The Importance Of Branding According To A Food Marketing Agency
When it comes to getting people to buy your food product, you’ve got a lot of competition out there. Gone are the days where you had to work around the food available to you. Nowadays, the world truly is your oyster (other seafood items are available). This explosion of choice has led to changes in consumer trends and what the shopper has come to expect. It’s no longer enough to be selling simply a loaf of bread; not when there are roughly two and a half thousand loaf brands to choose from in the aisles at any one time. That’s why marketing matters now more than it ever has done, previously. The team here at VerriBerri, a food marketing agency in Essex, has put together this marketing shopping list, explaining how to go about making your product stand out from all the rest.
Your Eyes Are Bigger Than Your Stomach
Well, probably not anatomically but you know what we mean. If your eyes are actually bigger than your stomach, then you should probably get that checked out ASAP. We’ve all sat around the table and wolfed down the whole meal, food challenge style. Only then to realise that those extra five roast potatoes may well have ended you.
The same goes for marketing, we can’t help but be drawn by what we see. The most successful food products are the ones with the best branding and not necessarily those that taste the best or are made from the finest ingredients. Not that your product is bad, of course! We’re just saying that the biggest brands aren’t necessarily the finest pieces of cuisine to have ever hit the shelves. Combining an objectively good food product, then, with stellar marketing, offers a fully-fledged route to business success.
With that in mind, how exactly should you go about making your product stand out on the shelves? Well, there are several key things you can incorporate in to your branding to help with this. Firstly, know who you’re playing to – it’s a universal truth that you can’t please everyone and nor should you; you simply can’t win ‘em all. Run through a mental checklist in your head and figure out not just what demographic you’re aiming at; but what subsets and categories of people within that which you’re aiming at. For example, if you sell loose-leaf tea products and pride yourself on your elegance, then pastel colours and a more paired back look lends itself to the sophisticated air you’re trying to achieve. If, on the other hand, you’re looking to market a kids’ lunchbox-filler brand, then bold and whacky designs are more appropriate.
Once you’ve ascertained who it is you really want to be buying your product, then consider your name and your logo. The best-performing brands (that aren’t supermarket homebrand items) are those with distinctive and catchy names, and a logo that’s memorable. The graphic design and content teams of a food marketing agency are experienced at brainstorming ideas for both a product’s name and its logo. It’s worth spending more time on getting this right now, rather than having to rebrand down the line.
Get Your Product Known Beyond The Supermarket
Ideally, you want people to already have you in mind before they even step through the doors of the supermarket. As they pass that hot flush of air upon entering, your brand is what they should be aiming for. Having people decide upon your product whilst browsing the aisles is of course fantastic, however that pre-emptive decision is even better. This means increasing brand exposure through various means.
Firstly, your food product should be utilising PR, accessing food and drink magazines so as to give it a bit of industry backing and clout. If people have seen you’ve had coverage in renowned magazines, they’re going to start taking more serious note. Beyond that, look to incorporate continual SEO work into your website’s back-end. This will enable your product to climb through the search engine rankings with the aim of being the number one ranking result for your particular food product. The prevalence of social media marketing in recent years has also seen a marked increase with the younger generations highly influenced by what they see on those platforms. If your food product garners traction and builds a following online, this invariably translates into better success of the shelves. These are all facets of marketing that come as standard as part of a food marketing agency’s work.
What Do You Offer That Your Competitors Don’t?
The idea of a USP or Unique Selling Point is one of the most fundamental concepts in the business world. What attributes do you have that your key competitors can’t display to match. The difficulty here is that nowadays there are very rarely products which are truly unique. That’s why you have to shift the goalposts slightly as to what constitutes a USP.
Your food product may not have one distinguishing feature that separates it from all the others, but how about looking at your product in a more cumulative fashion? You can market your brand as the one brand that offers all these little things in one, small features that on their own don’t stand out, but together form a formidable and enticing product. With a twist of a phrase here and a sprinkling of creativity there; you can easily make your brand stand out as unique without it ever having reinvented the wheel, so to speak. If this creativity isn’t your forte, then don’t worry. The team of content creators at a food marketing agency will be able to work your product’s branding into something individual that stands out.
Contact Us
Unless you’re one of the already long-established brands within the food industry, you can’t rely on reputation alone to succeed. You need many strings to an even greater number of bows if you want to survive a constantly evolving sector. So, if you’d like to find out more about our food marketing agency, then get in touch! Contact VerriBerri today on 01376 386 850. We’d love nothing more than to sit down and see how we can help your food brand flourish!
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