The shoe brand promotes sales with a mix of market strategies, where the importance of monopoly stores is becoming increasingly apparent. Especially in the shoe industry, a monopoly store can dominate a market segment! However, as monopoly stores rapidly expand, market competition also intensifies significantly. The most common promotional tactic seen is discounting. Narrowly defined, promotions target markets within established shopping districts to either increase existing brand sales or offer discounts on current offerings. But promotion content and quality vary: not just deep discounts or free gifts, but maintaining competitive pricing at all times - if you offer 80% off, I'll offer 70%; if you buy 100 and get 60, I'll do buy 100 get 100, etc. Traditional methods include putting up banners at store entrances or sticking posters inside the showroom advertising discounts like "70% off" or "buy 100 get X." Many people simply equate promotion with discounting and giving away items.
So, how should we approach promotional activities for a shoe monopoly store? Common tactics like discounting and giveaways often don't yield significant results. Where does the problem lie? A well-run shoe monopoly store conducting a promotional activity should have a clear purpose first: why are we promoting? Is it to mold the brand? Increase sales? Clear old inventory? Or enhance reputation? Different purposes require different operational skills and presentation methods. Under usual circumstances, there are three familiar objectives for shoe promotions:
1. Develop and strengthen the consumer base.
2. Process inventory.
3. Mold the brand.
1. Developing and strengthening the consumer base:
In today's highly competitive market environment, many promotions focus on sales feedback without targeting specific consumer groups, leading to resource waste and ineffective promotions. Promotions aimed at consumers can vary. For example, cheap shoes might target:
- Brand loyal customers,
- Existing customer communities,
- Potential new customer communities that need development.
2. Brand molding:
Promotional activities aimed at molding the brand are usually planned by the company or regional (large area) headquarters, such as during important festivals like May Day, National Day, New Year's Day, Chinese New Year, etc. These events attract more large target customers to consume during these holidays, increasing brand awareness and influence. Ways to strengthen the existing customer community include holiday phone calls, text messages with greetings, VIP card benefits for various activities, special offers for members, etc. Developing new targeted customer communities is necessary because as the market continues to细分and thin out, the quasi-customer consumption community also becomes more distinctive in terms of space and capacity, continuously expanding in the market. This represents not only a growth point but also an entirely new consumption market, presenting us with a new challenge in promotions.
3. Handling stock:
For a monopoly store selling branded shoes, this can be like a double-edged sword. If a promotion is developed to handle stock, it could directly impact the brand. In recent years, brands handling stock through various means include setting up brand discount stores and processing counters in certain areas and markets. Products difficult to sell in advance are redirected to brand discount stores and processing counters. For instance, women’s sandals typically hit the market in mid-April each year; if goods cannot be sold by May, they should be pushed toward brand discount stores and processing counters to avoid stockpiling. Some lower-tier brands use exhibitions and rural markets to handle stock. Factories with larger quantities of deferred stock might directly redirect them for export at lower prices, possibly resulting in slight business losses but saving time, energy, and resources. A creative example is the Red Dragonfly Group currently helping national monopoly stores, which organizes a "Red Qing Yan Shoe Culture Cruise Exhibition" event year-round without interruption. Not only does it display corporate image and establish the brand, but it also helps sell thousands of pairs of stock shoes daily, achieving two goals at once.
Secondly, promotional activity themes:
Regardless of whether your promotional activity is for the brand, sales, or stock processing, creativity in the promotion theme is essential. As the Red Dragonfly Group's "Shoe Culture Cruise Exhibition" demonstrates, this is no longer just a concrete promotional operation but expands public relations publicity for the Red Dragonfly Group in a unique mode. The result achieved is that people think of the Red Dragonfly upon seeing "Shoe Culture Cruise Exhibition" and vice versa.
Another classic creative example was the Ao Kang Group's promotion from April 29 to May 1, 2000, celebrating Labor Day. All monopoly stores in Zhejiang province participated, offering any serial number ending in "51" to be redeemed at face value in Ao Kang monopoly stores. During this short three-day period, people lined up in long queues to purchase, resulting in approximately 18 million yuan in sales of Ao Kang shoes across Zhejiang province. Each Ao Kang monopoly store within Zhejiang province could be said to have sold out their shelves completely.
Finally, execution:
Although execution is the last step, it is the entire focal point of a promotional activity. Without good execution, even a great promotional idea will lose its effectiveness, possibly leading to failure. Especially in the shoe industry, 30% depends on planning, while 70% relies on execution. So, how can we achieve good promotional effects?
Based on the characteristics of a line of monopoly stores, four main tasks must be performed well:
1. Prepare promotional materials effectively;
2. Train terminal sales personnel;
3. Inspect the promotion site thoroughly;
4. Evaluate the promotional activity.
Preparing promotional materials effectively:
Since promotional themes need a medium to inform the target consumer group, preparing promotional materials includes creation and broadcasting/distribution in two steps.
1. Creation of promotional materials:
Typically, the type of situation created includes visuals, soft articles, texts, tones...etc., required for television, radio, and newspaper publications. For example, unilateral advertisement parts emphasize visual impact, written tone forms follow summer cool colors and winter warm colors as principles...etc.; however, soft article parts apply to television, publication, radio, posters, banners, and publicity lists...etc., all needing to explain the promotional activity theme, allowing target customers to understand at a glance.
2. Broadcasting and distributing promotional materials:
Because the type of promotional material varies and some require coordination with relevant parties and signing related contracts beforehand, such as television, radio, newspapers, etc., confirm specific implementation times, locations, and contents...etc.. Secondly, materials like posters, banners, and publicity lists...etc., need to be issued and distributed before the promotional activity begins. For instance, Ao Kang distributors celebrated a store anniversary promotion in Anhui's Saddlemount on August 8, 2002, with a "Buy 100 Get 100" campaign, doing sufficient publicity in local newspapers, television, and street areas...etc., ahead of time. After the event started, the sales atmosphere resonated throughout the city, with rare spots selling over 5,000 pairs in six days.
Training terminal sales personnel:
Terminal sales personnel are the image directly facing consumers in the factory house. Therefore, every promotional activity requires refining the project, forming unified wording, and training all terminal sales personnel to ensure everyone understands the promotional activity contents and can maintain consistency. Terminal sales personnel training mainly includes three parts: promotional activity themes and corresponding execution contents, POP (posters, list pages...etc.) placement, product packaging displays, and gift checks...etc. Specific contents include:
1. POP (posters, list pages...etc.) visual information placement positions, facing spacious areas or just the main entrance, making it convenient for consumers to clearly see all or most important information.
2. Closely monitoring competitor reaction situations.
3. Checking if the external appearance and quality of products are damaged or have quality blemishes.
4. Checking if the store, shelves, showroom, etc., are clean and tidy.
5. Checking if store hardware facilities like lamps, televisions, stereos, VCDs, and air conditioners...etc., are intact and ready.
6. Promotional activity themes and corresponding mobile contents.
7. Simple purchasing service training, product knowledge, and regulations...etc.
8. Work allocation during the mobile period and related responsible persons...etc.
Inspecting the promotion site thoroughly:
Directly controlling whether the promotional materials at the site are placed adequately, whether the on-site situation, products, and gifts are sufficient, and whether manpower is enough, adjustments can be made according to actual conditions to ensure smooth progress of the promotional activity.
Evaluating promotional activities:
The success of promotional activities can provide very true feedback on the direct influence and response of monopoly stores' promotional activities and the operating conditions of regional monopoly stores responding to product brands. For example, if the activity has already been carried out but customers didn't come in or came in rarely, this indicates that the activity's publicity may not have been adequate or that the brand product urgently needs enhancement in local popularity and influence. If entering the store's customers are many but few actually make purchases, it suggests that the store's product structure isn't suitable and needs adjustment.
In summary, a good promotional activity doesn't merely involve beating drums and posting posters. More importantly, before specifically developing a promotional activity, investigate the local market environment, consumer habits, competitive article conditions, and this product brand's influence, etc., establishing corresponding targets, themes, concrete implementation strategies, and executing contents. On this foundation and premise, each step must be mutually coordinated. The promotional effect's influence, besides returning to the brand's well-known influence, whether the product suits the market, sales personnel services, etc., all have direct relations, and we hate "eyebrow beard grabbing." Finally, thorough execution is the solid assurance of the entire promotional activity's success.
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