One of the challenges in marketing premium food is the consumer’s need to taste it. We can tweet, chat, pitch and advertise a product until we’re blue in the face, but the most effective way to attract loyal customers is to let people sample it for themselves.
An excellent example of premium food marketing leveraging this consumer need is TasteLive.com. By harnessing the power of the Tweetup – an event where like-minded Twitter folk meet in person to chat and mingle, but talk about it via Twitter – creator Craig Drollett organized events allowing enthusiasts from around the world to gather and taste the same wines. Wineries, retailers and bloggers have jumped on board to host numerous tastings each month (check the Taste Live site for a calendar of events).
What makes Taste Live so effective is its use of an existing tool in an easy-to-use platform that’s appealing to the target audience. Wine tasters don’t need to filter through all of the other tweets to join the party, they can just go to TasteLive.com and partake in the conversation – while still using their existing Twitter handles.
“It (Taste Live) proved the premise that putting people all over the world together to share and taste wine was possible, but it also made it clear that the basic Twitter interface was not the ideal solution. Shortly afterward, we began to build TasteLive.com, which has been continually growing and transforming into what it is today.
Wineries and trade groups have loved the platform since day one. It’s an incredibly easy way to create buzz about your wines and interact with a younger, growing generation of fans in real time.”
So what can marketers of premium food take from this example? Use social media tools and integrate them with the most basic of all marketing strategies: face-to-face grassroots communication. Let people share an experience with your premium food product and watch your network grow.
Labels: Grassroots Marketing, marketing food, Premium Food, social media, Stephan & Brady, TasteLive.com, Twitter
