Whether your food business is a brand new venture, or the extended lockdown period is necessitating a look into previously untapped ways of promoting your business, there are some simple promotional methods in which you can achieve great results. Another bonus to these methods is that some of these highly effective measures can end up costing very little or even no money.
There has been a boom in food businesses even during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly 1,000 new food businesses began in Auckland, New Zealand during 2020, despite spending going down dramatically due to lockdown measures being in place.
While many of these ways in which new or existing businesses can be promoted can be done cheaply, or indeed for no cost, employing a specialist food PR agency can help you to strategise and ensure you are making the most of your marketing spend. A food PR agency will have the market experience to know which areas to target as well as which to avoid, potentially saving vast amounts of time on fruitless missions.
1. Use social media
No matter the sector, many people have employed social media successfully in order to promote a new business. During the pandemic, multiple new entrepreneurs have started new ventures and used the reach of social media to build a following, for very low outlay.
It’s important when selecting social media sites to promote your business you are looking at the right sites for your product and your audience. For businesses that need lots of customer communication, Facebook is great, while businesses with beautiful product photos to share will often turn to Instagram.
2. SEO your website
Search Engine Optimisation includes utilising key search in regular posts on your site, to help you climb the rankings. Adding a blog which is regularly updated will help with this, so long as posts are helpful and relevant to your audience, without necessarily going out to promote your products.
3. Be visible in online communities
Don’t join groups and spam them with promotional posts on Facebook, but genuinely contribute to communities. Building a rapport with potential customers will help to keep you connected to your audience, while getting your business out there (include a signature which lets people know what your business is), but spend your time contributing to the discussions and chatting.
4. Partner with other businesses
Business networks such as the Chamber of Commerce as well as the Institute of Directors will give you a great selection of contacts to strategise and discuss your ideas with. These bodies will generally have a fee attached for those wishing to become members.
If you want to create your own network, try to find businesses locally whose offering complements yours and try to work out deals in which you can cross promote or even supply each other with product to offer deals to your customers.
Most importantly, your marketing campaigns should look to get your business noticed by potential customers.