Speciality food gets a boost with online grocery stores

Selling specialty food products through online grocery stores can be very lucrative. But launching a new gourmet product and successfully marketing it can be very challenging.

For this, you may need a step-by-step plan for marketing your product and making it a success.

• Before you approach any online grocery store to sell your gourmet food product, establish a local customer base so that you have a success point of reference for online grocery store purchase managers.
• Regularly sell your products through your local farmers’ market. This is a great way to build a loyal customer following, get direct consumer feedback and get a feel of the competition.
  Set up stalls at the state or country fairs, food exhibitions and stores selling artisan products. Create small batches to distribute as samples to visitors.
• Approach local brick-and-mortar grocery stores with your specialty food product If you can get into the shelves of a few local stores, this can have a huge positive impact on your marketing pitch with online grocery stores, especially big e-commerce marketplaces.
• Once your gourmet food product is comfortable selling through offline and online sales channels, it is time to capitalize on this success through some clever marketing steps.
• Use your company’s social channels to promote your product and connect with your existing and potential customers. Regularly post about new product launches and ask for customer feedback. Talk about the ingredients you use in your specialty food products to generate buzz about the same. For example, if you make and sell gluten-free cookies, you can write small posts about benefits of a gluten-free diet, nutritional information on the gluten-free flours you use and related health news.
• Launch customer loyalty programs and offer special discounts from time to time.
• You can also provide shopping tips and other useful information to your customers. These steps can help you build a brand for your specialty food products.
• Even if you are successfully selling your gourmet food products through many online stores, it is important to periodically evaluate your product range and marketing plans for the same.
  Tweak products that are not working or replace them with better ones. Find out why a certain product is not doing well with customers. Is it the pricing or the taste? Is the marketing for that product is not up-to-the-mark?
• Adapt quickly to any changes in the food or buying trends. Consumer habits are dynamic. Once a new ingredient is in the market, manufacturers begin to use it in earnest in their new products. Look at ways you can use an ingredient that is in trend in your existing products or manufacture a new line of specialty food products using it.
  Believe in your products. If you think a product is not working due to mere poor marketing, do not change its taste to please every palette. Specialty food products are not for everyone.