It would seem the hype in the lead-up to Singles Day was justified, with Alibaba posting a record $17.8 billion in online sales, easily surpassing the $14 billion record set in 2015. A startling proportion of this year’s sales were placed on a mobile device (estimated mobile purchases on Singles Day were 80 percent in 2016, compared with 68 percent in 2015 and 43 percent in 2014). And while e-commerce is getting the headlines, the interplay between online and offline shopping experiences shouldn’t be overlooked.

It is the willingness (indeed preference) of many Chinese consumers to purchase on a mobile device that enables the phenomenon of online to offline (O2O), one of the fastest growing sales and marketing opportunities in China. Fuelled in particular by the mobile payment boom, Chinese consumers are increasingly ready to engage and transact through their devices. Yet looking at recent data (eMarketer: China O2O Commerce, August 2016) it is food service, transportation and travel that dominate adoption. So as today’s marketers jump to develop O2O strategy and programs, the big question to ask is this: With current mobile payment behavior driven by services, where can or should consumer brands fit in?

We would contend that brands should look toward the existing consumer adoption of O2O, which has been services-driven, and identify where they too can provide services or utilities in order to establish engagement. To do this marketers must better understand the consumers’ product interactions in the context of their shopping missions and consumption habits.

Here are five considerations for brands wishing to exploit O2O:

Get intimate: By better understanding the target consumer’s shopping journeys and behavior, marketers can establish where opportunities exist to activate O2O. Ultimately, what O2O represents is the deliberate connection by brands of consumers’ digital actions to a physical action in-store. A simple example could be better understanding mobile search behavior and connecting “buying terms” with drive-to-store offers rather than continuing the journey with mobile content. By knowing where consumers are in the purchase path, we can activate the right content to deliver in-store traffic.

Get social: While many brands have done a great job building relationships with consumers through social channels such as WeChat, few are using this engagement to trigger purchase. Brands with great content should look to continue the dialogue further along the purchase journey. Many brands jump straight to price discounts as the most tried and tested method of stimulating O2O, but this model isn’t sustainable for long-term brand health. In its simplest form brands can formulate a dialogue with consumers that includes great product experience and highlights in-store availability. For example several brands in the cooking products category have done a great job stimulating recipe conversations—they just need a nudge to then work with a retail partner and make these recipes easy to shop in-store.

Get through barriers: Product complexity, increased competition, limited distribution, low category traffic—whatever the barrier, O2O can offer solutions for brand marketers to improve the product experience. For example, O2O can assist shoppers through range complexity, which has long been claimed by retailers and suppliers as a barrier to purchase. By arming consumers with the information they need to make an informed purchase before they go into the store, then continuing to make mobile content available at the point of purchase, the shopper’s choice is made simpler. Get connected: One of the biggest challenges for brand marketers is their limited integration into retail channels. Yet opportunities exist to provide points of connection from online to offline. Think in terms of joining the dots with consumers through your communication channels; outdoor advertising that contains a QR-based call to action highlighting availability, in-store or on-pack materials that reinforce the offer and finally coupon recognition by the retailer’s point of sale system. Once marketers get intimate with their consumers and understand their journey, they can create truly seamless and natural connections.

Get servicing: As described earlier, if service-based experiences are driving adoption of O2O, brands can look to partner with services in their consumer’s current O2O journeys. Think about a consumer using Dianping to search and book a restaurant. A beverage brand could deliver an offer associated with specific restaurants. The offer becomes a good reason for someone to choose the restaurant and creates an additional channel for the beverage brand. Taken a step further in-restaurant communications could promote the brand’s WeChat thereby driving increased engagement and further opportunity to maintain the O2O cycle.

Door-to-door marketing is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a product or service to the general public or gather information. People who use this sales approach are often called traveling salesmen, or the archaic name drummer, to “drum up” business. This technique is also sometimes called direct sales. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson should visit.

With the realization of telephone “Do Not Call” lists it is becoming increasingly more difficult to connect with consumers and business people. An emerging trend is the deployment of very professional, highly skilled door-to-door canvassers to drive product sales and brand awareness.

Coordinating, training and motivating these teams to produce results are at the very core of Fulcrum’s proven capabilities. Fulcrum has the knowledge and experience required to implement these programs, such as best days and times to canvass, who will sell the most product; male, female, young or mature and what geographics and demographics respond best to door-to-door marketing. Put Fulcrum’s experience to work for you and avoid the costly mistakes of trying to manage these programs in-house.

Hire and Train Door-to-Door Marketing Team

If you’re in charge of hiring people, that typically means that you’ve found success in Door To Door Marketing yourself. You know what it takes to be great, but now you’re stuck with an entirely new problem. How do you find others who will be just as good (if not better) and will stick around and grow into important influencers invested in the long term growth of the company? A great D2D sales company is a great recruiting company. So what does that greatness look like?

First off, you need to realize that you’re not going to hire a superstar every time. If you think you have found one, be careful. It’s not hard for someone to seem golden during one interview and you don’t want to be fooled.

Even if you think the candidate does have a lot of great experience working in the field for other companies, you have to realize that success doesn’t always translate. What worked for them at previous companies probably won’t work as well for you. In fact, their success will probably make them stubborn; after all, what reason do they have to follow your approach when they’ve figured out their own?

It’s also possible that the rep’s previous company might have had much better-developed training and selling systems than you do, and that system was the key reason they killed it. If you’re not developing a competitive system, what does that communicate about your company? The more dialed-in you are about a rep’s success, the more likely you are to attract and keep strong performers.