Creating a marketing plan
In addition to writing a business plan, creating a marketing plan is essential for new businesses. Marketing is a continuous function of a company, and business owners, like you, continuously gather information about consumers and buyers. Staying abreast of new market trends enables you to react to changes in the marketplace quickly.
A good marketing plan helps you achieve maximum profits by finding the right combination of product, price, placement, and promotion. Your marketing messages need to be consistent across all your platforms including print, on-line, and social media.
The MSBDC Network provides information on what to include in a marketing plan. It also offers a marketing plan outline that you can download and fill in for your business. Some of the information you researched for your business plan will carry over into your marketing plan.
Promoting your business to retailers, wholesale buyers, and consumers will be an essential part of the plan. You’ll have different strategies to reach consumers. To get the word out, you’ll likely use a combination of efforts. They include a website, public relations, social media, advertising, and sales promotions.
Taking product photos
In today’s visual world, product photography is important. Use product images on your website, social media, sell sheets, and other promotional materials. Some professional photographers specialize in food. A food stylist is another specialist to consider. They know how to best present food for photography and video. When meeting with a photographer, confirm who retains ownership of the photos and read over the contract carefully. If you plan to use the images in multiple types of promotion, you want to make sure your written agreement allows for that.
If professional photos are not in your budget, today’s smartphones have sophisticated cameras that produce high quality photos. There are online tutorials and resources for taking professional looking product photos.
Creating a website
Even if you don’t plan to have an online store, consumers, wholesalers, and retail buyers look for information about brands online. You can hire a web designer to create your website. Or do it yourself with a website building tool. Several affordable web applications can help you build a professional-looking website without requiring specific design skills.
Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress are just a few of the options for creating a website. If you’re interested in selling online, many small businesses use Shopify or BigCommerce to manage their e-commerce websites.
Public relations
As a new food business, you may have a limited budget for promoting your business. There are options to keep costs low. Public relations (PR) efforts aim to gain credibility through press coverage/publicity. PR builds brand and name recognition, reinforcing your efforts to reach your customers. It also helps create a public persona for your company.
A story in a newspaper, magazine, blog, or online news outlet is a third-party endorsement for your business and adds credibility to your brand. PR differs from advertising because you don’t pay for media placements. It’s a cost-effective way to reach the widest audience, but it takes time. Since you can’t buy editorial coverage, there’s no guarantee of receiving press.
You can act as your own public relations agency or hire a freelance publicist. Getting media attention involves persistence. A PR professional works with the media every day. They know the writers, editors, bloggers, and producers. A publicist knows the mechanics of sending out press releases, pitch letters, and samples.
If you decide to hire someone to handle publicity, pick a person or agency with experience in the food industry. They already understand your market and will have contacts with food editors, bloggers, and writers. Smaller agencies and freelance publicists may be able to work with a limited budget.
You can also do your own public relations. After all, you know your business best. A successful publicity campaign begins with your story. Media professionals get many pitches each day. A pitch is an unsolicited email or press release that explains what your brand is and gives media professionals a compelling reason to write or produce a story about it. Your goal is to capture their attention quickly.
After you nail down your story, make a list of the media outlets you’d like to be featured in. Be sure to include trade publications, consumer publications, and food blogs. You can often find contact information in the “about us” page of a media outlet’s website. Sometimes publications include email addresses for editors and writers. Research media professionals who cover businesses like yours. Editors, writers, and producers appreciate when companies reach out to the right person.
If you will have a booth at a tradeshow, find out what media will be there. Send them information about your product in advance of the show and invite them to visit your booth. Be sure to have a media kit about your business available at the show.
Find public relations resources in Chapter 10.
Social media
To build brand awareness, many start-up food businesses rely on social media to get the word out about their product. People talking positively on social media about your products can show a buyer that you have consumer interest. Social media marketing can be affordable and effective. Major platforms include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. Two helpful resources include 10 Tips for Farm Social Media and the Guide to Developing a Social Media Strategy for Ag Entrepreneurs.
Figure out which social media sites your target consumers use. It’s better to master engagement on one platform than put out haphazard content on multiple sites. A key to successful social media marketing is consistency and interesting, appealing, and useful content.
Social influencers
Social influencers are people with social media accounts who have large followings. They can be celebrities, bloggers, journalists, etc. A social influencer’s praise for your product can convince their followers to buy it.
To find social influencers, check your brand hashtag or handle to see who is already posting about your brand. If you’re unsure of what a hashtag or handle is, the following is an example from Massachusetts-based Cape Cod Chips. The company’s Instagram handle is @capecodchips and #capecodchips is its hashtag.
Check for relevant keywords or hashtags in social media search bars to find influencers who post about your category. Reach out to them and offer samples to help get the word out.
Facebook is a conversational platform where users can connect with friends and family and keep tabs on their favorite products and businesses. You can set up a business page for your brand and ask your friends and family to like your page. Use it to share sales and promotions and new product launches, and sampling events. You can post recipes and ideas for using your specialty food product. See how longtime Massachusetts brand Effie’s Homemade uses Facebook to engage its audience.
Instagram is a visual social media platform where users share photos, images, and videos. The site is a great place to give your fans a behind-the-scenes look at your business and share your company’s story. Check out the Instagram feed of Worcester-based sauce and spice company, Alicia’s Homemade.
LinkedIn is a professional networking site where you can share news about your business and industry insights. You can also connect with other people in the specialty food business on the site.
Twitter is a social media network where users can tweet (share) short posts, also known as “microblogs.” The maximum tweet length is 280 characters, including spaces. You can engage your audience with different types of content, including promotions, sales, humorous posts related to your product, and more. Western-mass based Appalachian Naturals is an example of a brand using Twitter to connect with consumers.
YouTube is an online destination for sharing videos. Some food entrepreneurs use it to share videos of how they produce their products. You can also demonstrate how to make a recipe featuring your ingredient. Or you may consider providing value-added content. For instance, if you produce cheese, you could shoot a video about creating a cheese board for a dinner party. Massachusetts-food entrepreneur, Helen Coates, used YouTube to share the story behind her business, Copper Kettle Bakery.
There is much more to social media marketing than is listed in this overview. You will learn what works best for your business over time.
Digital advertising
Some new food businesses reach target consumers through digital advertising. You can advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networks. This type of paid advertising can be effective and affordable for small businesses.
Advertising on search engines such as Google or Bing is another type of digital advertising, also known as pay-per-click advertising. This form of digital marketing can be valuable for food businesses because it’s possible to target consumers who are likely to purchase products like yours.
If you’re interested in digital advertising, but don’t know where to start, consider hiring a digital marketing agency to guide you.
Sales promotion
Sales promotion is the umbrella phrase for anything that helps sell your product to the consumer, the distributor, your broker or the buyer. It can also promote your product to the press. As noted above, your website also serves as a sales tool.
Sell Sheet
A good sales piece is known as a slick or sell sheet. This full-color one-pager contains information about your business and product. In addition to photos of your products, it should include your company name, logo, address, phone, and website. It is helpful to include a chart, which could be on the back, listing all your products, the UPC Codes, weight, and case cube (the measurement of how much space a case of your product will take up in a warehouse).
You can work with a graphic designer to create this selling tool. As with other creative work you commission for your business, negotiate the rights. You want to be sure there are no limits to how and when you can use the creative images.
A sell sheet should include everything a buyer would want to know including product photos, a company and product description, contact information, and product attributes such as dietary information, small batch, made locally, and a comment about nutritional information, even if it’s included on the label. Ordering details for the sell sheet should include size, suggested retail price, case size, case and product dimensions, case weight, and minimum order size.
Shelf talkers
Shelf Talkers are an in-store sales promotion tool. These small, printed pieces sit in front of your product on the store shelf. A shelf talker is a way to catch consumers’ attention as they browse the aisle. You can include information about product use, a recipe, nutritional value, or other information that may compel consumers to buy your product. Check with your retail account for any specifications they may have for shelf talkers.
In-store sampling
In-store sampling can be an effective way for specialty food producers to convince consumers to buy a new product. If you’ve landed a retail account, find out if you can host an in-store sampling.