Marketing Channel Benefits

Overview

Class Central Tips

This course is ideal for individuals who currently work in or are targeting opportunities in consulting and strategy, industrial sales and buying, marketing management, entrepreneurship, and business development. This course will introduce you to the concept of channel benefits, which focuses on HOW customers want to buy. This is a critical first step and represents the demand side of designing routes to markets. You will learn which channel benefits are most commonly desired by customers. Finally, you will gain frameworks for how to quantify and tradeoff these benefits so as to create a range of strategic options.

Syllabus

INTRODUCTION

This module will define the scope and importance of marketing channels in the firm's route-to-market strategy. A case example involving distribution of oral rehydration salts in Africa will be used as an example of the trade offs, objectives, and practical solutions that a channel strategist would employ. This module will also overview the course structure and the general framework for developing your channel strategy, solving route-to-market problems, and the organization of the course content. Begin by downloading the slide deck in the reading section to annotate and follow along with the video lecture.

EXPLOSIVE CHANNEL VALUE

In this session, we will consider how marketing channel strategy can be a source of value, leading to revenue growth via the identification of new customer segments or intensifying existing segment purchases. A series of examples will illustrate how innovative routes-to-market can result in explosive value and differentiated product-channel offerings that can become the basis of competitive advantage.

CHANNEL BENEFITS

Overviews the most common channel benefits desired and valuation differences. Provides a case example of how these preferences can and should drive key channel decisions, like whether a grocer should offer an online channel to customers.

AUDITING BENEFITS

This session will illustrate how to use a channel benefit audit tool to guide channel solutions and resource priorities. The channel benefit audit is fundamental to informing decisions around positioning, pricing, and competitive advantage.