The retail foodservice customers are not fickle, they are
evolving, dynamic, and moving forward searching for ways to make dinner complexity free
according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven
Johnson. I hope you are not the Neanderthal brand marketer waiting
for yesterday and the status quo to return to the way things in the restaurant,
grocery, and convenience store sectors were back in 2005, 2011, or
2019.
The
consumer is dynamic not static and all food retailers and start-up fresh food
retailers must strive to create or maintain consumer relevance while evolving
their own brand. Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson believes that the following ten
clues to build contemporized food brand relevance that will edify your brand
while building top-line sales, bottom-line profits and year over year customer
counts.
Want to Sell More Meals
Drive Top-line Sales Bottom-line Profits
You Need a Larger Share of Stomach
Here are his 10 Clues:
1. Purpose: Customer relevance
with evolving focus. The most successful brands are inclusive,
include values greater than themselves. That means they focus on a
Lifestyle, a philosophy, an emotion, a point in time. Today that
must include a halo of better for you the consumer as better for the consumer
is better for the retailer.
2. A story: Most major brands have a story.
Examples: If you like Wawa you know the family history, If you line McDonald’s
you have heard the story or seen the movie If you like Ford vehicles, you might
be familiar with the story of Henry Ford or if you love your Nikes, you
probably know how the Nike swoosh logo was created. You get the
picture. What’s your story and where is your story being told?
3. Consumer interaction: Foodservice
Solutions® Grocerant Guru® firmly believes that within
foodservice retail they brand, products, and footprint must be consumer
interactive and participatory. When your business is first starting out, don’t
fool yourself into believing that your marketing efforts are ‘brand building’
efforts. They’re not because to build a real brand, you have to have an
extensive track record with consumers. Consumer will build the brand and the
story for with you.
4. Trust: Establish operating
standards that are measurable for every department within your company and each
standard must edify a customer facing tactic, communication, service, or
product. When you’ve consistently delivered for your customers long
enough, you’ll gain the type of trust that many brands have. Would
you buy a Edsel today? Maybe so, but you are buying to today as a relic not as
a product of today.
5. Consistency: Consumers today choose a product
or service because of brand association. The consumer is buying an
expectation, a promise. Perhaps it’s the expectation that the branded product
is of higher quality or that the service will be provided in a more efficient
manner. The expectation must be met time after time.
6. Differentiation: Customer migration from a
legacy to an new brand is often borne of differentiation. Many
brands offer products and services that are commodities but they’re successful
in developing some differentiation in the product or the avenue of distribution
for their products and services that consumers are sold on.
7. Imitators: Imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery and you’re probably not a ‘brand’ until you have competitors trying
to copy you. Enough said. (However, we have imitators trying to play catch up
and we thank you for edifying our brand and sharing this blog.)
8. Market leadership: Success does leave clues,
collect your clues and own them. Top brands are usually looked at as
leaders in the markets they compete in. Own the space, and understand why you
do.
9. Evolve: The consumer is dynamic not
static your brand must be as well. The best brands are flexible
and capable of reshaping and reinventing themselves and their messages over
time. Brands are either growing or dying.
10. A strong marketing presence: The information super highway
has evolved into a mobile marketing platform in the palm of your customers
hand; your message must follow with the traffic. Don’t get stuck on
the road less traveled.
Success
does leave clues feel free to reach out for a private corporate presentation,
confidential engagement, educational forum, or keynote. Contact: Steven Johnson
Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® at:
253-759-7869 Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or www.FoodserviceSolutions.us Facebook.com/Steven
Johnson [email protected]