Marketing premium food

With a chorus of social media buzz humming in our ears, it’s easy to overlook the fact that it is a close relative to one of the most basic, yet effective marketing strategies – grassroots marketing.

Pounding the pavement to spread your message by word-of-mouth (see the social media connection?) can create an immediate fan base with one of the strongest marketing weapons – positive testimonial. 

Premium foods have an advantage in the grassroots marketing strategy – who doesn’t love a free sample?!

Mrs. Fields famously knew: If you let them taste it, they will buy. When sales weren’t going so well, Debbi Fields stood on the sidewalk outside her first cookie store and let people try her goods – for free. Her cookie store is now a full-fledged franchise and can most likely be found in a mall near you.

How to get started:

• Zero in on a specific location (size depends on the scope of your product)
• Carefully research your target audience
• Determine where your target would engage with your product

Take a look at other successful premium food marketer’s grassroots efforts:

Jett Vodka is a successful start-up brand that was exclusively marketed through a grassroots campaign.

Jeff Kanbar reacted to the “Red Bull and vodka craze” by launching Jett Vodka, premium energy vodka – vodka infused with caffeine, guarana and ginseng – produced in France. Because there are so many brands of vodka, Kanbar faced the issue that his brand was unknown and he did not have a large marketing budget. Kanbar responded with a successful grassroots campaign in Los Angeles bars and clubs.

I love the freedom and control I have doing it this way, but it makes things incredibly challenging when your competitors have millions of dollars to throw around. You have to have incredible patience and belief in your brand http://bit.ly/6ZexAV

Taking a chapter from the Mrs. Fields book of marketing success, Milwaukee, Wis. native, Jimmy Roeglin uses grassroots tactics to gain a following for his premium Bloody Mary mix, Jimmy Luv’s Bloody Mary Mix. 

His strategy? Go to the drinkers. As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Roeglin and his crew have been attending Green Bay Packers, Wisconsin Badgers and Chicago Bears tailgates and handing out complimentary Bloody Marys using his mix – approximately 900 of them.

“The best way we can sell this is to get people to try it,” said John Becwar, sales and marketing director for Jimmy Luv’s.

The mix can now be found in more than 75 retail locations in Wisconsin and they’ve only been in business for two months. Talk about spreading the word!

Word-of-mouth is a very powerful tool and social media can help your message reach hundreds, possibly thousands of people that you might not typically have the chance to reach.