How does the sales of brand products come from?

The total market size of an OTC product category market is ∑i (brand total sales) × i (brand market share). Generally speaking, for OTC drugs, the total market volume of a category will not increase sharply in the short term. The market capacity will only increase slowly with economic development, purchasing power, and the cultivation of various manufacturers' markets. During the market cultivation, there are competitions among different manufacturers, so in the short term, you can squeeze the sales of competitors and expand your sales, and you can win in the competition. Before anyone who is doing OTC marketing knows how to compete, must first understand how the sales of OTC brand products come from? Understand this "Tao", to seize the specific "operation" of the opponent's share will be clear and effective. Otherwise, the work of expanding the market can only be a small skill to kill chickens and eggs in the short term.

The total sales volume of OTC brand products = f [product power × spread system and its stability × distribution rate × brand power (advertising power) × channel and terminal thrust]. Below, the author elaborates on these five aspects.

Product Force: First Guaranteed Brand Product Sales

The quality and efficacy of drugs are fundamental. Without quality assurance and integrity to consumers, an OTC product's marketing strategy is no better, and ultimately it is no good. Because the industry nature of the OTC industry is the self-medication and self-care of consumers, that is, consumers purchase themselves. Under normal circumstances, consumers buy a drug at a pharmacy. Under the strong recommendation of a store clerk, they also buy two kinds of products. The synergistic effect of combined use of drugs is gone. Consumers generally use only one product. There is no curative effect that is completely perceivable. The hospital prescription drugs are doctors prescribing 3 to 5 kinds of drugs at the same time. The effect of a specific product is unperceivable to the consumer. Therefore, your product must have quality assurance. Otherwise, it is the consumer who deceives and ultimately suffers.

At present, due to too many manufacturers, everyone has to compete for "short-term survival" in order to survive for a short period of time. Some small pharmaceutical companies in China are not "homogeneous competition" but "low quality competition," and a generation of distributors and chain pharmacies have A brand's interception of branded products is to allow some small manufacturers to break the moral bottom line. What price products do you want?

Please remember: "Tiandao rewards rewards, business rewards", the integrity of the drug law is: "Convention will not dare to save the man-made, although the taste will not dare to save material."

Alert pharmaceutical colleagues: reduce drug quality = killing + suicide. There is no quality assurance or large-scale production of drugs that do not have guaranteed source of authentic medicinal materials. Do not do large-scale promotion, because if you are big, you will also die because the final quality cannot be controlled.

The efficacy of drugs is to do large-scale hard truth. Before judging whether a product can be big or not worth investing in advertising, it must first determine whether it has product power.

Spread system and stability: make all levels of channels and terminals profitable

With products with excellent quality and efficacy, can we guarantee satisfactory sales? no. Quality and efficacy are only necessary conditions. Whether OTC products can be made into large products or not, the second condition is the system of spreads at all levels of channels and terminals.

First of all, large-scale OTC products are self-purchased by consumers because of their self-medication. Therefore, the retail price cannot be too high, otherwise it will affect the extensiveness of the purchase, especially the existing traditional product type products on the market. Higher than others, no one will care. Looking at the current large OTC products, most of them are products whose SKU price is within 15 yuan. Therefore, if you want to make big sales, you have to consider the purchasing power of consumers. Of course, there are also products that can be larger than the price of 20 yuan, but this is not much after all.

Second, and most crucially, OTC products must have a profitable system of spreads at all levels of channel and terminal. OTC products need to be widely distributed, extensive distribution must have an extensive distribution network, and to establish a distribution network, an important prerequisite is that channel networks sell your products for money and profit.

Third, to ensure the stability of this spread system, the price system must not be lower and lower in the free competition of the market. The spread is equivalent to the potential energy of drugs in the channel. Once the spread system is gone, it means that there is no potential energy for circulation, and channels and terminals are reluctant to sell your products. Because terminal price work is a daily and continuous work of OTC brand products, we must pay full attention to it.

Distribution rate: the distribution to the end

The author is often asked when training for some companies. What is the distribution rate of your products in the terminal? The answer is very high, probably above 90%. This is not the case. OTC brand products do not have high-density advertising bombing that lasts for more than 5 years. It is difficult to achieve high distribution rates nationwide, let alone high distribution rates in all types of terminals, such as chain pharmacies and societies. Stores, community health centers, third terminals, individual clinics, medical institutions of enterprises and institutions, etc.

The main reasons for the low rate of distribution are fourfold: First, the gross profit of branded products has been declining all the way because of the terminal price war, and even the terminal price is upside down (the retail price is lower than the purchase price), causing the terminal not to sell; the second is the main push of the chain terminal. Maori products actively intercepted some best-selling varieties and brand varieties. As a result, your product distribution was not in place. Third, channel selective distribution, or channel interception by some manufacturers, caused brand products to be out of stock or out of stock in some pharmaceutical channels. Naturally, the terminal will not be able to buy such a product; the fourth is that the brand manufacturer's terminal is ineffective, relying solely on channel potential and advertising tension to cover the terminal, and there is no team to do daily tasks such as terminal visits.

OTC marketing, distribution rate is the premise of the volume, the author believes that distribution is daily work, out of stock is the stigma of the salesman, we must continue to gradually increase the distribution rate of their products, the distribution work in the end.

Brand power: seize advertising media resources

In China's current pharmaceutical competition environment, homogenized products abound, and the number is large. The petty behavior of some small plants makes the competition of OTC products must be a brand competition and only establish a strong brand. In order to allow consumers to buy their own products, you can force your terminal and channels to distribute your products.

It is basically impossible to build a brand without the operation of TV media. The media is a scarce resource. The price of media is increasing every year. Therefore, all powerful companies must occupy media resources. This is open to all industries. Good columns and programs are not scheduled several years in advance. Some manufacturers simply do not. The use of TV advertisements of some national-level high-quality TV channels to train and nurture their own branded products is an inevitable result of competition and an inevitable result of OTC products. Become a well-known brand, product mobility will increase.

Of course, brand power is advertising power. It does not happen overnight. It needs a strong marketing department and advertising planning capabilities.

Terminals and Channels: Strengthen Cooperation and Increase Push

The first thing to say is channel thrust. The channel is willing not to distribute or value a product, depending on the following factors:

The first is the scale. After the business is concentrated, the brand products can bring profits to the channels, and can also bring downstream customers' popularity to the channels. This is the main reason why brand products are shrinking channel members and controlling joint marketing in recent years. Not your first-tier dealer is better, one more is the price order is difficult to control, and the second is that everyone is very small, no one pays attention to you, naturally it is difficult to grow.

This is followed by the spread system, which means that your products are reasonably well-deserved gross margins. Otherwise, the scale is big, no money is earned, and the commercial channels still do not work. This issue has already been mentioned earlier and is no longer mentioned.

The third is customer relations. It is not that the scale is centralized. The product spread system is well controlled and the channels will be sold well. These two conditions are necessary conditions and not sufficient conditions. Commercial channels operate hundreds of products, and there are five or six thousand kinds of varieties in operation, and some large commercial companies even have tens of thousands. If your business team does not have a good relationship with the business units at all levels, it is difficult to get business. The importance attached. Because there are many other competitors who are doing commercial business.

Specifically, you have to do a good job of the relationship of the commercial procurement system, including the relationship between the procurement boss, purchasing director, purchasing manager, and purchaser.

At the same time, you have to deal with the customer relations of the sales channels of commercial channels. At present, pure-selling commercial companies have a large number of sales clerk who rely on them to sell commercial products. They have a lot of efforts. These people have extensive end-user networks and relationships in their hands. They must go down to the front line every day to develop the market. Add new customers, especially different types of end customers, and they have to pull orders directly.

We must also handle the relationship with the billing agent. Pure-selling business companies have a huge billing system. They are responsible for answering and recording the orders of downstream customers every day, and then billing the sales department for distribution. The invoicing agent is a front-line business person, motivating them and your product can be measured.

The fourth is good service. If you do not do a good job, you will certainly be able to do a good job, and you must also do a good job in various service tasks: for example, returning goods, providing all kinds of qualification documents in a timely manner, promptly solving the problems of downstream customer complaints, providing the company's channels to promote policies and assisting in implementation. Provide regional policies and measures to prevent stocking, ensure the safety of the company's stock and logistics of the timeliness, in order to ensure the continuous goods.

Let's say the terminal thrust. Terminal thrust is mainly a gross margin issue and must achieve relatively high gross margins for branded products. Followed by strategic cooperation issues: such as exclusive pure sales, brand management services, exclusive sales competitions, series of training services and so on. However, it is mainly a matter of gross profit. Industry should select mainstream chain pharmacies to carry out profit-sharing cooperation and increase its thrust.