Turn Your Marketing Plan into a Consumer Connection Plan

10/14/20 • 24 min

Food Business Marketing | Brand Strategy Tips to Build Real Food Brands

When most people think of marketing, they think about promotion—pushing out your message to people and hoping they’ll decide to buy. But who wants to be “marketed” to anymore? Instead, what if we thought of marketing as connecting?

For this week’s Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Beverage Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva lays out a 6-step framework for the journey our end consumers go through – from when they first hear about your product to deciding to buy it, try it, buy it again, and (hopefully) recommend it to others. We look at all of this through the lens of connecting: creating a two-way conversation with consumers that gets them just as engaged as you are.

In This Episode:

Why we need to shift our mindset about marketing to think broadly, and from simply promoting to actually connecting.
How to think about marketing as a two-way conversation throughout the consumer lifecycle.
How to overcome the skepticism people might have when they first hear about a new brand.
Creative ideas for driving trial and getting your product out into the hands of your ideal consumers.
Why a purchase is only the first step in your long-term relationship with your consumer.
How to turn a first-time purchaser into a repeat buyer and eventually one of the biggest fans of your brand who tells their friends.
How a clear brand strategy can your products find their way into more carts.

Resources:

In This Episode:

Why we need to shift our mindset about marketing to think broadly, and from simply promoting to actually connecting.
How to think about marketing as a two-way conversation throughout the consumer lifecycle.
How to overcome the skepticism people might have when they first hear about a new brand.
Creative ideas for driving trial and getting your product out into the hands of your ideal consumers.
Why a purchase is only the first step in your long-term relationship with your consumer.
How to turn a first-time purchaser into a repeat buyer and eventually one of the biggest fans of your brand who tells their friends.
How a clear brand strategy can your products find their way into more carts.

Resources:

Previous Episode

5 Brand Strategy Activation Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)

Now that we’ve reviewed how to create a brand strategy in the past 3 episodes, hopefully you are excited to put those ideas into action! As you work to bring your brand strategy to life and move into the brand strategy activation phase, however, there are a few common mistakes you can avoid by learning from other emerging food brands.

This week for the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Beverage Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva explains the five most common brand strategy pitfalls she sees in her work with her clients, and how you can avoid them for yourself. There’s also some exciting news—the NEW Real Food Brands WorkshopTM is now live! Visit the Workshop to find the first on-demand workshop called Brand Strategy Fundamentals. Through the workshop you’ll get the step-by-step process to build a brand that stands out.

Note: Katie shares these examples with the utmost respect and love for the brands she works with. She adores her clients and, as business owners, we all do our best as we move quickly every day. The point of sharing pitfalls is to help highlight the benefit of a plan that aligns to your brand strategy and accelerate your progress based on how other brands had to learn the hard way...we’re in this together!

In This Episode:

Why you should go back and review the Brand Strategy mini-series if you haven’t already.
What to do with your brand strategy work once you complete it (hint: it’s not just going to sit on a shelf!)
Why many brands struggle to define their ideal consumer, and how to get started
How to put yourself in the shoes of your audience (buyer, investor, etc)
Why it’s so important to share your brand strategy with your suppliers, team members, marketers—everyone who works on your food brand.
Where many brands go wrong with their marketing plans.
How to activate your brand strategy work.

Resources:

Next Episode

An Insider’s Tips on Food & Beverage Distribution in Grocery with Sandra Velasquez

Sales is an important channel to bring your Brand Strategy to life and set you apart in a crowded market. But how do you put on your sales hat and adapt your Brand Strategy specifically to a conversation with buyers? And what goes into a successful sales pitch?

This week on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks to Sandra Velasquez, the New York City area Sales Manager for Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, National Sales Rep for HiBAR and founder of DistroTalk, where she offers a course on how to talk to chain stores and distributors. In this episode, we discuss how to talk to buyers, and when the time is right to approach distributors.

In This Episode:

Why Sandra started DistroTalk and what she has learned from her years of experience working in a variety of categories.
How to talk to buyers in a language they care about (hint: it’s not the same thing consumers care about).
How to get stats for your product to build a compelling story.
How to find buyer names for stores you’ve identified as a good fit.
Exactly what Sandra puts in her emails to buyers.
When it’s time to work with a distributor, and which chains work with which distributors.

Resources: