Fresh Produce Marketers, Let’s Talk…About Food Trends Strategy

February 13, 2019
11:00 am

Posted by DMA Solutions Team

As Charles de Gaulle once said, “You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.” This is especially fitting when it comes to trends, and food trends are no different!

So now that our 2019 Food Trends guide has officially launched—along with a quick “how-to-use” guide— you have a robust list of trends shoppers value right at your fingertips, and it’s time to start putting those to work for your brand. Let’s go a little deeper and start talking about how you can strategically use this year’s hottest food trends to elevate your marketing:

Social Media

Relevant, up-to-date content is more important on social media than almost anywhere else. In a sphere where visuals are key and content is constantly turning over, there are an abundance of ways to implement trends in your social marketing strategy. Below are three items your team can prioritize immediately to elevate your brand’s social presence:

Consistent and creative visuals are key—Movement shots, just one trend we highlighted for this year, can take your photography to the next level and earn your brand heightened engagement. Custom photography is a smart investment that your brand should not be ignoring.
Key messaging is important—Your brand likely already has a story or product line that aligns in some way with the trends we discuss. It’s time to elevate your brand to the audiences that are tuned into these topics and take advantage of the attention these trends are garnering. Use hashtags to insert your brand’s content into the conversation and engage live when hashtags start trending.
Create a content calendar—Beyond making note of topics to create content for, utilize the 2019 Food Trends calendar of social and cultural events to bookmark days to live-engage, and also monitor what is trending at these events. This will allow you to be one of the first to know of new movements in the food space.

Public Relations

Once you’ve used the trends to create or elevate current content, it’s time for your PR team to help blast the message to the cosmos! In alignment with your social media endeavors, your PR team should elevate content both to consumers and to your retail partners.

Whether it be engaging recipe content or a trendy product, your PR team is there to pitch the relevant assets you have to consumer publications in order to earn your brand valuable views. An engaging story and visuals are both key here—just one won’t get the job done! For a publication to give your brand placements, you must possess content that resonates with consumers and aligns with what they actually want to see.
Let retailers know about your products that fit into trending topics, and utilize Food Trends research (as well as your own!) to create an undeniable reason for retailers to increase their buy-in for your products.
If your public relations efforts include a food influencer or chef (which it should!), use the included trends to inform the type of content you request from them.

General Marketing Activities and Brand-Building

From tradeshows to website content, it’s important to ensure your brand is consistently leading with the most engaging information:

Tradeshows are a key time to elevate any products that fit into a trending consumer category. Stay informed of top food trends so you’re always leading with the most interesting story, and ultimately, have the most buy-appeal.
Creating a promotion? You’ll garner more brand awareness and engagement when your efforts align with trending interests. Look at your current promotion calendar and determine where the topics we’ve discussed might fit in!
Reminder: silos kill creativity. Reach out to all company departments to learn about any possible initiatives on the horizon that you might not even know about—and start sharing that story!

At DMA, we talk a lot about the fact that companies’ marketing efforts determine whether they operate as a commodity, trade name, or brand. If your company does, in fact, want to operate—and market—as a “brand,” know that you can use Food Trends in all of the above ways (and more!) to help advance that strategy.

Alright fellow marketers, it’s time to put these trends to work—so go forth and conquer! And, as always, if you find yourself in need of a little help, reach out to us.

Have more to add? Leave us a comment below, or tweet to us at @TheCoreBlog!

Check out the most recent version of Food Trends:

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