TLDR.
Don’t have the time to sit down and read the entire blog? Not to worry! Here are the key points quickly summarised.
Our 6 top tips for mastering FMCG marketing are as follows;
- Seriously consider engaging in influencer marketing. Over the last three years or so the growth of this industry has been astronomical and it can bring in huge rewards for your brand. Find the right online foodie or online influencer and get building a working relationship. When done right, it could skyrocket your FMCG marketing performance.
- Customer-focused content is the key for FMCG online. Instead of solely shouting about how great your product is, how cheap it is, where it can be bought, etc, focus a large amount of your content on how it can help customers. Explain to them how your product can solve a pain point in their life. Make it relatable.
- Thousands of photos of food and drink are uploaded to social media every minute. If consumers of your product are posting pictures of your product online in the form of user generated content, utilise these images! Repost them. Celebrate them. It will build relationships with your online community and encourage others to post, increasing mass awareness.
- One of the first things you should do when building a brand is to build an online content bank of high quality images and videos. FMCG are highly marketable categories and good visuals is the key selling point. Invest in a good photographer / videographer and build a bank of content to use on your website, social media, ads, etc.
- Write blogs! There are hundreds of different directions you could take with writing a blog related to your brand. Writing a blog on a monthly (ish) basis can help your brand in so many ways, including; SEO, share-ability, and staying relevant. Blogs can be a little time consuming but are 100% a worthwhile exercise, especially for FMCG marketing!
- Staying on top of how your brand is being spoken about online is important for any brand. But for food and drink brands, trends can change quickly and dated content can reflect poorly. Online reputation management is hugely important, this also includes utilising things like customers ratings and reviews.
Introduction.
Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) are pretty much everything you can think of that you buy in your local supermarket. Apples, coffee, chocolate, beer, aspirin, nappies, shampoo, would all fall under this umbrella.
For the purpose of this blog we are going to be focusing on, and using examples of, food and drink brands specifically. But all the tips and pointers you are about to read are applicable to things like beauty, healthcare, medical, etc.
FMCG marketing is vital to the success of these brands and in today’s world, about 90% of this marketing is done online. The following six tips are designed to effectively market your FMCG brand to your customers.
Here goes…
1. Influencer Marketing.
This is no longer breaking news or an industry secret. All the research and the stats are out there and to put it simply – when done right, influencer marketing can be HUGELY successful.
To read about the success and growth of influencer marketing in 2020 and 2021, click here. We have also outlined how we effectively created and implemented a hugely successful influencer marketing campaign with one of our own clients, which you can read about here.
Finding the right influencer to participate in FMCG marketing with your brand is the tricky part. You need to be a right fit for each other and the working relationship needs to be mutually beneficial. You may often think to yourself – “How do I find the right influencer to work with?”.
Our number one tip for finding “the one” is most definitely;
- Have a very clear idea of who your target audience is and study what influencers they are following.
Then once you have this information, start looking at;
- Compiling a list of influencers who tick all of the boxes for you and your brand.
- Know what your budget is to work with these influencers, per month or per quarter.
Some influencer marketing case studies have returned an ROI of 18x when engaging with the practice. So if it is not part of your FMCG marketing plan or budget, you need to revisit that ASAP!
2. Customer-Focused Content.
What is the best thing about FMCG marketing and working with food and drink brands? Their versatility!
Think of any simple product like a bottle of Coca-Cola. What can you do with it? Drink it as is. Make cocktails with it. Make desserts with it. Use it in a child’s school science experiment. Use the empty bottle for gardening. The list goes on…
FMCG marketing and the content you create should be equally as creative and innovative. But there is one key thing that you should always have in mind when marketing your product;
“What problem or pain point can my product solve for the consumer?”.
Looking at one of our clients MONIN Ireland, during the height of the pandemic there was a huge shift in who was consuming MONIN’s sauces and syrups. It went from a totally B2B customer, to people buying MONIN to make their own lockdown drinks at home.
So what did that mean for the marketing of MONIN? We needed to pivot towards showing people how MONIN can solve their problem. The problem? Not being able to go to their local and buy an espresso martini at the bar. The next best thing? Having the best ingredients to whip one up at home with.
FMCG marketing is a category that has scope for a lot of innovative creativity. Go ahead and solve a pain point with your product, even if it is a pain point that your consumer doesn’t know they have!
3. Utilise User Generated Content (UCG).
According to Hubspot – online consumers are 9.8x more likely to purchase something based on a review from a fellow consumer, than with just an ad created by that company. If you are in the fortunate position whereby people are posting content online using your product, make sure you are using it!
Meaning absolutely no offence to your wonderful marketing team, but there is a good chance that the hundreds / thousands / millions of users of your product are more likely to come up with innovative ways of using it!
Reposting UGC can be hugely beneficial to your brand on three key fronts;
- It is free content!
- It improves relationships with followers and makes your brand seem more accessible and relatable.
- Seeing other UGC online will encourage others to post content using your product, which in turn will lead to more free brand awareness.
Treat any high-quality user generated content online like you would a 5-star rating and review. It is something most definitely worth shouting about and celebrating! Just like 8th Corner Coffee has done below.
4. Create a Strong Content Bank.
This might seem a little obvious, but do not underestimate the importance of having a strong content bank to assist your FMCG marketing efforts.
If you are launching a new product, invest the time and money into a professional photoshoot / videoshoot before the product goes live. If you are already in the market and looking to grow, take an honest look at the standard of the visual content going out online and ask yourself – “Could it be better?”.
Depending on the quality of the shoot and what your brand’s policies on reusing content are, we would recommend carrying-out around four high-quality, professional shoots a year. Pretty much seasonally.
When you have the content captured, there are essentially endless ways in which it will benefit your brand;
- They can populate and improve your website
- Your social media grids and feeds will look better
- Your ads will be more eye-catching
- You can send them off for press releases and other things like that
- They can be printed off and used in more traditional marketing methods
Also do not limit yourself on the types of content that you capture in these shoots. There are so many ways to show off content online now, that any decent photographer / videographer should be able to create;
- Photos (in all shapes and sizes)
- Videos (in all shapes and sizes)
- Stop motion videos
- GIFs
- Boomerangs
Really get as much bang for your buck when doing these shoots and create a really strong content bank.
5. Write a Blog.
Do not underestimate the power of a well-written and timely blog!
As we have mentioned previously, FMCG marketing and specifically food and drink brands are so adaptable to be incorporated into so many different dishes. A food or drink blog is the perfect way for your brand to show-off all of its uses and adaptability.
We have been writing a monthly blog for one of our clients Granby, which you can read here. Once a month we write a recipe using one of Granby’s products. These recipes break down the ingredients needed to make that specific dish and then go through the cooking steps one-by-one.
Some of the benefits of writing a regular blog include;
- Staying relevant and on top of the latest trends.
- Keeping your audience engaged and giving them brand new content.
- Helping you build a larger online community.
- Google will organically rank an active website higher than an inactive one.
And if you decide to start a blog to assist your wider FMCG marketing efforts, here are some of our top tips and pointers;
- Try to write one monthly or bi-monthly.
- Include imagery or videos from your content bank.
- Include high-volume keywords that will likely drive traffic to your blog.
- Write the blogs with the audience in mind, the blog should help satisfy a pain point they might have (eg. How to cook Dublin Coddle).
- Include links to other pages on your website to drive traffic elsewhere.
- Advertise the blog on social media.
Writing blogs for food and drink brands can be a lot of fun so get your creative hat on and get writing!
6. Online Reputation Management (ORM).
When we say ORM we mean having a somewhat of a say in how your brand is spoken about online. ORM is hugely important for any brand, but with FMCG goods, trends can change overnight and staying on top of how your brand is being spoken about is vital.
Some of our top tips to stay on top of this include;
- Spending time each day engaging with followers online.
- Follow food/drink influencers or other influential people in the industry, and see what they are doing. This is an easy way to stay on top of trends.
- Stay seasonal and make sure your content is relevant and reflective of the time of year.
- As mentioned in Tip 3 above, utilise UGC in your favour.
- Be proud of, interact with, and show off any positive ratings and reviews you are getting online.
- Come up with some brand guidelines and have a playbook of how to deal with online negativity surrounding your brand.
Fingers crossed that you will never have to use this, but your brand should also have a PR contingency plan in place to deal with some sort of a social media disaster.
For example, if you are a cake brand and someone tweets an image of a screw that was discovered inside one of your cakes, you need to act on that quickly. Ignoring a problem like this will only do more and more harm to your brand. You need to have a plan and a series of steps in place to deal with an issue like this.
Conclusion.
FMCG marketing is arguably the most creative and fun sector within marketing to work in. The creativity is endless. You can utilise the products in so many different ways. There are so many ways to show it off online. And so on.
Are you thinking about launching a new product or brand into the FMCG space? Or do you have an existing product that you want to take in a new direction or totally re-market? Using the six tips mentioned above as the basis for your FMCG marketing strategy will go a long way in getting the right kind of brand awareness and engagement.
Have any questions for us about FMCG marketing or want to have a chat about how Escalate could potentially help your brand? Contact us today!