How PR can help B2B food businesses reach consumer markets
During the UK lockdown, which saw the closure of all leisure and hospitality businesses including pubs, restaurants and hotels, some B2B businesses chose to expand their markets by securing sales in consumer markets.
Many food wholesalers, such as Brakes Group for example, began selling their products online for delivery/collection to residents living near their depots. Others introduced online ordering for delivery of items that were suitable to be posted out or sent via a courier. This approach not only helped increase their income, but also prevented stock from going to waste and in turn helped manufacturers retain some custom too.
Now, as lockdown restrictions begin tightening once more and many pubs, gyms and other businesses start to close again, suppliers need to be more innovative and proactive than ever before. It would therefore be beneficial for companies that didn’t take the B2C approach last time, to move in the same direction and look at changing their operations to sell to shoppers direct too. A good public relations and digital marketing agency can help with this, here’s how:
Updating your website the right way
At one time, if you needed your website updating, you had to seek out a specialist agency or designer to do it for you. Now however, as digital has become the leader in communications, most PR agencies offer website design and management as standard. That’s because, we know it’s the first place people look to find out more about your organisation, products and services.
For B2B businesses, moving your website from solely reaching a trade audience so that it also draws in consumers can sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. You may think you will need a complete overhaul or need to build a new site completely, but that’s not the case. To keep it simple you can either introduce a new section to your existing site, including an e-commerce platform so purchases can be carried out online, or you can create a microsite that links up to your existing website.
At Dragonfly PR, we have expertise in website design and development services, offering both non-e-Commerce and e-Commerce for business and consumer audiences. We also provide full copywriting services for websites, helping to make the whole process as simple and straightforward as possible. Cutting out the need to work with multiple agencies to get the job done, our website team can also advise on all aspects of design and development of the site and all of our web design services include a strong focus on search engine optimisation so you will rank high on Google as standard.
Identifying the right platforms to promote your services
A key part of any PR agency’s role is to carry out the audience research so our clients don’t have to. We keep up to date with the latest market trends, products and services as well as the top social media platforms, magazines, newspapers and websites that your target market are engaging with. By doing so we can advise exactly where you need to be and what you need to be saying to connect with your audience.
If you’re a food supplier offering restaurant quality products that can be delivered direct and cooked at home for example, it’s wise to have a strong presence on Facebook and on consumer lifestyle sites, which are more popular with audiences aged 25+. We can not only show you how to do this, but take care of the entire process for you, including drafting updates and managing your social pages and any enquiries.
Making your online presence known
To maintain a strong online presence in other areas, it is important to have a good content marketing strategy in place as this helps improve your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - where your website ranks on Google and other search engines.
A good PR agency can work with you to develop a strong content marketing plan made up of a number of key activities, including drafting keyword enriched blogs, product updates and consumer led articles that sit on popular third party news and lifestyle websites. Creating this type of quality, organic content that readers find useful will help Google view your website as a trusted source, and in turn you will rank higher in its search results.
Here at Dragonfly PR we have years of experience in helping our customers reach new audiences, whether that’s introducing services overseas, reaching new sectors or moving from B2B into B2C. All our PR strategies are developed bespoke to suit your products, audience, brand and budget and have been proven to increase awareness and sales for our clients.
For more information or to speak to a member of our team about how we can help you get your B2C operations up and running, call 01143 495345 or email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk.
Dragonfly PR is a Sheffield-based PR and digital marketing agency that specialises in media relations, content marketing and organic SEO for construction, manufacturing and food companies.