The food market is so competitive producers often pay for shelf space in stores.
Everybody eats, yet the food market is one of the most difficult to navigate. In a "Food and Drink" article Fiona Dawson says "We also know from Kantar Worldpanel data that only five out of 100 new products have a market share of more than 1% at the end of year one." To market your new food product, prepare to do battle for limited slots in market share.
Instructions
Planning the Marketing Strategy
1. Choose a market. Identity the customers who are most likely to buy your food product. Research industry reports and identify long-standing trends for similar products.
2. Perform your own research. Create a questionnaire. Ask clients to list what they like and dislike about the product. Ask what would motivate them to buy the product. Rent a booth in a high-traffic farmer's market or flea market. Offer free samples in exchange for filling out a simple questionnaire.
3. Consider a positioning strategy based on the responses you receive and the research reports. For example, In "Food Marketing" Lars Perner, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Clinical Marketing says, "One strategy, 'upward pull marketing,' involves positioning a product for mainstream consumers, but portraying the product as being consumed by upper class consumers. In 'at level positioning,' blue collar families are portrayed as such, emphasizing the working class lifestyle."
4. Design a package with the target customers in mind. Carefully choose color schemes, box sizes and word choice. Highlight the nutritional value. In "Marketing Nutrition" Brian Wansink suggest finding "quantifiable or observable results" to highlight on the outside of the packaging.
Build a Reputation
5. Focus locally. Create a distribution outlet that will allow you to sell directly to customers. Build your own website and lease space in an independent grocery store or farmer's market.
6. Get the press involved. Send a press release to invite all customers to try samples of your product for free for one day at your leased space. Create handouts that you can give to all the people who attend your press event that informs them of how they can purchase the food product again in the future.
7. Take out a small ad in local newspapers and magazines. Include a discount coupon for first-time purchases. Call around for the best rates. Ask about subscription and distribution size to ensure you reach the most people.
8. Tweet your location. Let people know where they can find you at the moment to try your new food product. Tweet four times a day to keep Twitter users engaged. Tweet recipe suggestions for your food product.
9. Ask all your customers to sign a petition as ammunition to use when you propose to the major grocery stores to start carrying your food product. Encourage customers to leave feedback on your website.
Grocery Stores
10. Create a sales proposal to present to grocery stores. Include feedback from customers, sales figures, target demographic information and your future marketing plan. Go door-to-door to independently owned grocery stores. Show them your sales figures and petitions. Ask that they include your product in their next inventory order.
11. Negotiate with larger upscale supermarkets to allow you to give away free samples in their stores. Print a brochure that contains additional information about the nutritional value of your food product, where they can place future orders and fun facts about the product.
12. Ask for a consignment deal for retailers who don't want to commit to placing that first order. Determine a way to track sales in the smaller grocery stores so that you can take that information to larger chains. Partner with food vendors who'd be willing to give a space on their carts or in their stores for samples and your literature.
13. Create an infomercial and get your favorite customers talking about how great your food product is. If budget is a problem for getting it aired on television, upload the video on YouTube and other video networking sites. Upload the video on your website.
14. Go on a national tour. Rent booths in flea markets and farmer's markets across the country. Offer free samples of your food product in every venue. Approach retailers with your proposal package. Get your product in grocery stores.
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