion and dissemination, and sales promotion. Only by constructing channels with competitive advantages and constructing strong distribution channels, can we quickly realize product sales, seize market share, and obtain sufficient sales revenue, so as to promote product innovation and promote large-scale and effective market dissemination, Ultimately build a competitive overall marketing capability. (With ability to do, there is ability to do better)

Channels play such an important role in the marketing activities of companies, especially in China's marketing environment. Leading companies can rely on monopoly resources with more limited channel capabilities. Companies with the same strength can gain leadership with channel capabilities, and backward companies can rely on them. The ability of channels to survive is possible. Therefore, attaching importance to channels and building channel capabilities must become one of the focuses of Chinese corporate marketing activities.