For many food companies getting your products onto supermarket shelves can mean significant sales and revenue. But the barriers to entry are usually high, with companies having to go through the hoops to make it happen, then you’ve got the slot fees that supermarkets demand. It can be a tough and costly task.

Food companies eager to get listed with supermarkets are regularly asked “what is your marketing plan to drive sales once it’s on the shelves”. This is ok for large food companies, but for small to medium sized food companies who solely concentrate on producing a quality product, a marketing plan is something that challenges them.

This is where Gourmet Ads can help. We’ll develop a digital media plan which can be presented to supermarkets to support your product. Your campaign would run on our vast network of food websites and would involve creative indicating that your product is now available in a particular supermarket or grocery store. We can also geo target your ads so they appear at nearby supermarkets.

Things we can do to create brand awareness quickly are advertising techniques such as;

• Over the Page
• Site sponsorships
• Road blocking
• Interstitial ads
• Expanding ad units

Finally, supermarkets won’t just want to see activity that will get short term sales. They’ll want to see a path to long term sales. Remember if the product doesn’t perform after the initial launch the supermarket won’t hesitate dropping your product and replacing it with a competitors products. You have to have a plan to keep your products on the shelves and generating sales.

Getting Products in Supermarkets is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Because of the Recession, more people are Cooking at Home

The recession has certainly changed the behavior of consumers greatly when it comes to cooking at home. A recent study by Zagat survey confirms that since the economic downturn, 61 percent of those surveyed say they’re cooking at home more than before. Not surprisingly, only 1 percent of the respondents said they’re cooking less. Although this study was specifically into the eating habits of New Yorkers, the increased trend of cooking at home is no doubt widespread across the nation as people cook to save money. There is no doubt that less people are eating out at restaurants in order to save money. With more cooking at home, I thought I’d look at who is benefiting from this trend as well as how companies with the most to reap can interact and engage with consumers online.

Supermarkets, Grocery Store and even Gourmet providores are seeing the benefits of people eating in. Many supermarkets are now printing recipes ideas as soon as you enter the supermarket in order to help consumers choose something for dinner. Companies that market core ingredients have the most to benefit, which is why nearly every supermarket has developed their own brand of private label products. One supermarket has even developed two of their own private label brands; one which is cheap and the other a little more gourmet proving consumers a real choice.

With more people cooking at home, supermarkets and grocery stores have a real opportunity to expand their consumer base during the economic downturn. One such strategy to increase market share would be to run a campaign with a CRM focus asking consumers for their contact details including email address. Then supermarkets and grocery stores could run a series of email campaigns sending weekly catalogs, discount vouchers or any other special offers. Alternatively they could send a weekly newsletter with ideas of what can be cooked this coming week with links to the shopping list making it super simple for consumers to go to the store and buy the ingredients.

The other major industries to see growth from the downturn in eating out, is both kitchen appliance manufacturers and companies that make and sell kitchen accessories or cookware. We recently were talking with a company that sells a $1000 kitchen appliance. They indicated with more people cooking at home they are nearly selling double the about of individual units than they were last year. Another manufacturer who makes a kitchen appliance for around the $100 is also seeing product sales increase. This illustrates how people still have money, but are looking longer term than just months with them prepared to invest in new kitchen appliances in order to save money.

More Cooking at Home has increased sales of Kitchen Appliances

For any company selling kitchen appliances, the key to educating consumers on how to use their products is via recipes. One such strategy for online campaigns would be via a branded Recipe Widgets which allows people to search for recipes which can be made with their products. People eat with their eyes, so making sure every recipes has a image is key to the success of any recipe based marketing program.

So if you’re tasked with increase consumers to your supermarket / grocery store or are tasked at selling more kitchen appliances, now is the time to develop an advertising campaign to take advantage of the trend of more cooking at home. Gourmet Ads can certainly help you develop either short term advertising campaigns or long multi month campaigns to hit your sales and revenue targets.

More Cooking at Home is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Log on and Buy Groceries Online with a few mouse clicks

One of the most dreaded household tasks by many people is shopping for groceries. Crying children, tempting store displays and long lines can make shopping in supermarkets a disastrous experience. This is precisely why many traditional grocery stores are expanding their bricks and mortar businesses to online allowing consumers buy groceries online and have them delivered.

Many online grocery stores such as Coles Online in Australia and Netgrocer in the United States have seen tremendous success already for some time. Both allow consumers to log-in and buy groceries online with a few mouse clicks, allowing them to spend more of their precious time with their families.

Even though most people hate grocery shopping, trying something new can be just as intimidating and you may find that a good way to encourage people to use your online grocery store maybe to offer incentives. These could be via free shipping; special discounts or coupon offers to entice them to try your services. Chances are that once they have tried buying groceries online they will never want to shop in supermarkets again.

Consumers want to Buy Groceries Online

So if you’re one of these online grocery stores how are you gaining new customers and driving sales? Are you advertising online? Do you have campaigns driving people to your site? Are you advertising where people are reading recipes?

Advertising Groceries Online is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.