Sea cucumber is a kind of marine food with high nutritional value, with huge market and broad prospects. People in China have been eating sea cucumbers for 1000 years. Because of its complicated fishing, storage, processing and cooking, it has always been the patent of dignitaries, and ordinary people rarely eat it all their lives. However, with the improvement of people's living standards and the increasingly developed technologies such as breeding, fishing, storage, transportation and cooking, sea cucumbers have gradually stepped onto the table of ordinary people's homes. In recent two or three years, sea cucumber fever has arisen in Shandong and Liaoning. Sea cucumber and sea cucumber products are gradually accepted by the market and consumers. Hundreds of sea cucumber brands, large and small, have mushroomed on the market, and the sea cucumber market has shown a prosperous scene. Sea cucumber has developed the market, activated and satisfied people's needs, and promoted the development of an industry. It should be said that the market space of sea cucumber products is very large, which can be described as broad and promising. The sea cucumber market is chaotic and there are many problems. However, after communicating with the bosses of more than a dozen sea cucumber enterprises, as well as the leaders and experts of industry associations, the game wisdom found many problems. Some enterprises have good performance, most of which are barely maintained, and some enterprises have withdrawn from the market due to sales difficulties and financial losses. According to the statistics of relevant departments, the total sales volume of products in 2007 did not increase compared with the same period in 2006, which made many people in the industry very puzzled and confused. After in-depth communication with some enterprises and investigation of the whole sea cucumber industry, the game wisdom point thinks that the strange phenomenon in the sea cucumber market now has a lot to do with the marketing of sea cucumber enterprises. You are welcome to say that 90% of sea cucumber enterprises will not do marketing! Many sea cucumber enterprises can't do marketing, which has a lot to do with their corporate background and current market situation. Looking at the present sea cucumber enterprises, some are sea cucumber breeding enterprises, some are native sea cucumber consumption enterprises, such as hotels, some are seafood sellers, and some are health care products sales enterprises. These enterprises are either backward in marketing methods and do not understand marketing, or short-sighted and opportunistic. It has laid many crises for the healthy development of the whole sea cucumber market. Summarizing the present situation of the sea cucumber market, there are several problems worthy of attention, otherwise it will affect the development of sea cucumber enterprises and the growth of the industry: First, the product positioning should be accurate, that is, the overall image of the product or brand in the hearts of consumers. It is not imposed on consumers by enterprises, but what consumers think. For example, Mercedes-Benz is a symbol of success, wealth and status. Li Xia's car, even with GPS and cruise, still can't get rid of the image of civilian car. When communicating with the bosses of some sea cucumber enterprises, they have been emphasizing the processing technology, taste and therapeutic effect of sea cucumber, emphasizing that it is a nutritious food, but forgetting that sea cucumber is a high-grade edible gift at this stage. High-end food is a product you buy with your own money, while gifts are specially bought for people, with different positioning. Second, buyers and consumers should distinguish! Many times buyers are consumers, but sometimes buyers are not consumers, such as learning machines and children's products. Parents generally buy people, while children are consumers, such as high-end cigarettes, wine and jewelry. Generally, buyers buy gifts, not final consumers. This is the so-called "buy without using". People who buy gifts pay more attention to the brand, popularity, packaging and value of products, while those who accept gifts pay more attention to the practicality and efficacy of products. Third, packaging highlights differentiation and rejects homogenization! Many companies don't know much about marketing and their positioning is unclear, so the product packaging is just like others, like cats and tigers, either blue-green or red-purple, and then put some photos of sea cucumbers. If you don't look at the brand name, in many cases, you can't tell which product it is, and there is no differentiation at all, let alone understand the product characteristics and selling points from the packaging. Look at Coca-Cola, look at Nutrilite of Amway and look at the packaging of Olay, and you will know how big the gap is. They have their own characteristics. As soon as the brand is mentioned, consumers will immediately think of their design packaging, which is not only beautiful, but also easy to sell. Packaging is like a face. If you can't dress up, you won't have a good first impression, let alone memory and goodwill. Fourth, the selling point should be clear in order to impress consumers! Many sea cucumber enterprises have always emphasized the processing technology, taste, nutritional components and the efficacy of treating various diseases, saying a lot, and many products basically say so, without any outstanding and special place. The so-called selling point is the point to impress consumers. This is a little, not more. A little will make consumers remember deeply. The nutrition, taste and technology of sea cucumber are actually similar. Consumers only know that it is nutritious. What's the difference between you and other people's sea cucumbers? Many companies didn't say, or didn't make it clear. As long as you study it carefully, you will always find the differences and selling points. For example, "white plus black" cold medicines are all used to treat colds, but the principle of "white plus black" "eating white tablets during the day and sleeping soundly at night" became famous in one fell swoop and achieved three sales achievements of 65.438+0.6 billion. The principle of "Head & Shoulders" of "removing dandruff without hurting hair" makes P&G the dominant player in the daily chemical industry in China. Li Jiashou's concept of "treating the heart and brain easily without damaging the blood vessel wall" has been recognized and sought after by patients with heart and brain. As for the selling point of sea cucumber, enterprises can consider it according to the origin, processing technology, purchase and the factors that consumers care about, and must not follow the trend and have no characteristics. Remember a famous saying in marketing: there is no way out for products without characteristics. Five, strong brand awareness, enterprises can be bigger and stronger! The ultimate competition of enterprises is brand competition. Well-known brands Adidas and Nike don't have their own workshops all over the world. They are all processed by others and all have brands. Sports shoes with Adidas and Nike trademarks can be sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, while sports shoes made of the same material, the same factory and the same assembly line are not easy to sell for tens of dollars with other trademarks. This is the power of the brand. Stichopus japonicus, a high-grade food, must pay attention to brand building, because it is a long-term product, and there is no way out to fight for the price. Only paying attention to brand building is a century-old plan. As for how to build a brand, we should do a good job in name, design, quality, publicity and service. If the brand is compared to a building, then every job is a brick and tile, which is very important. Sixth, products must be standardized and consumers have high trust! The success of famous fast food brands KFC and McDonald's is mainly attributed to their standardized processing and services, while the fast food in China is difficult to succeed, mainly due to poor standardization. The hot sale of sea cucumbers occurred in the last two or three years. At present, there is no unified industry standard, including breeding, processing, price and service. When consumers buy, they are mostly at a loss. Some unscrupulous merchants make and sell fake goods and make false propaganda, which makes many consumers buy and eat with doubts. In fact, this time is also the best time for enterprises to grow and develop. First, we should emphasize standardization, such as standardization of breeding, standardization of fishing, standardization of processing and standardization of storage. With standardization, we can gain the trust of consumers, let them buy with confidence and use comfortably, and enterprises can build and master the invincible sword of development. What is the brand? Brand is trust. If you gain trust, everything will be solved. Seven, the investment model should be systematic and novel, not too traditional and single! Game Wisdom has contacted some sea cucumber enterprises for investment promotion. These enterprises usually let their business personnel take a contract and a product manual and go to various places to lobby dealers with their mouths open. Spent a lot of time and energy, but had little effect. The reason is that they don't know the distributors, what they care about, what they value, what they worry about and what they believe. Without a systematic and feasible investment strategy, it is difficult for enterprises to impress and convince dealers. Even if some dealers agree to cooperate, they will complain and stop cooperation because of inadequate publicity, promotion, management and service and unsatisfactory sales performance. Therefore, investment promotion is an important work in marketing, which needs to solve the work of investment promotion process, material allocation, sales policy, promotion method, marketing model, publicity method, negotiation skills, contract signing, follow-up promotion and follow-up service. Eight, the propaganda method should be innovative, and the ratio of production to investment should be reasonable! When it comes to publicity, many enterprises will think it is advertising. Actually, this is a misunderstanding. In this link of publicity, the importance of TV advertisements and newspaper advertisements is undeniable. However, with the increase of similar products and various media, information is a dime a dozen, and advertising investment is not proportional to sales output. Therefore, there are many novel forms of communication, such as news communication and event communication. Event marketing is the fastest and most economical way to attract attention. For example, a small paint factory in Beijing did not have the funds to invest in advertising, which caused the general manager to drink paint and made the product famous overnight. The company's coatings were used in most venues of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The one-yuan ticket incident of Spring Airlines made this little-known enterprise an instant hit and quickly became popular. Although it was fined 6.5438+0.5 million yuan by the price department, it achieved the effect that tens of millions of yuan of advertising could not achieve. Coupled with community marketing, professional group marketing, experiential marketing communication and other ways, product brands will gradually penetrate the hearts of the people, and sales will naturally come. Expert summary: Marketing is a highly professional job, and it has become an inevitable trend for professional people to do professional things. Many enterprises should learn to integrate resources, including products, channels, communication and talents. In this way, enterprises can be bigger and longer. If we follow the traditional model of the past, it will be small and comprehensive, and everything will be covered. After all, the funds and resources of enterprises are limited, which wastes good development opportunities, and it will be very difficult to develop and grow again. The sea cucumber market has broad prospects, but there are also many problems. As long as we grasp the key points, learn marketing and be good at publicity, this industry will surely become bigger and stronger, cultivate several famous sea cucumber brands and build several carrier-class sea cucumber enterprises.