Prioritize taste, share samples… and have fun
Guest written by Joe Hill, Co-Founder of One Planet Pizza
Promoting a plant-based food brand in today’s competitive market can be challenging, but with the right strategies, it’s possible to stand out and make a lasting impact.
Joe Hill, Co-Founder of One Planet Pizza, shares his insights on how to successfully market plant-based products. Drawing from his experience in building a beloved plant-based pizza brand, Joe offers three essential tips to help you capture the attention of consumers, win over skeptics, and create a buzz around your plant-based offerings.
Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to the plant-based scene, these strategies are designed to help you elevate your brand and connect with your target audience.
1. Taste is still king
It’s easy to forget just how important a role taste plays in food. And in the plant-based world, it’s even more crucial to nail great taste! Research now shows that most consumers will try something new plant-based once, and if they don’t like the taste of it, they won’t be returning.
Winning over new shoppers and non-vegans is critical in growing this sector. So, my advice here is to have no more than two or three unique selling points (USPs) or key callouts when promoting your product or brand. Be clear on what problems you solve for your target audience – for example, an affordable, healthier protein source – and keep this hierarchy consistent across all channels and touchpoints.
For us at One Planet Pizza, this is that we are: 1) healthier, with 30% less fat and a sourdough base, and 2) sustainable, focusing on how plant-based pizzas can help lower one’s dietary carbon footprint. This, alongside being the best tasting, highest quality plant-based pizza brand, is our overarching proposition to shoppers.
Getting these fundamentals right and sticking to them will help make your marketing and promotion much clearer and easier to execute. We focus most of our social media attention on sampling and feedback, to show everyone how great our pizzas taste. Only do we talk about our additional benefits to health and the planet, once we’ve enticed people through their tastebuds.
2. Sampling, sampling, sampling
One of the easiest and most budget-friendly ways to get in front of people and raise brand awareness is to sample.
You don’t necessarily need an agency, or even a food truck, to get out on the streets with your product and gather that all-important feedback. For years now, we’ve been cooking up pizzas in shops, under gazebos, and even out of vans, to promote our pizzas on a budget.
I can honestly say it’s one of the best uses of our time; not only do we get instant feedback from the general public, but we also get a ton of great content.
It all goes back to taste and your USPs. People buy from people. And people also mostly want to buy what other people are buying. That’s why some of our most valuable and engaging content has been short, unscripted videos of people trying plant-based pizza for the first time and giving their instant, raw reviews. They’ll do even better if the people are proud meat eaters hoping to be disappointed. Then you’ve got an element of shock and entertainment to add even more value to your content.
3. Having fun in contagious
This is something we often talk about as founders of a plant-based pizza brand. From years of experience, we’ve found that the more fun you’re having running a business and creating content, the more other people pay attention and want a slice of the action.
Great energy is highly addictive and people often want to be around others who are having the most fun. The same goes for brands.
Consider dialing this up when creating your content, writing copy, and attending events. We find that it makes all the hard, heavy lifting you have to do to build a brand seem a little lighter. But more importantly, something magical happens: this energy starts lifting your team up around you, brings other brands closer to you in your space, and even nudges customers to buy your products.
So smile as much as you can, show a genuine interest in other people, and have as much fun with your brand as possible. It doesn’t cost anything and it may just give you that edge over your competitors… Or even better, the meat and dairy industries!
