I need advise with organic food products promotion

Production is not an issue. These are not homemade products, she works with small and medium size producers and packages under her own private label/brand. Packaging is sharp, environmentally friendly and based on initial feedback from other branding experts and consumers it is right mark. As I stated on my original post we have pretty good feedback regarding quality and taste as well. Her problem is now is getting the product out there faster that she has been, but without big marketing dollars this may take a while unless you have some pretty good budget ideas. Sorry I am not being a wise guy I'm just looking up to you guys for out of the box ideas you may have.

Thanks again.

Once gain thank you. My wife looked into UNFI and she is also a member of the OTA (Organic Trade Association) who also provided some additional contacts. The problem is that when you go with any of the big distributors like UNFI or Tree of Life while you are just starting is hard. The big guys want too many concessions which makes it difficult for small companies like my wife's to get in the game via the large distributor channel.

Just bringing the focus back, what I am really trying to figure out is how to help my wife market her product in a creative affordable way (mostly online). I think she needs to create the demand from the bottom up in order to be successful. As I said earlier if she were to get in the game via one of the large distributors like UNFI here is what I think are challenges:

1) She has a great product and good packaging, however being a new brand most people have never heard of it just yet.
2) By the nature of being a very exclusive high quality organic food product, the price point may be a bit higher than similar lower priced inferior quality products on her space. Consumer education as to why her price point is reasonable based on quality and exclusivity may be needed. I anticipate initial resistance based on point #1 above
3) If she were to get into a large distributors like UNFI, they may put her product in a large number of stores. Problem would be that after a couple of month the stores and UNFI may be pretty unhappy when they potentially have no sales because of #1 and #2 above.

Based on the three points, my suggestion to her has been to first create the awareness via people I call influencers (foodies of the world, food bloggers, facebook pages focused on food with large number of followers, any celebrity she could send samples too, food magazine and Newspaper writers, etc). This would create the demand from the consumer side of the house (bottom up) rather than pushing it down to the consumer from the distributors and brokers of the world.

What I was looking for originally on this forum, (sorry I was not too clear) were ideas on what would be the best way to accomplish what I just described on the previous paragraph with a limited marketing budget.

For starters I have helped her creating a nice infographic that I hope may pay off by going viral and have reached out to some bloggers who were glad to review the product in exchange for some free samples. Many bloggers would not even considre as they are already pushing ads for the big guys and ad networks who have pretty much monopolized the space.

Once again I welcome anyone and thank you for any additional ideas you can share with me on this.

My company can help you with both online and offline, for organic food distro, but you would be best with a test for offline, we offer a $10 per store trial for your product and once we know your product sells we can get you into big box stores like Vitamin Shoppe, and whole foods,

it may not be what you can afford right now, as the minimum deal is a free fill for 200 stores, best to bookmark this post for future reference, or online marketing is unique to us, no other distributors are doing what we are doing, and all our new customers in the food and beverage industry are loving our method, its a no brainer for them, but again it involves a free fill

Well I have to say this is really helpful and has helped me consider new avenues I not previously considered.

I would like some clarification on the following if possible:

@NewParadign You are right about trade shows although they are kind of expensive. As a matter of fact she attended the Natural Products Expo East last September. It was a bit overwhelming and I am not sure if that was the right show. She is looking into the Fancy Food show in N.Y. this July, however it looks like to have a presence you must have two years of sales record. Since her products are fairly new, she would not qualify. I am working on it to see if there is a way although it is also going to be really expensive.

You also mentioned about Tastefully Simple and the home parties. I like that idea although I do not know how I would go about getting that started and make sure it gets traction. My guess would be start with the Moms Blogs and see from there, but sounds to me this avenue may require more effort than I can even imagine right now as opposed to some of the other options presented in this thread.

@bizgrower you mentiones to include massage therapists and the like as well as retail and professionals. I thought this may be a good avenue meaning the holistic medicine professionals and nutritionists, but I am not convinced about massage therapists as I do not see the connection between an organic food product and them. Can you please let me know if you see such a connection and how? Thanks so much.

@mikeb1 I see what you mean. This would make sense if it wasn't for the large number of stores she would need to provide with a free fill which is prohibite at this point in time. Just out of curiosity and for the future, how large of a free fill are we talking about? One case or more?

@YerrickYeoh when you are talking about email marketing2 sand a blast off to offline customers 1) where would you get such a targeted list of organic food consumers and 2) I definitely would not want to SPAM anyone so if you can elaborate, that would be much appreciated.

A general question to all of you is do you know of any forums or anyone that could help us find independent sales individuals full time or part time that would be willing to beat the pavement outside of our regional area (New York). The incentive would have to be based on sales commission, but I'm sure my wife could make this very attractive. My wife is ready to start beating the pavement locally in N.Y., but I think she needs to expand sand use other sale individuals help if she wants to grow her business quickly.

Thanks again to all of you for the great contributions to this thread.

Targeted lists of buyers: look up yoga blogs, organic food blogs, Chinese massage blogs (acupuncture, etc.), healthy-cooking blogs. If they have an optin, they have a list.

Find out how much they want to send a message about your stuff to their list (solo ads).

A year ago, I went to an open house at a chiropractor's. They had a couple of people do mini-massages and showing 'tricks' and they had food. The food they bought from Dominicks (food chain that has a store in the same mall).

You could talk to a list broker, ask them for a list of people who subscribe to yoga or organic food magazines. If they have email addresses, get those, send emails, expect a lower response rate than with other means of reaching them.

It could have been someone like you...

At some of the open houses I go to, they have such arrangements. Someone brings the food (and is thanked in press releases and on the spot). Usually, they make the mistake of not having a way to get people to follow up with them.

I mean, if they're a restaurant, they just hand out menus... nothing to collect email addresses on the spot or to truly encourage people to visit them.

Patch is one such site. It's owned by aol. You can have a blog on it. You can place announcements for free. And, of course, you can buy advertising, from $125/month.

A couple ideas to consider.

First is this online market Abes Market which is all for organic food. Might be a good place to start.

I am assuming this is not farmers market friendly? Packaged goods sometimes have an issue with not being a good farmers market match.

Trade shows - You can get a booth at a trade show for your market, or, you can do what I have done, don't get a booth, but actually go to the trade show, and search out companies you can work with. I did this with one Pet Industry manufacturer and put them with a wholesale distributor. It cost me $6 parking and that's it (On another note, it got that distributor as a client )

I do have question though, if it is all private/white label product, is your manufacturer already hitting the retail stores?

Thank you again for all your input. After thinking a bit more about PPC I have to agree with you that this may not be the best use of her marketing dollars at this point.

Regarding the gourmet food catalogs I like the idea as an additional avenue. My wife was actually able to get on a popular gourmet catalog already. I have tried finding more, I'm sure there are plenty more. However I was not able to find many by just searching online. I also have looked into Google catalogs applications and I mostly see the big guys such as Dean and Deluca, Williams Sonoma, etc. She has already approached these guys and still waiting on an answer. My question is would you or any one here know of any directory of catalogs that may have more info on the small circulation catalogs and not just the Dean and Delucas of the world? That info would be very helpful.

Thanks again.

@bizgroweer thanks for the thought. I do not think the typical Walmart shopper would be willing to pay for items that are more on the high end of the market regardless of quality. Also no disrespect to Walmart, but I do not think the positioning of the brand would benefit from being on Walmart's shelves. Actually it would most likely be the other way around.

Thanks.

Thank you and I also like your idea about pursuing personal/private chefs. Any idea on how I could tap into that market? Meaning any online directories or forums where these chefs may hang out?

Thanks.