Efficiency is key when it comes to developing a winning fresh produce marketing campaign
Investing in fresh produce marketing is a challenge – no matter what industry, what scale of business, what degree of resource capacity and capability, it remains a challenge. It is a challenge to define how much is “enough“, and it is a challenge to consistently define if enough will drive a result that is, in turn, “good enough“.
We are quick to look at large-scale, multinational organisations as having more than enough money to do something that a smaller business cannot. But their fresh produce marketing teams are often held to account at a much higher level in justifying their spending and are often given far less freedom and dynamism. Not to mention that even a big company can have small campaign budgets, especially when you dig down to a product brand (and not company brand) level.
Each year at Hort Connections, the first thing I lock into my diary is the MOYA (Marketer of the Year Award) Showcase. I always relish the opportunity to hear what people have been up to and engage in the ‘water cooler speculation’ about who will win. Watching this year’s finalists, I sat there and hoped that the judging panel had considered each submission relative to the submitter, and the level of innovation they should be capable of achieving. And of course, I wondered if smaller businesses could innovate at a level that would get noticed at this stage. It got me thinking. Although I know the answer is “of course they can” – I was curious to review how.
If you haven’t read it, I would wholeheartedly recommend The 4-hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I first read this book many years ago and have recently delved back into it to self-assess whether I am being efficient with my time as a marketer and, more broadly, as a human being – my learnings from this text form the cornerstone of this column.
In simple terms, if you can outsource the workflow of all except the most valuable of your outputs, you will focus your week considerably. In layman’s terms, make sure your team members spend their time on the tasks where they add the most value and offload the rest down the ladder or better still, out of the business, to a third party that can come and go as budget permits.
This logic applies very strongly in fresh produce marketing. We outsource our social media management, design work, media buying and photography and videography. But a lot of these things are activities that smaller businesses don’t get to experiment with very often. So how does Ferriss’ logic apply to them?
At a granular level, it means taking a task and finding a more efficient way of getting it done. For example, we recently needed to scrape 87 recipes from an old, overseas partner’s website and database them ahead of uploading them to a new local brand website. The digital agency was too expensive to justify them collating these recipes, I didn’t have enough spare time, and neither did any of my team.
To get the work done, we turned to Airtasker – within 30 minutes we had secured an admin and systems expert, based in North Queensland, to fulfil the work within 24-hours. By utilising this approach, my team can complete seven other projects that otherwise would have gone untouched. The cost of outsourcing equates to an equivalent of only 20 per cent of the total time saved.
So, we can find quick and bite-sized ways to engage third parties. Something else we can consider is automation. As social media embeds more intrinsically at all stages of the supply chain, the subsequent provenance story becomes more complex. But it also drives increasing scope for automation.
To clarify, by automation, I don’t mean a virtual robot answering people’s questions on your website, although this can be a great tool (sometimes). What I am referring to is the use of platforms like IFTTT (If This Then That) and Zapier, to automatically link your pre-existing applications (such as Office365, MailChimp and HubSpot). Zapier connects over 1,500 applications and is growing exponentially. We have recently reviewed and expanded the way that Zapier integrates our Google Forms with Mailchimp databases.
As a result, my team will never again have to upload a list of new web subscribers to our mailing lists. This saves roughly 1.5 hours of team time per week in perpetuity.
There is an ever-growing swathe of tech applications and businesses whose primary objective is to disrupt the way people interact with technology and software, so there are always new and smart ways to operate. The same is true of campaign innovation.
I readily admit that the innovations listed in this article are not likely to win you a MOYA nomination. However, the mindsets they foster and the capacity adjustments they generate may well lead to something that does.
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2019 edition of Produce Plus.
Soto Group Creative Agency
Soto Group are an Australian Creative Agency specialising in Fresh Produce Marketing.
We work with clients all over the globe and help them navigate the often tricky Fresh Produce Marketing landscape and we work with our clients to truly understand their brand essence to develop robust fresh produce marketing strategies that speak to their personal and business values. Our ethos is to build relationships based on trust that leads to design projects and outcomes that are goal-specific and help our clients’ businesses grow and thrive. Hundreds of horticulture supply chain businesses trust us to build them fresh produce marketing strategies, brands and websites that can stand the test of time, and lead to more conversions, more sales and more work life balance.
If you are looking for advice from an expert Fresh Produce Marketing team or finding out more about our services and how we help businesses excel, reach out to our friendly team for a no-obligation chat.
