Marketing is crucial for anyone looking to attract new customers and fend off competition in the highly competitive, multi-billion industry of food production and services. With countless food businesses out there, how can you create the best food business marketing plan?
As with most industries, marketing campaigns for food businesses are not a simple or one step process. The key marketing strategy for food businesses is to first identify a target niche or customer segment. Based upon that target audience, the business must determine what message or unique selling proposition they are trying to communicate. Finally, the business can use any combination of both in-person and digital marketing strategies to communicate their message in a way that is compelling to their target audience. While this is conceptually simple, the details and specific “how-tos” can be complex, and we explore these below:
Similarly, Yoconut, a plant-based food innovation company, targets fitness enthusiasts, especially runners who not only love yogurt but have dietary restrictions/allergies. Instead of focusing their efforts on just fitness enthusiasts or just individuals with allergies and dietary restrictions or even just yogurt lovers, Yoconut found an extremely niche market to target. By identifying this overlap between many different specific groups, Yoconut found their own market that they could thrive in.
By identifying their niche target audience of yogurt-loving fitness enthusiasts with dietary restrictions and allergies, Yoconut can easily define their USP: nutrient dense yogurt that, outside of coconuts, does not contain any of the 8 major allergens.
To Market, a B2B company successfully found their target audience by creating a business that connects purveyors of local edible goods directly to restaurants and chefs. With a platform centered around providing convenience to chefs and restaurants, To Market targets smaller restaurants and extremely busy chefs who need to save time in the ingredient sourcing process without compromising quality. Thus, To Market found a target audience in the form of small restaurants and busy chefs, as opposed to large restaurants or chains that might have a dedicated procurement person or team.
Who to Market Your Food Business To
To create a successful food business marketing strategy it is crucial to determine a target audience. Who is the business for? What void is it filling?
Instead of trying to make an impression on many groups of people with varying interests, a food business must determine exactly what they’re trying to do and who needs that service or product most. By finding a niche, it is easier for businesses, both Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B), to stand out and excel at what they do.
By finding their target audiences, these food businesses are able to stand out, creating a unique offering that meets specific needs of their desired customer base. The niche target audience they identify essentially allows them to create their USP, or unique selling proposition. A business’ USP proves how a business meets the needs of its specific target audience in a way that competitors can not.
For example, Lil MixIns is a small food business that sells 100% natural powdered infant food to reduce common allergies in children. By adopting a progressive and natural solution to children’s allergies, Lil MixIns targets an extremely niche audience. Instead of simply targeting parents or even cautious parents, Lil MixIns caters towards well-informed, affluent new parents who are allergy and health conscious. While this is a specific, and possibly even small, group of individuals, dominating a niche market allows for success and future growth when the product gains popularity. With Lil MixIns, for example, the initial niche market is well-informed, allergy conscious, affluent parents. However, once brand awareness has been found in that niche market, there is the potential for expansion to a larger market, such as all conscious and concerned parents, or eventually even all parents in general.
By identifying their target audience of affluent, proactive parents, Lil Mixins successfully focuses their USP around safe and natural products. For example, they ensure an extra layer of safety by separating common allergens into different powders. This USP sets them apart not only from mass-market baby food companies like Gerber, but also from health-oriented competitors like Spoonful ONE that nevertheless combine all allergens into one powder, which holds a greater risk for infants.
What to Communicate About Your Food Business
Once a food business identifies its USP, the next step is to create a strategy to communicate it to the target audience. This must be done in a way that the target audience finds compelling, in a manner that is appropriate to the brand, and through channels by which this audience can be targeted efficiently.
Naturally, with a niche target audience and USP, identifying and communicating the specific and marketable features of your product or service is useful. For example, Lil MixIns should highlight their separation of allergens into different powders and Yoconut should present that their yogurt is free of the 8 major allergens.
However, a business must talk about more than just their unique features. They must talk about their overarching benefits that fall in line with the values of the target audience. For example, Lil MixIns should emphasize to cautious parents the importance of protecting their child’s health through introducing allergens in small doses or the ability to possibly prevent their child undergoing years of research, testing, and even allergy shots simply by purchasing this product for their infant. The best way to uncover these benefits is by reading online reviews and talking directly to satisfied customers, bringing to light the specific language that customers use to describe how the product or service has improved their life. For instance, instead of highlighting that LilMixIns separates the allergens into different powders, it would be beneficial to use language from customer reviews, such as “LilMixins comforts me by helping ensure my child won’t have to go through years of allergy testing when they grow up.” By emphasizing benefits and values, as opposed to features, a business can speak to the emotional side of their customers, creating a personal relationship, as opposed to a dehumanized and cold one.
How to Market Your Food Business
With so many methods out there, solving the dilemma of how to market a food business can seem difficult and daunting. However, in the sections to follow, we have listed a wide variety and range of both in-person and digital marketing techniques to experiment with.
In-Person Marketing
The most traditional marketing ideas for food businesses are using in-person marketing techniques, such as partnerships, events, and tradeshows to share their message and mission.
It is extremely beneficial for small businesses to partner with complementary, successful brands that help them reach their target audience on a larger scale. For example, Summit LA, a company that hosts events to foster innovation, partnered with Landmark Vineyard, a wine business dedicated to producing handcrafted white wines sourced from the finest vineyards in California. This partnership between Landmark and Summit was effective because of their shared target audience: young, upwardly mobile professionals. Through this partnership, Landmark Vineyard gained access to their target audience in an ideal and receptive environment whilst Summit gained a sponsor that supported the purpose and message of their event – innovation and experimentation.
Digital Marketing for Food Businesses
Social Media Marketing for Food Businesses
With so many virtual opportunities and social media platforms, it can be overwhelming to find your space and assert your online presence as a food business. There are often conflicting pressures pulling you in all directions. “Every modern successful business has an Instagram presence.” “If you’re not doing SEO, you will lose to competitors who are.” “If you don’t blog at least once a week you will lose relevance.” You must use Instagram. You need to be blogging. You have to be doing SEO. However, if you try to do all of these strategies at once, you won’t be able to do any of them well. You will be mediocre, at best, on all platforms.
However, using a T-shaped approach to marketing can be especially beneficial to avoid this problem of mediocracy with social media strategy for food businesses. Essentially, the T-shape approach means focusing on one digital marketing platform and becoming an expert, while still continuing an 80/20 approach on other digital marketing platforms.
In terms of selecting the central digital marketing platform your small business uses, you must engage in market research for food businesses to pick one based on the intersection of your capabilities and the industry.
Thus, if people tend to search for your category online (eg: dairy free yogurt), then SEO or Google Ads is likely a great place to start. However, if your target market is not even aware that your product exists, it is more efficient to find the best way to reach this market with display advertising and focus your energy there. For instance, if you are targeting first-time, proactive and cautious parents who have a certain income and education level, these settings all exist in an ad display network like Instagram.
However, while finding your ideal digital marketing platform based upon capabilities and industry is crucial, it is also important not to get sucked into stereotypes about what type of person is on what platform. While Tiktok does trend a bit younger than Facebook, there are still millions of young people on Facebook and older people on Tiktok, which you will be able to target specifically. Thus, finding a channel that best fits with your brand and target audience is far more important. For example, something more playful and irreverent that lends itself to short videos might be ideal for Tiktok, whereas something more complex that requires more explanation might be better for Facebook.
After finding your central digital marketing platform, however, remember that all other platforms should not be disregarded. While you cannot be on all platforms, you can 80/20 your presence on many platforms through retargeting. Retargeting is a digital marketing method which lets advertisers target only people who have previously visited their website through digital ads and email marketing. Retargeting is an extremely useful strategy when trying to 80/20 your presence on digital platforms, as it yields high success for such little effort by targeting an audience that is proven to at least be somewhat interested.
Additionally, using an omnichannel approach can also be effective when trying to incorporate all platforms without spending too much time, money, or energy. An omnichannel approach is essentially when you create content for one platform, such as a video for youtube, and then translate that content to many different platforms. For example, you could post that video to your Twitter, take a transcript of it for your blog, rip the audio file to make a podcast, or take some clips and post them on Instagram or Tiktok. Essentially, you are omnichanneling the content you created for your primary platform, allowing for at least some form of presence on many different platforms.
Influencers for Food Businesses
In the age of social media, influencers hold great power in terms of marketing a food business. However, just grabbing any random social media influencer to promote your business is not a sound strategy. The influencers and food bloggers chosen to market a food business must align with and reach the same target audience as the business. For example, GoNanas, a food business that sells health comfort food that is also vegan, gluten-free, and top-allergen free works with healthy lifestyle influencer Sami Clarke. As a health and fitness influencer with nearly half a million subscribers, Sami’s target audience of young individuals trying to achieve a healthy lifestyle aligns perfectly with that of GoNanas, making them an ideal pairing.
Additionally, there are many different influencer marketing strategies. While the most straightforward and traditional approach is to pay an influencer to promote a business or product, this is not necessarily the most cost effective strategy. Newer businesses working on a smaller budget can send a complementary product to an influencer in exchange for a post or shout out.
Food Accelerator Programs
Food accelerator programs help startups and small food businesses grow by providing much-needed capital investments that can be used for marketing. Look for food and beverage incubators that help startups take products and services to market quickly. Do they make the food business stand out from the rest of the group? Do they offer assistance to startups in conceptualizing their ideas that go mainstream? Do they have higher links with industry leaders and experts? Do they aspire to guide you every step of the way to connect you to business partners that invest and translate? These are only some areas to consider when looking for reliable and trustworthy accelerator programs that will help you gain a great network across the food industry’s movers and shakers.
In this digital age where mobile phones and social media dictate consumer choices, the best marketing strategy for the food business goes beyond word of mouth or expensive ads. Instead, an ideal sales tactic must capture potential customers' attention in a given locality. One of the best marketing strategies for small food business today is created with the help of accelerator programs giving digitally straightforward and uniquely tailored solutions to scale up the company’s growth.
Marketing Strategy for Small Food Businesses
Whether it's determining a marketing strategy for a food delivery business or a marketing strategy for an online food business, there are certain marketing approaches that are necessary for all companies. A target audience must be established. There must be a USP. Authority and credibility over competitors must be established.
Despite these similarities and constants for all businesses, marketing strategies for small food businesses have the potential to stray from the typical forged path. With similar goals to large businesses, but less resources and credibility to accomplish them, marketing a small business can be overwhelming. However, small businesses you have two major advantages, so you might as well use them:
Flexibility
As a small business, you have wiggle room. You can try something, see that it doesn’t work, tweak it, test it, improve it, and try again. You can even try an entirely different strategy. Thinking about diving into USP? Or maybe starting a loyalty program? Do it. As a small business, you have the flexibility to try. And all this can be done before a big company even jumps through all the hoops to simply change one word on their website.
Focus
Unlike larger businesses, as a small business, your goals are much smaller. You don’t need $100MM sales next quarter. This allows you to focus and dominate smaller niches as you scale up. It is likely not worth it for a large company like Chipoltle to start carrying vegan sour cream and queso, as it is a relatively small market that does not fit into their brand identity. However, a smaller business that is still finding its niche market and brand identity could grow rapidly in the vegan Mexican product market before exhausting this target market.
Ultimately, while being a small food business might be daunting and difficult, the advantages of flexibility and focus provide the potential for growth and success.
