As marketers, we all know that promoting food has got to be one of the most fun things one can do. But, on the other hand, it’s also one of the most tricky industries to market. Yes, it’s all fun and games when you’re promoting a brand associated with a certain human emotion or activity like Mountain Dew, Coca Cola or even brands like Shan and National. But when it comes to small businesses and restaurants, there isn’t a lot of scope in conventional promotion for these brands unless they spend a lot of budget.
That’s why, digital works best for them. It’s not only accessible and convenient, but is also more affordable and provides a range of opportunities when it comes to platforms, creativity and engagement.
But how does a food brand market themselves on digital without coming off as intrusive and monotonous? How can they reach and engage their valued customers without adding a burden on their operations through endless discounts and shifting away from their brand identity? We’ll tell you how.
To understand the whole concept of food business marketing on digital, we need to take a look at the different assets a brand can use to promote their brand:
The trifecta above shows three different assets a brand owns while executing their digital marketing campaigns: Owned, paid and earned assets. Owned assets include your page, social media channels, blog, website or any commodities which come under your brand name. Paid assets include your advertisements, events, PR and all such features which you specifically pay for to achieve results or to reach your audience. And earned assets include the features you earn as a result of your marketing campaigns, like shares, mentions, reviews, reports and so on.
What really matters in this trifecta are what you derive once you combine each of the three main assets with each other. For instance, say a steakhouse wants to promote their brand and combines their paid and owned assets, i.e. their page and ads, what they’ll get is engagement, exposure, brand awareness and reach. Similarly, once they start getting word-of-mouth reviews and recommendations – both a part of earned assets – on their page, it’ll result in higher credibility for other people who are interested in their food or brand. And say they decide to utilize their paid assets to have influencers review their food, it’ll result in brand value and virality. And once all of these factors come together, it results in higher footfall, leads or sales.
All that information might seem a bit too confusing, but it’s really simple. The above given trifecta is simply an amalgamation of different aspects of your marketing efforts which come together to help you achieve your end goal.
But the work doesn’t end here. For a food brand, it’s essential to align their content execution strategy along with their assets and creatives. You might have an idea and an end goal relating to said idea. But if your digital marketing execution isn’t on point, your efforts might not work at all. This can be explained in detail through the following three pointers:
Makes sense, right? Not only is your idea crucial, but you also need to make sure your content and on-ground activation is on point. Otherwise, not only does it result in low footfall, but also bad PR and market censure. And in the age of influencer marketing, that’s not something you can afford.
And last, but not the least, you constantly need to evaluate your strategies. The food and hospitality industry is very competitive, and whether you’re a new entrant or an old market contender, you need to understand that with brands being introduced every other day, it won’t be long before someone introduces a better, more creative idea that trumps yours. The best example for this is the war between Pepsi and Coca Cola. You don’t see both these brands competing for market share for nothing. Each of them has reevaluated their strategy to bring something new to the table so that people would pay attention to them. And while your competition might not be as fierce, you also can’t expect any less from them.
So remember folks, execute – evaluate – repeat. And once you get into the flow of constantly doing this, your work will be mapped out for you.
We hope our blog was informative for you. To get more such insightful information from experienced and expert members of the industry, join our upcoming crash courses. Visit this page for details.
