Changes in professional audio marketing under the economic crisis

At the end of the year, China's consumer goods export market, which should have been noisy and lively, has been uncharacteristically tepid this year, and even showed a stagnant situation, from the government, to enterprises, experts and scholars, and the management and labor side, all began to feel the chill of this economic winter that began in the United States and then swept the world. 

According to the analysis of many economists, on the whole, the impact of the global financial crisis on China has just begun. However, many of the enterprise operators and managers who stand on the front line of economic production, especially export-oriented enterprises that mainly export, have begun to suffer. China's professional lighting and audio industry is no exception, especially among China's professional lighting and audio companies, 60%~70% are mainly OEM for export orders.

Export to domestic sales is an inevitable choice

Those who understand current affairs are considered outstanding talents. Whether export enterprises that have been looking outward need to turn their heads and think carefully about how to develop the domestic market undoubtedly need to be seriously considered and make timely decisions. Of course, it is an unavoidable fact that export-oriented enterprises that used to rely on orders and only deal with foreign importers or domestic traders are not easy to transform to China and open up a new market in China. In fact, as far as the author knows, a large part of these export-oriented audio companies are often precisely because they could not gnaw the hard bone of the domestic market at the beginning, and turned to focus on the relatively simple order market with their technology and product advantages, and OEM OEM for foreign professional audio companies. Once these enterprises face transformation, one of the most urgent and practical obstacles they face is the transformation of marketing models - they must make up for a lesson in domestic marketing.

The pace of international brands entering China has accelerated

So far, the negative impact of the financial crisis on the European and American economies is far greater than the impact on the domestic market, in fact, some international professional audio companies in Europe and the United States may feel stronger than domestic enterprises, and their reactions are more sensitive and fast. It is understood that one of the world's largest professional lighting and audio groups, the Harman Group of the United States (its famous JBL audio, Crown amplifier and a series of well-known brands), in the United States, they have begun to lay off employees and cut salaries. It is reported that the factory in Mexico has laid off 30% of its employees and closed two production lines.

Another phenomenon that deserves special attention in the industry is that foreign brands, which are mainly entrenched in the high-end market and pursue high profits everywhere, giving people the impression of "big fish don't eat dried shrimp", have also begun to set foot in the relatively low-end market in the Chinese market, such as in the recent entertainment market in China, there have also appeared a number of foreign brands represented by BMB, as well as JBL and EV. Although in the field of high-end products such as conference systems, they have not yet seen a tendency to fight price wars, but in these low-end markets, the author has noticed that they have begun to show signs of price reduction sales, and the price reduction has reached 20%~30%, which has never been seen in the development history of China's professional lighting and audio in the past ten years.

In the face of the above situation, for China's professional lighting and audio companies, how to go in the market in the next two or three years, it is necessary to plan ahead, determine ideas, and strategize in order to be able to fight thousands of miles. To borrow a popular saying in the economic circles, the author believes that at present, China's professional audio companies need to strengthen their alliance and "huddle for warmth" in order to survive the winter smoothly.

How to strengthen the alliance, from a small aspect, is to strengthen cooperation between enterprises that produce related products, learn to "package" operation, in order to save costs, improve efficiency, and seize opportunities.

For example, before and after the Beijing Exhibition every year, in order to promote their products, professional lighting and audio companies will hold various technical lectures, promotion demonstrations, product audio-visual meetings, etc. all over the country, and each company often has such a phenomenon when engaging in activities across the country. But in fact, everyone is facing the same group of customers, and the resources are not integrated and utilized, which not only disperses customer resources but also wastes the manpower and material resources of the enterprise. If everyone can do it together, integrate lighting, sound, etc. to do promotion, everyone will save money and worry, resources will be fully utilized, and at the same time, the effect of sound, light and electricity will be better together, which not only saves customers' time and energy, but also allows customers to get a better and more comprehensive comprehensive experience, in fact, it is also more conducive to the marketing of their respective products.

The pressure is current, and you should rise up. At present, although there are a large number of professional audio companies in China, except for some miscellaneous legions, even in domestic brands and certain strength, they are often accustomed to fighting for themselves, too confident in the boss or manager personally, or the network resources and relationship marketing network accumulated by the enterprise for many years, as long as the product can be sold, profitable, often in terms of technological innovation, product quality, get by, do not want to forge ahead. On the contrary, the leaders in domestic enterprises that mainly do OEM exports often lack only domestic marketing channels, and what is not lacking is product technology and strict quality control programmatic management. These two types of enterprises can be said to be very complementary. In the past, when the market was good, everyone was in their own corner and did not have to intersect, but in the face of this global economic crisis that has not been encountered in a century, it may not be so good to be alone. At this time, if these two different types of enterprises can strengthen in-depth cooperation, learn from their own strengths, and bundle together, their joint force must be one plus one greater than two, and in the face of market competition from foreign brands, it must be much stronger than fighting alone.

Strengthen brand building as the foundation

In the final analysis, the competition in almost all commodity markets will eventually be brand competition, and professional audio products are no exception. When it comes to brand building, many companies often think of advertising and brand promotion. This is certainly a way. However, what is easy to ignore is that it is also a practice that has special results for long-term brand building: actively participate in major activities at home and abroad. In particular, enterprises with considerable strength must be good at seizing historical opportunities and participating in major activities. For example, there are many activities such as the Beijing Olympic Games that were successfully held in 2008, the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010, the Shanghai World Expo, the upcoming Shenzhen Universiade, and art and culture festivals in various provinces and cities. As a professional audio company in China, we must not underestimate ourselves, believing that these high-end activities are opportunities for foreign brand companies, and we can only take a look and talk about it, and do not participate. In fact, as long as there is a glimmer of opportunity, as long as we can win three or five of them, we should actively participate, because by participating in these major activities, we can not only enhance our own brand, establish the long-term brand image of the enterprise, but also participate in these construction practices, effectively improve our product technology and quality level, and establish our own core competitiveness. And these cannot be achieved simply by advertising. In fact, at present, there are pioneers in our domestic enterprises who have successfully made such attempts, such as Ruifeng Audio, which has successfully participated in the sound construction of the Nanjing National Games, the Beijing Olympic Bird's Nest and other Olympic venues, as well as the Guangzhou Asian Games venue project in 2010, etc., and successfully established its own brand image.

Of course, the methods of enterprise brand building are definitely more than the ones listed above, and each enterprise must also carry out different plans according to its own strength and product characteristics. But enterprises do things like people, the so-called everything is done in thought, and the building of the brand itself is a difficult thing, but if it is accidentally destroyed, it is often only in the imminent moment. If the enterprise finally establishes a well-known and highly reputable brand through various methods, it must pay attention to maintaining its brand image at all times, ensuring its product quality, and maintaining customers' high trust in its own products.

Strengthen confidence to tide over difficulties together

There is probably a theory in economics that public confidence will determine the direction of the economy. Economists point out that when the vast majority of market participants believe that the economy will deteriorate (psychological expectation) and thus make their own conservative consumption and investment choices (action), the overall economy of society will truly depress and deteriorate. And when people don't think so or their psychological expectations are not so pessimistic, the overall direction of the economy will also change. In fact, this is especially evident in the stock market. Once investors are seriously disappointed and wait-and-see in the market, the direction of the stock market will be bleak, and once everyone is optimistic about the future market trend, even if the fundamentals of listed companies do not change, the market situation will improve with the psychological expectations of shareholders. In fact, at the macro level, it is still unknown how deeply and broadly the Chinese market will be affected by this global economic crisis, and the views of experts and scholars from all walks of life in the financial industry are still divergent, and China's official statement has been optimistic so far, whether it is central bank officials or provincial and municipal local heads, they have admitted that the domestic economic growth rate will slow down, but the growth will continue to be maintained and will not decline.

Accordingly, although on the one hand, we must pay full attention to the threats and changes that the global economic crisis may bring to the Chinese market and the industry, but at the same time, we must also remind ourselves that the crisis is both a crisis and an opportunity. As for who will encounter big waves in this round of crisis, or turn the crisis into an opportunity to make themselves bigger, it will take time for everyone to wait and see.