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Marketing a B2B Food Company

Effective marketing drives successful businesses but B2B companies require a different approach to B2C brands. With many food and beverage firms diversifying in a post-coronavirus landscape, there are a significant number of companies targeting different markets.

Although your products or services may be wanted or needed by a different demographic, you won’t be able to engage them effectively if you don’t broaden the scope of your marketing strategy.

Consumers and business buyers have differing priorities, needs and purchasing methods, so relying on the same campaigns and content to market to both groups won’t achieve the results you’re after.

Whether you have an existing B2B product or service line or you’re dipping your toe in the water in response to current trading restrictions, you’ll need to know how to engage with a B2B audience.

To get started, take a look at these three essential methods for marketing your B2B food or beverage company:

  1. Undertake market research

The most successful marketing activity always begins with research. You might know your current target audience inside out, but you’ll need to start from scratch if you’re trying to reach a different demographic. Many firms balk at the idea of undertaking researching but you don’t have to do it alone.

By working with a reputable food marketing company, like Ceres PR, you can access key information regarding your target market and its needs.

  1. Appeal to their audience

As a B2B company, your target market may be businesses within a specific sector or any company within a particular geographical location, but who is their target audience? Identifying who your targets are serving will help you to understand their needs better. What’s more, capturing the interest of their target audience will make your target audience far more likely to engage with you.

If you’re a baker, for example, and you offer pastries to a café via a B2B contract, increased customer demand for these pastries will ensure the café keeps coming back to your firm and ordering more products.

However, delivering a high-quality service or product isn’t enough. Attempting to market your new B2B line to every relevant company probably isn’t going to be as successful as you’d like. By focusing on the companies that serve a target demographic you can engage, you increase the likelihood of them converting into customers and reduce your marketing costs in the process.

  1. Establish your expertise

When you’re delivering B2B services or products in the food industry, the people you’re trying to engage are also going to be established within the sector. This means they’ll have an in-depth knowledge of current issues affecting the industry and a detailed understanding of what their customers want.

By writing articles or blog posts aimed at a B2B audience, you can build your profile within a new market and increase brand awareness. Of course, it isn’t only articles and blog posts that can be used to achieve this.

A successful content marketing strategy includes a range of tools, such as webinars, videos, images and e-books.

Furthermore, make the most of the content you’ve produced by sharing it far and wide. Getting content placed on industry websites and blogs is always a great way of raising your profile within the sector and gaining the attention of other professionals within the food and drink industry. However, sharing your content on your website, on social media and across dedicated industry platforms can be remarkably successful too.

Introducing a B2B Line to Your Business

If you’ve operated as a B2C company thus far, taking on the B2B market can seem daunting. More importantly, given the current climate, successfully launching within the B2B niche could help you to overcome any reduction in trading you’re experiencing due to COVID-19. As a result, you can keep your business operational and profitable, and be ready for even greater success as and when your B2C activities resume.