Food Business Marketing Podcast - Strategy, Stories, and Tips to Build a Strong Brand

Learn how to write a creative brief that helps align your creative team with your strategy in order to achieve your business goals. In This Episode: Why a creative brief is a crucial extension of your brand strategy when it's time to implement your marketing plan 10 sections to include in your creative brief Company background Project purpose Advertising objective Ideal audience and insights Brand personality and voice Message priorities Deliverables and format Executional mandatories Schedule Budget Resources: How to Start Building and Documenting Your Brand Strategy (they will need to request access to get into the group, so I'm thinking maybe delete this and keep what I added below?) Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group (click here to join the group and get access to the creative brief sample). Real Food Brands

Episode 11: Brainstorming a product or company name can be hard work, but having a process to inspire you and tie your efforts back to your strategy make your efforts more efficient and effective. In this solo episode, Katie explains how to develop a name that is both creative and strategic. In This Episode: How working within parameters can improve creativity when brainstorming 7 Steps for naming Set decision criteria for what makes a winning name Review your brand strategy and pull key concepts/words as inspiration Choose your top 5 concepts and begin brainstorming as many words as possible related to each concept to create concept clusters of words (no filtering yet!) Review clusters for each concept and begin narrowing down to just a few concepts that energize you the most based on your decision criteria Narrow your list down further, now focusing on words that could be actual names Perform a competitive search for potential conflicts with existing names Seek feedback from your ideal audience, or people who understand your ideal audience and your objectives. Next steps after you find you land on the perfect name Resources: United States Patent and Trademark Office Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands

Layne Booth, Owner and Operations Catalyst for Small Businesses at The Project Booth, joins the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast to discuss profitably scaling your business and questions to ask when assessing new opportunities. In This Episode: Questions to ask when assessing new opportunities for your business How will this affect your business on the backend? How will this affect your bottom line? What will you be saying "no" to by saying "yes" to this opportunity? How will you need to scale up with staffing? How will this affect your supply orders? How much inventory do you need? Can I negotiate any flexibility with my suppliers and partners? Resources: The Project Booth Backend Brilliance Facebook Group 5 Profit Mistakes to Avoid When Scaling Your Business Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands

Tera Johnson, Founder of teraswhey and the Food Finance Institute, joins the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast to discuss food financing and why a clear brand strategy is crucial when building your business and approaching investors. In This Episode: How Tera started Tera's Whey, now the #1 whey protein brand in the natural category and #4 overall The importance of the company name and product label How Tera's Whey paved the way for organic whey protein Why a clearly defined brand strategy matters when working with financing and investment Why becoming a national brand needs to be an early decision Why your target market may not be your local market Resources: Edible Alpha Tera's Interview with Jacqueline Claudia, CEO of Love The Wild Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands

Join host Katie Mleziva as she breaks down audience personas and gives practical steps to identifying your ideal customer. In This Episode: Where to begin when defining your target audience Why you should not model your ideal customer only after yourself How to validate your ideas and assumptions about your audience Questions to answer when building your audience persona How to identify your customer's pain points and needs How using your audience persona can guide your decisions Resources: Full Blog Post Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands

Nancy and Bob Frame, Owners of Nancy Frame Design and the creative minds behind the Whole Foods 365 package designs, join the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast to discuss what makes good food package design and common pitfalls to avoid. In This Episode: Why good packaging is a crucial part of building your food or beverage brand How to communicate your brand values quickly through your packaging Why your packaging needs to stand out Why it is important to know the category rules and when to break them How to communicate with a designer when creating a label design How to approach redesigning an existing brand or package Common mistakes brands make with packaging Resources: Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands Nancy Frame Design

Katie outlines six key steps to building an integrated marketing plan for your food or beverage business, and gives examples to help you create or refine your own plan. In This Episode: Why an integrated marketing plan is so important for your food or beverage company The main components of a food marketing plan Six steps to creating a successful marketing plan Strategies for overcoming marketing challenges Complimentary 30 minute strategy sessions if you are stuck Resources: Full Blog Post Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands To set up your complimentary 30 minute Marketing Planning call, email [email protected] with 1-2 places you're stuck in your planning and she will contact you to set up a time.

Allison Ball, Founder of Allison Ball Consulting, joins the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast to discuss practical ways to land meetings with retail buyers, improve your sales pitch and how to follow up after. In This Episode: Why it is crucial to have a clearly defined brand How to approach a retail buyer for a meeting Why you should never "swing by" to catch a buyer for an impromptu meeting How to pitch your brand at a buyer meeting How to follow up from a successful meeting Resources: Retail Ready Allison's four things to know before pitching to retail buyers Katie on Linkedin Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable

It's no secret Amazon is interested in the food business. Today we're talking about the impact of e-commerce on food distribution and how you can use Amazon to grow your business with Jennifer Ruscin, CEO of Jennifer Ruscin Enterprises. In This Episode: Why it's important to have a clearly defined brand How a broker can help you approach marketing for e-commerce Why you should be considering selling through Amazon for your food brand How to choose the right platform when selling through Amazon How selling on Amazon can help you get placement in retail stores How Amazon's Whole Foods acquisition is mixing natural food distribution with non-food items Resources: Jennifer on Linkedin Jennifer Ruscin Enterprises Soulful Business Podcast Puracy Katie on Linkedin Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable

The annual Good Food Expo brings together thought leaders in the natural food industry. Join host Katie Mleziva as she shares key takeaways from successful brands, buyers, incubators and investors to support building a strong brand. In This Episode Key takeaways from the following sessions at the 2018 Good Food Expo: Incubators, Accelerators, and Shared Kitchens The New Breed of Millennial Food Entrepreneurs Social Media Marketing and E-Commerce Getting and Keeping Your Product on the Shelf Resources Good Food Expo Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group The Levers Marketing Katie's Full Blog Post

When rooted in the Brand Strategy, your day-to-day marketing efforts bring your brand's purpose and plans to life in order to engage consumers, inform operational decisions and ultimately, achieve your business goals. When athletes prepare for a game, they do more than just spend time in the gym or on the field. Sure, they need to build up their bodies to compete, but they also spend a lot of time building up their minds. They watch tapes of their opponents to get to know their playbook. Then they build a strategy for how they're going to overcome their opponents. Okay, now think about yourself as you compete in a crowded grocery market. When you do your homework to understand the landscape and competition it helps you create the game plan for how you can carve out a unique position for your product based on your ideal consumers' needs. Taking the time to go through these steps will inform and refine your brand strategy and help you make stronger connections with consumers and stakeholders. In This Episode: Why it is important to document your brand strategy How to investigate your industry landscape How to perform a competitive review Defining your unique positioning Outlining a brand personality Honing in on your brand pillars Resources: Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group The Levers Marketing

To say that food is important would be an obvious understatement. To say that eating the right kind of food is important is unfortunately still something that is less of a given to many people. With supermarkets and street sides loaded with options of unhealthy, unnatural, and frankly harmful options, it can be hard to rise above the noise. If you've started a natural food business, you have even more reason to be seen and stand out from the competition. This is why your marketing strategy is so crucial. Katie Mleziva has started the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast to help you develop your brand and make an impact! In This Episode: Introduction to host Katie Mleziva Why good branding is so crucial How to think about your brand personality Resources: Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group Real Food Brands