Crossing borders with your FMCG Food Brand
When looking to expand your food brand to a new audience there are a few things to consider ensuring you effectively reach consumers.
The food and beverage market is highly competitive and customers tend to stay within their comfort zone, so reaching new audiences can be a tricky task. But if you can reach a new audience with your FMCG food brand you can improve reach, brand awareness, and ultimately sales.
Food products generally are self-advertising in terms of the actual product, but your brand needs to market itself so that it is your brand customers are reaching for in the busy supermarkets. Here is GottaBe! Ethnic’s top tips to reaching new audiences with your FMCG food brand.
How can I cross borders with my FMCG Food brand? – 6 top tips
Research
Understanding the behaviours of the new audiences you wish to target will allow your brand to create campaigns tailored to them. These campaigns should be across platforms that build trust with new consumers. Understanding audience preferences will allow you to create informed outreach campaigns.
Building brand awareness
Once you have the consumer research data your brand should consider running experiential marketing campaigns to raise awareness of your products and to get people talking. Offering samples is an excellent way to build trust between brand and consumer as it removes the risk of purchase, allowing the customer to taste before they buy. Sampling not only removes product risk but also if done in the right location will build a buzz around your products. Shoppers are more likely to buy a product after sampling as it is at the forefront of their minds.
Sampling
Whilst in-store sampling can be great it can also be expensive and does not always guarantee sales. E-sampling provides a range of opportunities for your brand to reach new audiences. Including samples within an expected parcel, unsuspecting consumers will receive a nice surprise as they open their package. It also allows you to target a specific audience matching the audience of the retailer to your brand.
When looking to reach new audiences through sampling, it can be highly effective to join partnerships with a brand that compliments yours. Reaching a new audience that you know a brand already has a relationship with will benefit both parties.
Sample boxes are also effective at promoting a new product as well as rebranding existing ones. Subscription sample boxes deliver a variety of products monthly to paying customers who are looking to try new things and are therefore are open to new products as they are already in that mindset. GottaBe! has relationships with Glossybox and HelloFresh, leaders in the subscription sample box market.
Influencers
One of the quickest ways to raise brand awareness is via social media and with influencers, on your side, your brand will be pushing products to new audiences. The more visibility you create across platforms the higher the reach will be and will enable your brand to cross borders.
According to recent McKinsey research, millennials are almost four times more likely than baby boomers to avoid buying products from “the big food companies.” While millennials are obsessed with research, they resist brand-owned marketing and look instead to learn about brands from each other.
Sharing and resharing authentic food posts via social media to your followers and on influencer social media platforms will bring their loyal followers to you, expanding your reach. Once you have a range of content from influencers and flowers you can then repurpose this across your website and other platforms. Whilst Instagram is the most popular with influencers, your brand should also consider using YouTube and Facebook influencers as video content on these sites is more popular for food brands. YouTube is less invasive than Instagram and viewers head to the video platform for storytelling videos, so connecting with food influencers on this platform will be more beneficial as viewers can search for specific videos. GottaBe! Ethnic’s latest blog includes 10 UK Diverse and Inclusive Influencers to follow.
Product placement
Getting into new stores takes your brand to new audiences, consumers are lazy and do not like to spend time looking for products. Product placement is key to getting noticed, so getting on the end shelf or by the checkout will see consumers taking a chance on your brand.
If your brand is looking to reach out to new ethnic minorities the best place to sell/ sample your products would be within ethnic shops or events. Not only do these places have the audience you are trying to target but also hold a level of authority within communities.
Accessibility
Finally, now your brand is starting to get recognised by the new target audience, they need to feel as they can convert to make a purchase. If your food brand is known for example for Asian cuisine, reaching a different demographic may not be as straightforward. Consumers learn how to cook by seeing family members using spices and ingredients typically associated with a country or culture. Making foolproof recipes or adding meal ideas to packaging may break down the barriers stopping new customers from trying products that are foreign to them.
GottaBe! can help you reach new audiences and raise awareness of your FMCG food brand with 13 years experience our experts know how best to display your products to your target audience. From merchandising, sampling, social media management, and printing we can help with every aspect of your campaigns. Head over to our services to find out more.