How to Market with Snack Foods
Snacks and other pre-packaged foods can easily be incorporated into a marketing campaign.
Here are three examples to help you get a new prospect’s attention or keep the lines of communication open with clients.
1. An insurance agent where I worked as temporary help purchased 100 clear containers with matching lids.
He also bought individually-wrapped sour candies, the type you can buy in bags at most supermarkets.
The agent asked me to fill the containers with candies and to also place his business card inside the box before the lid was attached. His plan was to distribute them to clients as appreciation gifts.
2. When a local chamber of commerce hosted an Administrative Professionals Day luncheon, I co-sponsored the event by creating goody bags for the 150 support staff guests. This was one of my first marketing projects when opening my business.
I chose a brown and bronze-colored bag, filling it with caramel chocolates wrapped in gold foil. Following the agent’s lead in No. 1 above, I included my business card inside each bag. The card requested that each receiver download a valuable report for their supervisors, who were my main target.
3. During the Christmas holiday, I presented my bank’s manager with a thick, square box made of chocolate. Inside the box were individual chocolates the size of M&Ms.
I placed the chocolate box, already wrapped in the manufacturer’s packaging, in a holiday tote bag and placed it on her desk during lunch break. Later that day, she called to thank me and ordered dozens of the boxes to send to her clients.
What types of snacks or food items have opened doors to new opportunities for your business?
When Problems Occur, What’s Your Plan B?
One of the adult schools that I’ve taught at for years mailed a notice to me stating that the spring semester is canceled because the cost of producing a paper brochure is prohibitive, thereby rendering too few enrollments to justify classes.
The letter also mentioned that school management attempted to market courses through an online resource, but it failed.
The school had to see this problem coming long ago, as printing prices didn’t skyrocket to the point of sabotage since the last semester.
I can’t help but think that another problem occurred that management need not explain to outsiders, such as the printer closing its business, leaving the school to scramble for another publishing source, or perhaps state monies that once supported them were slashed due to the recent administration change.
All of this causes me to ask you how much does foresight play in your marketing plan? You can’t peer into a crystal ball to determine the future, but if one of your income-producing products was suddenly at risk by a situation not under your control, how hard would you fight to keep it going?
Here are three ways to determine if a program is worth keeping or dropping:
There’s no need to keep reviving lackluster products, but if it’s a winner according to your records, you might consider finding a temporary solution while searching for better options.
How would you proceed if you owned the adult school?
A Visual Aid for the Not-So-Visual Marketer
While searching for insightful courses in a professional studies catalog, I saw a course based on The Back of the Napkin,
That led me to the author’s Web site to learn more.
What I found was a dynamic space and four-step tutorial on how visual teaching starts with line drawings, not artistic ability.
The first thing that may go through your mind when visiting the site is, “How’d they create that?,” but I encourage you to put that question in back of your mind for later exploration.
What’s most important is understanding how the concept:
If you’re familiar with this book, tell us how its mission fits into your marketing plan. If this is your first time learning about the book, what’s the first thing that comes to mind, after watching the tutorial, to step up your marketing campaign in new ways?
