Marketing for Impact: Winning Strategies for Healthy Food

1. Module 5 : Healthy Food - Marketing for Impact

2. Overview This module examines how your marketing can win more market share based on a marketing message specifically carrying a health and wellness focus. Learners will learn from new and innovative techniques and exciting marketing tactics to stand out with a healthy message and unique selling points, planned and packaged in just the right campaign strategy. This module will provide fresh ways to find your ideal audience and attract them to become loyal followers and purchasers of your great food!

3. BEFORE WE TAKE YOU ON A MARKETING JOURNEY – TAKE CARE TO ADHERE TO FOOD LABELLING RULES TAKE CARE Principal behind food labelling rules – they must not mislead the consumer: “as to characteristics of the food and in particular, as to its nature, identity, properties, composition, quantity, durability, country of origin or place of provenance, method of manufacture or production”

4. Marketing Challenges faced by all Small Food Businesses You know that your main challenges include. • Expense of building a brand • Lack of marketing expertise or finance - or both • Need to educate the consumer on the product benefits • Finding the right ‘fit’ distribution channel

5. Marketing healthy foods – a winning strategy – why ? Nielsen’s 2015 Global Health & Wellness Survey Polled over 30,000 individuals online  • 88% are willing to pay more for healthier foods. • All demographics would pay more for healthy foods: GMO-free, no artificial colours/flavours, ‘all natural’ tag. • People want functional foods: high in fibre (36%), protein (32%), whole grains (30%) or fortified with calcium (30%), vitamins (30%) or minerals (29%) • People want foods to reduce disease and/or promote good health.

6. Let’s start at the beginning – What is Marketing? The ‘official’ definition.... Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (American Marketing Association, July 2013) OR THE ONE WE PREFER Marketing is …an approach to business that puts the customer at the centre of all your company’s activities. If we know that our consumers are specifically interested in health messages – then we can communicate directly to those interests.

7. What is Marketing?For us, marketing is like the laundry, the job is never done! • OUR TOP TIP • Do not look at marketing as just another function • in the business; approach it as a way of doing business. • It is about standing out and trying harder

8. Know Your Audience • It is crucial that you understand who your target audience is and then look at the world from their point of view – what health concerns have they, how will your product ‘solve’ their needs ? • You have to have an intimate understanding of the people you are trying to reach in order to motivate them to take action. • Before you can understand your audience, you need to pinpoint who they are. Different people respond to different messages, so you should be as specific as possible when you identify your target audience. • Ask yourself the following questions: • What do they want? What problem do they have that I can solve? • What do they care about? What do they dislike? • Where do they hang out – online, in person? • Once you have clearly defined your audience, you can tailor your marketing tactics to reach them.

9. What are you marketing ? Do you know that people don't just "buy" a product? They "buy" the concept of what that product will do for them, or help them do for themselves.  For example • People who are overweight don't join a slimming club to go to meetings.   They "buy" the concept of a new, thin, happy and successful self. • When I book my child on a cookery course, I am buying them the experience of learning a new skill for life.

10. Thus, all your marketing needs to speak to the consumer in terms of features and benefits.. • Product Features - Features are descriptive, they describe what a product or service does. They are very effective in health food marketing as customers like, and even expect, to see the specifics of what they are consuming through your product e.g. calorie count, nutritional benefits • Product Benefits - Benefits translate a feature into a solution that solves a customer problem. Solving consumer problems is one of the best ways of finding a winning business idea. • But first, laying Foundations .. How do I differentiate my business ?The use of language & visuals are a powerful tool

11. Benefits Matter! • Promoting your product benefits can encourage customers to make healthier buying decisions despite a higher price point. • By highlighting benefits, your marketing supports the value perceived by consumers and will result in more purchases. What customer problems does your product solve?

12. Features & Benefits as part of your message…an example .... FEATURES E.g. ‘Fully Recyclable Packaging’, ‘High Quality Ingredients’ +  BRAND IDENTITY E.g. Communicating a set of associations using your maketing tools to reflect the features, benefits and values of the brand. BRAND VALUES E.g. ‘Kind to the environment’, ‘Premium’ BENEFITS E.g. ‘Reducing your impact on the environment’, ‘A little taste of luxury’

13. EXERCISE – please list 5 product features and 5 product benefits of your product with emphasis on health, nutrition, environment etc. These are the foundation of your healthy food marketing message – use in all your communications – packaging, website, press releases.

14. Great marketing starts with a great brand “The best brands are built on great stories.” Ian Rowden, Chief Marketing Officer, Virgin Group

15. Great marketing starts with a great brand (particularly relevant to healthy food products) • Your brand is an asset and should be treated as such. It is more than a name, it should make an emotional connection with the consumer and stay in their memory. • A brand inspires customer confidence. It must prove its difference (why is this product better than competitor) . IS AN EGG IS JUST AN EGG ?

16. Branding examples that create differentiation & stand out. Put effort into your brand name - Happy is a very strong brand name. An egg is just not an egg! Great marketing starts with a great brand...

17. Are less price sensitive • Have more of an emotional connection to your business • Increase sales revenue overtime – so you can maximise the life value of a customer • Become Brand advocates – Get your customers talking about you to others. • Are less costly to service. It makes financial sense to build a great brand. Brand loyal customers

18. BRANDING CASE STUDY HIRO by Roisin Hogan, Ireland Brand name: HIRO HIRO means abundant and generous in Japanese, which Roisin feels embodies her brand. Product:Range of noodles are made from the flour of the Asian Konjac vegetable! Features:Hiro is low in sugar, fat free, practically carbohydrate free. Benefits :“HIRO Noodles are “surprisingly filling”

19. How HIRO communicates its features/benefits. Pay careful attention to the wording and use of language - packed with features and benefits ABOUT “HIRO by Rosin” is an exciting new range of delicious, fresh, unprocessed & convenient chilled meals. Always super healthy, super filling & super low in calories too. A real healthy HIRO

20. MEET ROISIN Roisin is an entrepreneur & serious food freak! Driven by a goat to eat well, look well & feel fabulous, without the fear of the scales, the HIRO by Roisin range was born. Important to focus on the person behind the brand Roisin competed in front of millions on BBC1's The Apprentice, a popular UK entrepreneurial television show. Her personality and story are at the core of her brand. Again, look at the language she uses in her marketing material – it is passionate and connects with emotions. The Lesson? Successful brands will tap into emotion as a foundation for meaningful differentiation & authentic storytelling.

21. SAMENESS • Your challenge is to rise above others and try to uncover how your business is superior from the others in your industry. • Why do you deserve to get the customer over a similar business? • These days, it simply isn’t enough to compete on product or price. Today, consumers are after something more. They look for substance and often buy with emotion. • This means that you need to create a memorable MESSAGE (brand story) that stands above what you’re actually selling.

22. What is a Brand Story & why you need one? • It is a blend how you came to be, what you’re passionate about (in this case healthy food), your business culture (in this case the ethics behind your business – environmental etc), how your product make people’s lives better and why your product is worth noticing. • Good brands often have human traits that your targets might identify with. They have a strong emotional context. You want your customer targets to think ‘he/she is like me’ or ‘that’s how I think’.

23. What is a Brand Story & why you need one? • Your story isn’t just what you tell people, it’s also what they believe about you based on the signals your brand sends. The brand story is a complete picture made up of facts, feelings and interpretations, everything you do, each element of your product, business or brand, from the ingredients you use, the way you prepare and present your product, your packaging and even your distribution is all part of your brand story and every element should reflect the truth about your brand back to your audience. • More great information on brand stories at: http://thestoryoftelling.com/brand-story-services/

24. Your Brand Story • The elements to create or capture your brand story… • Start with your Personal Story: Your history, how you got started, the choices you made, were other characters involved? • Your Passion Story: What you love and why you love what you do. • The Personality Story: How people might experience your brand, the customer experience or your approach to the work. • The Customer Story:What do you customers say about you? • Employee Story: How employees explain the systems, the ‘feel’ or culture of the business • One you have worked on your story, make sure you share same • On your packaging, website, in your literature, in videos, through • the emails you send out, events you sponsor, attend, speak at • – in other words – everywhere !

25. EXERCISE • Complete our Tell Your • Story Workbook • This exercise will help you • to develop powerful marketing • material which can be used • across all your marketing

26. Some interesting brand names that stand out Note, the healthy drinks category is typcially very good at branding & packaging

27. Some interesting brand namesPurearth & interesting approach to individual drinks names

28. Some interesting brand names that stand out Skinny Chef superfood sauce

29. Some interesting brand names that stand out Fitfuel – explains their passions Fitfuel has evolved from the intersection of three areas we are passionate about: FOOD, SPORTS & HEALTH DELICIOUS REAL DAIRY ICE CREAM With added whey protein to assist you to maintain & increase your strength levels

30. Stand Out Tips • Need to sell YOUR personality - write in language real people understand. • Get rid of the jargon. Make your sentences shorter. Add a touch of humour. Sound like you’re a human!

31. Focus on Your Message • Be clear about your USP, your Unique Selling Proposition. This is the factor or reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition. • If you cannot pinpoint, explain or highlight what makes your business or product unique from your competitors, you won’t be able to target your marketing efforts successfully. • What you need to do .... Analyse your competitors, their brand story, their marketing messages, their features and their benefits, now where can you excel ? Complete our USP assessment tool – here

32. Your Message • What’s Your Niche? • A niche is a specialized part of a market for products or services. • With a Healthy Food business, you are already working within a niche within the food industry. But you can specialize further. • 7 Steps to Defining Your Niche Market • http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240163 • Finding Your Niche in 20mins or Less, with 3 Simple Questions! • http://www.chrisducker.com/finding-your-niche/

33. Telling your story - the essential part of your marketing message. Key considerations:- Our brains process images 60 times faster than words – so use images or graphics HOW STORYTELLING AFFECTS THE BRAIN DOPAMINE The brain releases dopamine into system when it experiences an emotionally-charged event, making it easier to remember and with greater accuracy. NEURAL COUPLING A story activates part in the brain that allow the listener to turn the story in to their own ideas and experience thanks to a process called neural coupling CORTEX ACTIVITY When processing facts, two areas of the brain are activated (Broca’s and Wernicke’s area). A well-told story can engage many additional areas, including the motor cortex, sensory cortex and frontal cortex. MIRRORING Listeners will not only experience the similar brain activity to each other, but also to the speaker. http://seopresr.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-sales-emphsoatically-through-storytelling/

34. CASE STUDY - Dr Coy’s Health Foods A chocolate bar that’s actually good for you while tasting nice might sound too good to be true but it has been developed by Irish company Dr Coy’s Health Foods and is available in shops around the country. The Dr Coy’s bars offer “tasty chocolate with health and nutritional benefits: they have lower effects on blood glucose levels, are high in fibre and vitamin E, and are gluten and lactose free”. http://www.drcoys.ie

35. CASE STUDY - Dr Coy’s Health Foods “We appeal to customers who have a desire to eat healthily but do not necessarily have to for medical reasons – for example, 97 per cent of new gluten-free purchasers in the UK are not coeliac. Note they cite healthy eaters as their main target and not just the coeliac or gluten free purchasers. They use pricing as a key marketing tactic – “Many healthy snacks on the market are priced between €1.80 and €4.50 in health food stores. We have priced our bars at €2 and have found customers very receptive to this price point.” - company founderAlison Stroh

36. BRINGING THE BRAND TO LIFEthe importance of packaging

37. The Importance of Packaging If product packaging does not connect with the consumer, sales suffer. Whatever the reason — be it inconsistency, inferior materials, discoloration or damage — bad packaging impacts consumer decision making and devalues the quality of your brand and product. Packaging has a • Functional role: Protecting goods from getting damaged or contaminated, prolonging your product’s shelf life and making sure the product doesn’t spoil. • Legal role: It also houses legal requirements such as ingredients, weight, nutritional and allergy information. • Standout: Packaging can be hugely effective in helping to cut through the visual clutter consumers are faced with, helping your product to gain shelf standout. • Brand Building role: Your packaging needs to reflect what you are all about and tell your story.

38. Imagery appropriate to the target group – e.g.children

39. Strong promise in the brand name – use of word Honest….

40. Case Study – Good4U, Ireland • 2004: Bernie Butler and daughter Michelle (certified dietician & nutritionist), discovered the ‘sprouting’ trend and developed a range of ‘Super Sprouts’ product - broccoli, clover, alfalfa and radish shoots.

41. Focus again on the “brand story”, people behind the brand

42. Functional & informative messaging…

43. Building a Brand > Backing up the benefits..

44. TIME TO START MARKETING • Remember, our laundry comparison ?! • Effective marketing ... • Constantly talks with the customer (not at the customer) – it is focused on meeting customer needs and solving problems • Creative and engaging • Consistent – not ‘stop start’ but you are always in active marketing mode • Great marketing ... • ties everything you do together into something remarkable and memorable.

45. FOCUS ON CONTENT MARKETING • Content marketing is about creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined target audience • with the objective of driving profitable customer action. • It is about providing content-drivenexperiences that are educational, entertaining or useful to your audience, but ultimately drive engagement, awareness and sales for your business. • CALLS TO ACTION are at the heart of the approach.

46. CONTENT MARKETING in practice • Content Marketing is about creating and sharing valuable free content to attract customers to your brand, and to turn customers into repeat buyers who are loyal to your brand. • The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. • There is a huge opportunity for innovative healthy food marketing using valuable content to build your brand and your customer base.

47. Educationis a powerful content marketingstrategy Who are you educating? • Ideal customers? • Potential target markets and market segments? • Centres of Influence, e.g food media, food bloggers • If using email marketing, how good is your database ? More later • Who are you educating? • Your Solutions (products and services)? • Your Knowledge? • Your Insights into the Industry you are involved in?

48. Educationis a powerful content marketingstrategy Where are you educating? • Social media? • Your website/blog? • Through ezines ? • Online via videos, webinars, podcasts? Why are you educating? • To build credibility about you, your company or your solutions • To differentiate you, your company, your solutions • To gain competitive advantage

49. When you educate your customers about your products, they feel you are providing additional value for the price they pay.   Use your skills, expertise and knowledge to assist the consumer. James Whelan Butchers have produced a series of easy to follow videos from their own master butchers to teach kitchen and cooking meat skills. Sharing your knowledge online is very effective in building your reputation – post personalised video on YouTube, Foodbuzz Produce a series of recipes featuring favourite local dishes and your producers Circulate these to your customers, add them to your website, Facebook page and through recipe sharing sites all over the web. Ask for feedback on how the customer got on. http://www.jameswhelanbutchers.com/info/category/video/

50. Educationis a powerful content marketingstrategy When are you educating? • Daily? • Weekly? • Monthly? • Continually? • When sales go down? How are you educating? • How interactive can you make the experience? • Didactic (one way with no feedback loop)? • Questions and Answers?