Whether you are just starting your food company or expanding your portfolio to meet the needs of your ideal audience, it’s crucial to keep your consumers at the center of everything you do. Staying close to your consumer and understanding his or her lifestyle, pain points and aspirations can open up new opportunities for innovation, as well as help you gain feedback when you are ready to launch those new ideas.
That is why marketing research is an important tool to help you deliver on your brand strategy. The importance of understanding the motivations of your ideal audience in general–as well as specifically what they think of your packaging and product(s)–cannot be overstated.
There are ways to get customer feedback beyond formal research, however, there are milestones in your business when DIY research is risky. In this episode, Carrie Arndt, Senior Research Executive at MMR Worldwide, talks with Katie about the fact that formal quanlitative or quantitative marketing research for food brands can be more affordable than some food entrepreneurs expect. Whether it’s a new product launch or packaging redesign, it’s critical to get feedback of some sort from your actual consumers, not just your team or friends and family.
For example, your packaging is one of the most tangible connections your customers will have with your business. Every time someone picks up, opens and engages with your packaging they are having a physical, hands-on experience and will walk away with a perception of who your brand is and what it stands for. Research can help you understand consumer perceptions of your package’s structure and design as well as perceptions of the product within it.
By taking time to understand your consumers and how they are interacting with your category and your products, you can begin to shape those interactions through your branding and packaging to help ensure a positive experience that will set you apart and keep them coming back for more!
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In This Episode:
- Ways MMR Research Worldwide helps brands with qualitative and quantitative research
- Types of research businesses can conduct when developing food packaging
- Why chasing design trends can be detrimental to your marketing strategy
- How to balance standing out with fitting in with your category
- Why packaging design can have a significant emotional impact on consumers
Quotes:
“Format and structure have a huge influence on success.” — Carrie Arndt
“It is important to visually represent the experience of the product while staying aligned with the promise of the brand.” — Carrie Arndt
“Emerging brands need to ground themselves in their own identity.” — Carrie Arndt
Resources: