The packaged food business owner holds a unique place in sales and marketing. Packaged food businesses, unlike luxury businesses, are a necessity that enjoys continual growth and success in general markets.
Create a Successful Packaged Food Marketing Plan
All marketing plans begin with a study of the target market. For packaged food businesses, target markets are limited only by the types of foods offered to the public. To create a successful packaged food marketing plan, begin by compartmentalizing specific needs of the business. For example:
- Marketing scope
- Advertising, promotions and presentations
- Packaging design
- Customer retention
The marketing scope should encompass all phases of advertising, promotions and presentations, as well as logo and branding. In sales presentations for the packaged food business, emphasize customer need for products offered. This can be done directly or indirectly through packaging design.
Make Packaging Design Speaks to Customer Needs
Packaging engineers design packaging that is ergonomically convenient and safe for consumer use. The finished product for the design of food packaging should speak to customer needs through irresistible colours, displays and product description. Today’s food packaging includes ingredients, calories and nutritional information.
Part of a successful packaged food marketing plan is to coordinate the packaging of products with marketing scope and target markets that attract consumers in a saturated pipeline. For example, if packaged food products target children of certain ages, the overall marketing plan should be founded upon colors, designs and packaging that captures children’s attention and imagination.
Be aware that packaged foods often target advertising, marketing and sales for specific age levels. Packaged foods are intended to project optimal convenience for busy people and also project values of healthy, nutritional foods. If the packaged foods are directed at a consumer audience of varying age levels, the marketing plan should stress excellent food quality and convenience.
Customer Retention
A successful packaged food marketing plan should have an underlying strategy for customer retention. Marketing the introduction of new packaged foods to existing customers is accompanied by a marketing campaign of advertising, promotion and direct retail sales.
Once packaged food business owners establish a market presence, the final step in a marketing plan is a proactive customer retention strategy. Study the customer base regularly to observe customer buying habits. Each marketing campaign in place should encompass a wide range of contact with the existing customer base. Create a packaged food marketing plan that introduces new points of interest in existing food products and also address the “value-added” factors in new products. For example, meat is a kind of fresh and perishable food. Therefore, the meat packaging requires a large variety of machinery and materials according to its shelf life, how it needs to be packed and the process of how the meat gets to customer’s hands.
Bottom Line
A solid market plan is a step-by-step process. From initial target market study, compartmentalizing business needs and logo and branding, marketing planning should be flexible and growth-oriented.
