marketers are clearly drawn to the
reach of this social network platform,
making it the fourth most effective tactic. Effective for listening and interacting with customers, Facebook is also
best for increasing brand awareness
and increasing customer loyalty, marketers noted. Many have called social
media marketing the level playing
field, since the cost of entry is the same
for all. This explains why smaller natural companies find Facebook far more
effective than large ones.
Rounding out the top five in effectiveness are coupons. Coupons tend to
be used by midsize to large companies.
Smaller companies shy away from their
complexity, yet find them to be very effective when used, especially in the
nonorganic food and beverage category. Organic food companies surveyed, however, don’t find them as
effective. The data does not tell us why
exactly. Perhaps, in the case of organic
foods, where core consumers buy on
quality rather than price, organic marketers might feel that consumers are
less influenced by a coupon offering a
discount. Still, coupons may be a way
to get consumers to get over the initial
obstacle of price, which has been
stated as the number one reason why
consumers don’t buy organic and was
found in the Benchmark Report to be the
biggest challenge for organic and
natural marketers.
will only grow in influence (it’s adding 1 million new members a week), the possibility is strong that it will be used more effectively in the future to network with
retailers, wholesalers and distributors.
Knowing how much natural products and organic companies love in-person
tactics, it should be no surprise that less face-to-face options like webinars and online training rank low in effectiveness. Generally, these are used for informing retailers, brokers and distributors. The extremely low numbers show that natural
and organic products companies either have never tried a webinar or that the online education movement has come and gone for them. Whatever the reason,
this industry does not embrace the training potential of the web. And as this in-
OF COURSE,
YOUR CUSTOMERS
RELY ON YOU.
SO WHO DO YOU
RELY ON?
Why not rely on the company that didn’t wait
for stricter food safety/quality standards:
Least Effective
LinkedIn, webinars, blogging, online training and sponsorships were
ranked as the least effective methods
of marketing. Seeing that four out of
these five are web-based, the problem
may not be that these are less effective
(many other industries swear by
them), but more that natural products
companies are comfortable with tried-and-true tactics and less committed to
some of the newer online ones.
Given the importance of business-to-business relationships in the natural
products industry, and that LinkedIn
Because at SunOpta, this
is, and has been, standard
operating procedure.
From field to table, we
control every step for all our soy,
corn and sunflower products.
This includes sustainable farming
practices, natural processing
and packaging.
But then— we go one step
further. We offer a Traceability
Integrity Program (TIP),
which requires testing,
documentation and certification
at every phase of our production.
