Marketing Techniques By Market

Marketing an Institutional Food Business

Promotional tactics for institutional food businesses are exceptionally diverse. But in our experience, there are a handful of tips and strategies that will deliver the best return for your marketing efforts.

In an institutional food business, a great business model doesn't guarantee solid revenues.

Winning strategies combine common sense marketing with the constantly evolving demands of the marketplace.

Promotional Calendars

Sloppy marketing programs have no place in growing institutional food businesses. Instead of offering special promotions on the spur of the moment, we recommend creating a promotional calendar for the fiscal year. Although you can adjust the calendar as needed, advanced planning makes it easier to connect your company's marketing tactics to sales objectives, inventory levels, staffing, and other areas of the business. Many list vendors appreciate promotional calendars because they are useful for timing the delivery of the resources your business needs to meet strategic objectives.

Newsletters

Despite the unrelenting demands of generating content on a monthly or quarterly basis, a company newsletter has promising potential as a marketing device. We've seen a lot of company newsletters over the years, and the best ones use a thought leadership strategy to advance key value propositions and raise the company's profile as a dominant presence in the industry. It's not unusual for institutional food businesses rely on newsletters as cornerstones of a deliberate PR and marketing strategy, combining print and online distribution channels.

Customer Awareness

Many of the highest performing institutional food businesses identify customer awareness as one of the hallmarks of their success. In this market sector, managers and promoters need to be extremely familiar with their customers' needs and purchasing preferences. More often than not, failure to maintain a robust connection with the marketplace translates into poor brand recognition and lackluster sales. By improving market awareness, small companies can often establish more meaningful customer connections than their competitors.

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