Consumers and customers-do you know the difference?
A successful food and beverage business must satisfy two stakeholders:
Consumers and customers
Consumers are the people who use your products. They are the end user who put your products in their shopping cart and take them home to eat, drink or use them with family and friends.
Customers are the businesses who purchase your products from you. They put your product on their shelf and usually issue a purchase order and pay you.
If you are selling direct, your customers and consumers are one in the same.
Our experience has been many food and beverage businesses focus a lot more on the consumer. It is usually more rewarding and retailers and distributors can be challenging to work with. Your business really does need to be set up to do the following:
- Understand who are your consumers and customers
- Define the needs of your consumers and customers
- Measure the job you are doing to satisfy their needs
Understanding your consumers and customers
You should have a good definition of your target market consumer and who your customers are. You need to know both groups better than anyone.
Understanding your target market is the foundation of your marketing strategy. You need to know who these people are so you can develop effective promotion strategies. These are the people you should test your packaging with and develop creative social media that will resonate with them. No product appeals to all consumers, not even the big brands. You can learn about your consumers from your online community, watching them in stores and following industry trends.
You also need to understand your customers. Every retailer or distributor is different. They are all selling food and beverage, but they have their own way of doing it. Visit the stores to make sure you are clear on the messages they communicate to consumers. Your products need to support these messages. Visit their website regularly to see what they are saying as a business. The larger publicly traded retailers put a lot of information on their websites. Visit the investor sections, not the consumer facing pages. Read trade magazines and most importantly, talk to them. They evolve as people change.
Define what your consumers and customers need
It is great to understand your consumers and customers. The next step is to take this thorough understanding and figure out what they need. Most of the needs will be unique to consumers or customers however some might be similar. When you think about needs consider items such as the following:
Consumers
New flavours, local ingredients, shelf life at home, sustainable packaging, different sizes, portable packaging, safe food and more.
Customers
Competitive cost of goods, promotional pricing, service level, credit for supporting local, traffic in stores, food safety certification, best before dates, frequent deliveries to manage inventory cost and more.
We suggest drawing two intersecting circles and charting the needs of your consumers and customers. Put the needs that are unique to each stakeholder in their circle and any that are common belong in the section where the circles intersect.
Determine what you can deliver
You can’t do everything. Figure out which needs you are very good at and focus on them. Be relentless in your communication to consumers about the needs you satisfy. This includes social media, mass media and public relations opportunities. Consistency is boring and repetitive for you but effective as the market is very cluttered. Focus on what you are good at, deliver it consistently and make sure it resonates with your target market.
You should follow a similar strategy with your customers. They are busy so it might be necessary to report to them every couple of months about service level and the initiatives you took to drive traffic in their stores.
Measure your consumer and customer satisfaction
You can ask consumers and customers about your products and your business. The feedback is valuable but you also have to be careful to ask the questions properly and remove any bias you might have.
You can also quantify the relationship you have with these stakeholders.
The best measurement is sales. If they like your products they are putting them in their stores and consumers are putting them in their shopping carts. You can also measure service level, shelf life, sustainability (reductions in food waste for example) and other metrics.
Successful food and beverage businesses satisfy consumers and customers
We can all get busy producing products. Obviously, it is important. Make sure you take the time to ensure your business is focused on consumers and customers. They both need to be happy for your business to succeed.
Peter
SKUFood Recipes for Success Podcast
The response to our SKUFood Recipe for Success podcast has been great. We want to thank everyone who has been with us as a guest. So many interesting conversations about our industry.
The story of Cedar Valley Selections is a great one. You might have seen them on Dragon’s Den. I was fortunate to meet Ameen and Surria a number of years ago when I did a workshop for the Windsor Essex Small Business Centre. They were just starting and Ameen asked a lot of questions!
If you would like to be a guest send us a note. We are always working on the upcoming episodes.
Cyber attack reported by Agropur
These stories are a reminder to everyone to take every precaution possible against these issues. Every company seems to be a possible target. There is a level of precaution and due diligence expected by your customers and the marketplace.
