Seeking tricks: competitive marketing strategy

First, we come to understand the background of competitive marketing.

(1) Under the conditions of modern market economy, enterprises have become increasingly difficult to adapt to the diversified dynamic market demands, and marketing strategies must be formulated based on competition.

Market demand orientation advocates that marketing activities with the core of market demand be organized. However, with the increase of social labor productivity and the enrichment and development of material civilization and spiritual civilization, consumer demand is increasingly diversified and hierarchical. Consumer needs The motivation, level, structure, and methods are increasingly complex and difficult to measure in dynamic changes, and the factors that influence consumer purchasing behavior are also constantly changing. Therefore, if enterprises continue to follow the traditional market research → demand information feedback → research and analysis → marketing decision-making approach to product production and business activities, it will not only consume a lot of manpower, material resources, financial resources, increase marketing costs, but also may lead to marketing lag , can not get the desired effect. Without understanding competitors, it is difficult to succeed without competitive marketing.

(b) In modern marketing, the competition of enterprises has become a decisive factor influencing and threatening the survival and development of the company.

The modern market is a buyer's market, and the existence of a large number of competitors makes the company squeeze out of the market due to unfavorable competition. For example, a French fashion company after repeated investigation and design, designed a number of styles expected to be popular in the year of fashion, but because of technology leaks, competitors first introduced the fashion and occupy the market in one fell swoop, causing the company to lose huge profits opportunity. Many entrepreneurs believe that the essence of modern marketing is competitive marketing. It is necessary to study the market demand by studying competitors' behavioral strategies, and take corresponding measures to minimize the risk of competition at any time.

(III) Modern Marketing Requirements Companies should not only passively cater to market demands, but also more importantly walk ahead of the market, guide and stimulate demand, and improve the overall quality of enterprises through competition.

On the one hand, due to increasingly complex and diversified consumer demands, the cycle of product replacement is getting shorter and shorter. Companies can no longer follow the traditional market demand to market demand, but should take the initiative to guide market demand. On the other hand, modern marketing is all-round competition. Enterprises must have good quality, strength, credibility, and image in order to be undefeated in the market for a long time. Otherwise, they can only be eliminated by unpredictable competition.

It is precisely because of the importance of competition in modern marketing that some people of insight think that marketing not only includes the four factors of “products, prices, promotions, and channels”, but also makes “competition” the fifth largest factor in modern marketing. . The sense of competition must be fully reflected in the enterprise's marketing decisions, marketing plans, and marketing organizations. In marketing practice, effective strategies must be adopted to compete and continuously improve the competitiveness of enterprises.

In the two base points of competition and consumer demand, should companies be oriented by competition or consumer demand? Simply relying on competition will only gradually become trapped in swarms of “tricks and kills masters”; Simply consumer-oriented, in the ultra-competitive state of uncertainty will also become disaffected. Based on the actual environment of China's marketing, we believe that the two are inseparable, and different starting points determine different marketing models. Moreover, the marketing model must be dynamically adjusted with the adjustment of the base point. In this way, the root of competitive advantage can be discovered.

1. Select the marketing strategy based on demand and competition

The marketing process is also the process in which a company competes with its rivals and both compete for consumers. The selection of the marketing base of an enterprise and the marketing model established thereby depends on the game between the enterprise, the competitor and the consumer.

(1) Consumers, competitors and manufacturers game triangles

Let's start with a short story:

【Case】

The story of two young men

Both young men and women are fond of a young woman, and they have launched a strong love offensive for young women. The young women gradually feel good about both men. When the two young men became aware of each other’s ability to compete, they began to compare with each other and strengthen the love offensive. For a time, young women were hard to choose. Over time, the two male youths became more and more anxious and no longer insisted on impressing their young women with their true feelings and their own charm. Instead, they added evil words to each other. The female youth finally made their final choice and severed their connection with them. .

The relationship between consumers, competitors, and manufacturers is actually the same as the "story of two young men." Manufacturers and competitors are like “two male youths” and consumers are “women's youth” in the stories. The key to grasping marketing issues lies in grasping the “relationship between each other”. Manufacturers and competitors are competing for consumers. Therefore, it is inevitable that they must compete with each other. The key lies in how to compete.

(2) Master the balance of marketing base points

In the game triangle of consumers, competitors, and manufacturers, although manufacturers and competitors are "grabbing" consumers, it is of the utmost importance to "take over" consumers and gain competitive advantage. In general, there are two ways manufacturers can choose: One is to do better than the competitors' strengths, to surpass their competitors and to snatch consumers; the other is to compete against each other and even add evil words. Obviously, the result of the second approach may be to lose both sides and be discarded by consumers. Like the two young men in the above story, they are not chosen by the young women. Only the first way is the wise choice of manufacturers.

Manufacturers must clearly understand that market competition is the “game of the three” between consumers, competitors, and themselves, not just “games of both” with consumers themselves or with competitors. The factors of consumer purchase decision, or the factors of purchase identification, roughly include four marketing strategy elements such as product, brand, channel, and price (although the service is also an important factor influencing consumers' purchase decision, it belongs to the product or brand). When manufacturers “snatch” consumers with their competitors, they must select one of the above factors that affect consumer demand, choose a weaker competitor and have an advantage over themselves, or perform better than competitors’ advantages. The core of your own marketing strategy. For example: In the color TV industry, foreign companies highlight the "brand" or "product" advantages, TCL, Skyworth and other prominent "channel" advantages, and Haier is better than domestic companies "brand" and "service" advantages.

Therefore, in the choice of the center of marketing strategy, manufacturers must grasp the balance of marketing base, not only to see the consumer demand factors, but also to see the advantages of competitors. It is necessary to look at consumer demand from a long-term, strategic height, and consider competitors from a short-term and tactical perspective.

(3) Adjust marketing base points and select marketing strategies

1) Dynamic adjustment of marketing base

Even if the same company, in different regions, different market segments, different product lines or different stages of market development, the key factors of consumer purchasing decision may be different, the focus of marketing strategy will also be different. This will be based on the needs of the situation, the dynamic adjustment of the marketing basis. For example, the microwave oven industry. In 1999, Midea entered the microwave oven industry. In the face of price advantage Galanz with a market share of over 70%, and LG, which has product and brand advantages, it focused its market on the secondary and tertiary markets, relying on the second and third markets. The channel advantage of the market level has reached the top three in the industry in less than three years, effectively weakening Galanz’s market position.

2) Manufacturers, Merchants and Consumers Game Triangles

In the super-competitive state, due to the uncertainty of the competitive environment, the performance of the game triangles of consumers, competitors, and manufacturers will also change. For example, in the marketing work, the circulation channel occupies an increasingly important position, and the game between manufacturers and competitors may also evolve into a game between manufacturers and merchants.

In this game triangle, manufacturers have two positions: First, the dominant position. Enterprises control the key factors of consumer decision-making such as product, price, brand, etc. The distribution channel mainly undertakes non-critical factors such as logistics distribution and capital circulation, and the second is subordinate status. The distribution channels control key factors such as financing, convenience, service, customer relationship and other consumer purchasing decisions, rather than the factors such as products, prices, and brands controlled by the manufacturers.

If the key factors of the consumer’s purchase decision are in the hands of the enterprise, the company can choose to focus on the marketing strategy in terms of product, price, brand, or service; if the key factor of the consumer’s purchase decision is in the hands of the circulation channel, The game relationship is more complicated. Enterprises only choose to use the channel as the center of their marketing strategy, and they must be able to make the distribution channel gain more benefits than the competition to enhance their influence on the distribution channel and even control the power.

2, marketing base point to determine the marketing model

It can be seen from the above that companies must tap the roots of market advantage and must return to the basic point of marketing to think about issues before they are lost. This can be attributed to three aspects:

(1) Marketing base point is the focus of marketing model

Since companies are grouping marketing strategies around marketing points and configuring marketing resources, marketing bases also play a decisive role in marketing models. For example, in the health care products industry, due to the listing of any health product, it is necessary to complete the communication work with consumers and the education and persuasion work of the product. Therefore, we see that almost all health products are used in the form of advertising or conference marketing. The marketing resources and manpower are all about the consumer's communication work.

(2) The marketing base is not static and it is also a dynamic adjustment process.

Because the benchmarks will be adjusted in different competitive landscapes and different regional spaces, the marketing model will also be dynamic and combined. As discussed earlier, there is no absolute consumer orientation, and there is no absolute competition orientation. There is a balance between the two. Specifically, between the competition and the basic points of the consumer demand, the strategy should be based on consumers. Oriented on the tactical level, it is based on competition; overall it is consumer-oriented; local or some stage is competition-oriented;

(3) The marketing base points are not isolated, and their balance has an important influence on the choice of marketing strategies.

In addition to the adjustment of marketing dynamics, the balance of marketing has an important influence on the choice of marketing strategy. This effect is reflected in: marketing strategies must have a combination, must ensure the combination of marketing strategies.

Among them, under the guidance of the consumer as the core, companies must closely focus on consumer demand, but they can't blindly cater to consumers, but instead slash the share of competitors, or even educate consumers to realize products or industries. The replacement. Digital photography, for example, has gradually replaced conventional photographs with its core advantages of high storage, convenience, and low cost, and the same can be said of personal computers replacing typewriters.

Commonly used types of competitive marketing strategies

(a) The strength of winning type.

Strongly capitalized and powerful companies can "force research to promote new products to be put into operation as quickly as possible", take the lead in technology, take a leading position in technology, lower costs before other companies, and can also use high-promotion, low-cost dumping and other means. Constantly open up new production areas and service areas.

For example, in 1945, the powerful American company Renault took the lead in introducing new technologies to produce ballpoint pens. This kind of pen was a new product in the American market at that time. The cost of this product was only $0.50, and it was difficult to form new products with normal pricing. Just on the first Christmas after the war, people began to plan for Christmas gifts. The factory made a new decision, vigorously promoted the use of ballpoint pens as a Christmas gift, and adopted competitive pricing. As a result, ballpoint pens became popular. People are proud to send ballpoint pens or get ballpoint pens. In fact, after a few years, the price of ballpoint pens plummeted, but Renault has already achieved its goal.

(b) After the system.

Companies adopting this strategy advocate “marketing with better quality products” to bypass the product development cycle, saving development costs and reducing investment development risks. When new products appear on the market, imitation or improvement is immediately carried out to eliminate the initial defects of the original product, improve its performance and appearance, and form its own unique, special, and new products to overtake the opponent.

(three) characteristic management type.

This strategy is "to survive in the market." It is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to win the battle with big companies due to their limited strength. Only by avoiding weaknesses, adopting marketing strategies that exploit their own strengths, looking for weak points in the market, opening corner markets or operating a specific market segment to provide the most effective The service completely pursues the individualization of products or services, forming a significant difference with other competitive companies, highlighting the operating characteristics of the company and creating a differentiated advantage.

For example, Zong Qinghou, a famous Hangzhou entrepreneur, was only able to identify the children's nutrition solution market in the fierce struggle for the nutrition liquid market. He concentrated on developing “Wahaha Children's Nutrient Solution” and succeeded. The factory started with a start-up fee of RMB 110,000, and it jumped to the 85th place among the 500 best economical industrial companies in the country in just over three years. One of his basic experiences of success is to proceed from his own reality, choose appropriate positioning strategies, and develop new products that have a unique style and suit specific needs.

(4) Special strategies for corporate competition.

“Unusual forms of water and soldiers have no constant momentum”. This sentence illustrates vividly that in the market competition, if enterprises use extraordinary thinking and adopt special competition strategies based on specific conditions, they can also win.

In China, due to the long-term effects of a single planned economic system, coupled with the inertia, negative attitudes, conservative attitudes, conservativeness, etc. that are contrary to the traditional social culture, many companies are sticking to rules, lacking in competition, competitiveness, and development. spirit. In recent years, with the development of the socialist market economy, China is gradually establishing and improving the "unified openness, sound rules, order, and equal competition" market, and is bound to enter the international market. Therefore, as companies in the market participate in competition in both domestic and international markets in order to survive and develop, they must constrain and adjust their own behavior according to the requirements of the competition mechanism, and constantly improve and adjust marketing strategies.