Why is Digital Marketing Required for the Food Industry?

What does food mean to you? Let me guess the answer. It’s almost your life. Food is something that is a pillar of life. It provides us with nourishment and a healthy body. As the awareness of food and its importance rises, so is the competition in the food industry.

Nowadays, only food quality and top-notch customer service are insufficient to attract customers. We need to push ourselves more and do something out of the box. To do the same, digital marketing is a tool to help you. Like every other field, digital marketing has touched and impacted every corner of the food industry.

We brought you this article to learn why digital marketing is required in the food industry. By the end of this article, you will know “Why” and “How” you can use the digital market in the food industry.

Why is digital marketing required for the food industry?

Word-of-mouth is no longer a necessity for the food industry to be popular. Using Social Media such as Facebook, Instagram, Email, and so on, food business owners are making engagement with potential customers. This way is not only integrating their customer but also making them more visible in the potential market around the world.

A synopsis of the benefits
● Increase the size of your target market.
● Increase your profit margins.
● Raise brand awareness.
● Improve consumer knowledge of NPD Support.
● Increase your use of product research.

Following are a few facts and figures that give a clear picture of the importance of digitalization in the food industry.

The increasing graph of online food delivery
As per a report by Restroapp, over the next five years, the food ordering and delivery market is predicted to increase by $30 billion (from $43 billion in 2017 to $76 billion in 2022) at a 12% annual growth rate.

Digital technologies in food production
Researchers found that the global market in digital technologies for food production will hit 9.2% annually between 2020-2025.

Growth of the food tech startups
Like in every other field, technology has played a crucial role in the growth of the food industry. Many good growing companies like Freshmenu, SimplyNowaste, foodbud, etc, are setting examples of how to use technology to revolutionise the food industry. According to Zion Market Research, the worldwide e-commerce grocery market will reach $180 billion by 2022.
Mobile Apps
You have also witnessed in your surroundings or used mobile food apps. According to statistics released by Statista, mobile app downloads have seen a drastic increase in graphs. This trend is likely to be experiencing more such growth in the future.

Popular trends in Digital Marketing that have remarkably influenced the Food Industry

People loved to see about “Healthy and Sustainable Food”

Over the past few years, the keyword involved in the subject of food has changed its nature. Simply put, people have changed their sentiments about what should be on their plates. In all these, two trends have witnessed more attention.

The first one is environmental sustainability. What was just a niche is now a popular trend in society.

The younger population is the most influenced, making up the most considerable portion of consumers. People are not only into food and beverage but also concerned about the packaging.

A bunch of the leading companies are involved in the mission of eradicating plastic from their products. The focus is to substitute more bio-sustainable materials in their products.

The second keyword is unaffordable for any food business to ignore: “Health”. From the experience of the last couple of years, people are very concerned about their health and how their food will impact their health. The term health in food consists of many other elements such as fitness, slowed food, food intolerances, and organic foods that concern people.

Let’s look for examples in our surroundings. We can see many companies are changing their identities, changing the trends of social media and TV commercials either by themselves or through the help of the decisive push of influencers.

Use Social Networks as a helping hand to grow your business

In the food industry, you must know that the “hero of social media” is food. For a comprehensive explanation, you need to explore social media searches. If taking the reference of the Instagram search, the most searched topic is food. And for the record, the universe of social media is very huge.

Talking in numbers, there are around 4.48 billion active social media users worldwide. This number increases by around 9% every year. Also, 85% of the world’s 5.27 billion mobile phone users are active users. 99% of the world’s 4.48 billion social media users access sites or apps through mobile phones. Keeping these statistics in mind, we can appreciate the value of mobile-focused initiatives.

Now, which social media can give a huge push to your food business? The answer is Instagram. This software contains pictures and videos that are a great way to tell your story to the users about your food.

Moreover, you can use the GC for better storytelling, i.e., user-generated content created significantly by the users.

SEO is a must

In brief, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a way to optimize the website’s original result on various search engines. Understanding SEO is a must in digital marketing to be ranked among the top Google’ SERPs.

For your product or service to not be on Google means not exist for the customer. According to research by Finance Online, around 56% of the traffic on the Food industry sight comes from organic searches only. And therefore, taking care of SEO is a must.

Make your product tailored and target oriented

To make your business successful, you need to consider every customer. You need clear information about your customer, where they belong, their behaviour, and their priorities. You can easily avail all this information using digital media, which incorporates a vast user population. The question is how? And the answer is through data analysis and data-driven advertisements.

A smart and precise use of Big Data will help you connect better with your potential customers, your target audience, and those you can influence and predict their behaviour required for your food business.

Keep a record of the coming future through voice technology, virtual and augmented reality

If we look keenly at the present, we can predict the three most important things to popularize in the coming future. The first is every vocal technology, i.e. Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

The second element is virtual reality, while augmented reality counts for the third. These two elements are making unimaginable revolutions in many fields, including the food industry. Imagine the possibilities when you start the art of storytelling, starting from your packaging and how you service your customers. This will not only broaden the size of your consumers number but will add to your business reputation.

10 Impacts of the digital market on the food industry

We have before seen an overview of how the digital market can impact the food industry. Now, let’s see the same in a wider picture.

Wider Reach, larger audience

Distance is nothing in the times of digital networks. The digital market in the food industry helps reach out to the audience worldwide. Those customers who seemed unreachable to you a few times back are now in range of your touch. All thanks to social media, email marketing, and search engine optimization.

You can make intriguing content and share it on every other social media platform to enhance your reach and visibility in the market. It can also increase the traffic on your website and enhance your brand credibility.

Customization is the key

Customization is crucial to creating an unbreakable customer-provider relationship and an unforgettable experience.

With the help of digital marketing, you can know your audience better and generate emails and messages tailored for them. You can develop customised content, offers, or experiences that appeal to customers using consumer data and analytics.

The data can also be used to create campaigns to increase your sales.

In-Budget Solution

Traditional marketing elements like TV commercials, billboards, and print ads may be very effective. But the cost that goes for that becomes unaffordable for startups. Moreover, why spend huge amounts when you can get the same results by spending lesser? The best cost-effective solution is digital marketing.

Digital marketing companies have proven to generate more revenue and a high return on investment (ROI).

Online review to prove the business’s credibility

Today’s customer relies more on online reviews for making any purchase decision. The food industry can also use online reviews to prove its credibility and attract potential consumers.

Being a food business owner, you can post your customer’s reviews on your blog, social media, and all other digital platforms.

You can also take help from digital media influencers to review your restaurants or store for more push to your business.

Marketing through Influencers

As we mentioned just before, influencer marketing is one very crucial element in the field of digital marketing. It’s a very effective way to reach out to new customers.

Influencer marketing helps increase brand awareness, allure followers, and proper sales.

Businesses can utilise influencer marketing to engage niche audiences and create customer credibility.

Real-Time analytics to track your goals

Digital marketing enables businesses to calculate their market success using real-time analytics. Real-time analytics is tracking customer engagement, website traffic, and sales data.

These analyses will help you make more precise marketing decisions and give a push to your sales.

Also, using this data, you can improve the sales campaigns, reconsider messaging, and improve the outcome.

Real-time analytics can help your business stay nimble and responsive to market developments and consumer behaviour.

Email Marketing to build authority

Email marketing is yet another way of cost-effective marketing in the food industry to reach out to the customer quickly. You can exclusively share your new offers, services, and products using it. It can be a very husky tool to build loyalty and credibility with your customer.

Companies also use email marketing to keep in touch with customers and connect them with their brands.

Social Media engagement for brand promotion

Companies use social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., to connect with customers. It allows you to connect real quick with your potential customer and do a real-time analysis of your marketing.

You can use social media presence to promote your brand, strengthen its existence, and increase brand loyalty.

A mobile-friendly website

To ensure better customer reach, create a more mobile-friendly website. As we have mentioned earlier, the extent of the population actively using social media via mobile phones. It is a must for you to generate a website that customers can use through mobile to avail of your services and products.

Mobile optimization improves user experience, enhances conversation, and ensures seamless customer service. Mobile applications are a great way to attract your customers.

Enable online ordering to increase leads

Be it appliances, dresses, or food, people nowadays prefer to have it by ordering online. In this digitised lifestyle, you must lag behind in the marketing race if you do not allow your customer to have your services online.

Digital marketing has made the online ordering and delivery way too seamless. Especially after the pandemic, when people are reluctant to leave their homes and eat outside, online delivery is a saviour. Online ordering is a safe and sound way to order products for the customer, but it also helps you increase your sales.

What makes food's digital marketing differ from other industries?

Food digital marketing is different because it is tailored to market the food industry. When many of the formulas of digital marketing are equally applicable to all industries, food’s digital marketing stands out in the following manner:

Visuals work as a magic

The soul of food belongs to how it looks and how it tastes. Since your customer will have the first impression of your product through its visuals, making it look tempting is necessary. Food products use heavy visuals such as pictures and videos. Thus, improving the quality of the visuals is crucial. How appealing the visuals are to your customer can make a huge difference.

Taste and experience are the priority

Digital marketing in the food industry often improvises the taste and experience of the product rather than simply showing its features. You can take help by showcasing the various qualities of food like the aroma, texture, and flavour, telling a story of how the food will bless the tastebuds of the eater.

Localization of food

The best way to represent your food is to store it with the taste of your tradition. Food bound with the taste of local tradition attracts the customer the most. Using digital marketing, you can highlight the regional cuisine and the ingredients.

Seasonal and temporal promotions

Seasons can be best used to promote your food to the customers. You can use temporal advertisements like holiday-themed food, festive-foods on your menu list. Such offers will help you build a sense of urgency and anticipation.

Food bloggers for promotion

Food bloggers and influencers are making a huge impact on digital marketing. You can also take the help of these bloggers and influencers to widen your food reach to millions of customers out there.

FAQs

Q. How can businesses use social media for the digital market in digital media?
A. Businesses can use social media to showcase their food, share recipes, quick cooking tips, etc. Also, arranging social media contests and promotions and making your customer engage with your page through story polls and direct messages are various ways to use social media to give a kick to your business.

Q. What are many effective social media strategies for digital marketing in the food industry?
A. Many social media strategies that have proven effective in food are creating engaging content, strategically using social media influencers, i.e. influencer marketing, email marketing, optimizing search engines, and setting targets for online advertisement campaigns. This will give you a brand voice and strengthen your bond with your customer.

Q. What are the ways for businesses to know how effective their digital marketing strategy is?
A. Businesses can know the effectiveness of their digital marketing campaign in the food industry by keeping track of website traffic, social media engagement, email open rates and click-through rates, and the growth rate of online sales.

Another way is to use analytics tools to take insight into their customer behaviour and preferences.

Q. To what extent the influencer marketing effective for food digital marketing?
A. In the era where people are actively following social media influencers and their lifestyles, influencer marketing is one most effective digital marketing tools. Businesses can swiftly increase their extent and credibility by partnering with influencers with millions of fan followers and engagement. Not only that, but it also helps them elevate their sale.

Q. Can Vispan Solutions Pvt Ltd. help me be updated with current digital marketing trends and strategies and suggest best practices to strengthen my business?
A. 100%. Vispan Solutions Pvt Ltd. is here to look after their customers any time of every day. We always stay up with the best digital market strategy and try to help our customer curve their business in the best shape. Feel free to contact us; we will be happy to help you.

Conclusion

The food industry is changing, and how. It might be easier to enter the food business, but making it successful takes a lot. The competition is tough because even the street food vendor offers a wholesome experience. To add to that, digital marketing is making the race even tougher. To deal with it, one needs to put in a lot of effort and give time to connect and convert the consumer into sales.

But what is plus is the varieties available in digital marketing. Emerging food businesses can take the help of these multiple platforms of social media to promote them.

We understand the toll of managing a food business or any business. Digital marketing can be too much for you on your plate. But there’s a solution for that. The best solution is to hire a digital marketing agency to do the work for you.

Choose wisely the digital agency that can increase the ROI of your business insanely. A digital marketing agency that does its campaigns so smoothly that you no further need to hire a team or train the in-house team.

Outsourcing a digital marketing agency enables you to make a seamless and effective marketing strategy to bring your business to new heights. Before hiring, look into how much the agency prioritises ROI by considering their previous work.

Vispan Solutions Pvt Ltd. is here to fill the bridge between you and your best marketing digital agency to make you find the best results. Our customers are our priority; our duty is to serve them by connecting them with the best digital marketing agency. We want to see our customers top the list of market competition and beat their competitors.

Using the best technologies and latest trends, Vispan Solutions Pvt Ltd. makes their customers always take the steps that help them meet their needs.