You will get tired of your story long before your customers and consumers wil
We see so many great stories to support food and beverage products. It takes a lot of work to develop a great value proposition that resonates. The challenge is many producers and processors abandon this great story too soon. They get bored with it because they hear it over and over.
A story for each stakeholder
As we discussed last week, you need to develop a story for customers and consumers. You might use some of the same benefits of your product, but the language and the focus should be tailored to your audience.
For example, if you have developed a new process that extends shelf life it is important to both stakeholders. When you are talking to customers you should focus on the days they have to sell the product or the fact you will reduce their shrink because the shelf life has been extended. When you are talking to consumers the language is related to the days they will have at home to use the product.
Take every opportunity to tell your story
When I was at Loblaw one of the strategies we pursued was relentless pursuit of consistency. When you put the work into a great story stay consistent and share the details every chance you get.
Every time you communicate with your customer, find an opportunity to reinforce part of your story. Share one or two benefits of your product related to the communication. If you are reporting on your service level, remind them about your unique process that allows you to build some inventory to service their stores better.
Telling your story does not always have to be in advertising. Perhaps you are invited to appear on the local breakfast television show to talk about local food. A great opportunity to talk about local food but also weave into the conversation your new sustainable packaging.
There is a lot of clutter out there
Customers and consumers are bombarded with marketing messages. Whether they are in the store, consuming mass media or social media there are so many promotions. Although it is not as bad as Times Square, the grocery store is full of packaging, signage, door clings and other promotional material. If the average conventional store has 35,000 SKUS, that is a lot of messages.
Repetition has been a tactic in advertising for a long time. It has been a tool for a long time because it works. Deliver your story over and over to gain traction and cut through the clutter.
If I had a dollar for every consumer packaged goods marketer that tells me social media is the key to their marketing strategy. Yes, social media is part of your marketing strategy and it is also part of everyone else’s. It is a very crowded space so you need to be relentless in telling your story consistently to stand out from the rest.
Measure the success of your story
Your story needs to translate into sales. It is great to build a brand, but sales will put dollars in the bank. If you think of selling 25 items per store per week that can be a good sales number. When you realize that there are 35,000 consumers going through that store, you might agree there is more potential. If you are relentless about telling your story you should be able to get a few more of those 34,975 people who did not buy to put your product in their shopping cart.
You do need to tell your story so many times to get to the place where it resonates with customers and consumers. You will be bored of it but smile and share it again and again!
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.
Changes at Maple Leaf
Business structure is an important consideration. Maple Leaf foods are splitting up their business to separate pork processing from other divisions. They have endured some challenging years and the time is right for them to make this decision. It will be interesting to see what they do with the plant protein. They were all in for a while but they have backed off recently.
