Food Business Marketing Podcast | Brand Strategy, Sales, & Growth for Food & Farm Brands

Sales is an important channel to bring your Brand Strategy to life and set you apart in a crowded market. But how do you put on your sales hat and adapt your Brand Strategy specifically to a conversation with buyers? And what goes into a successful sales pitch? This week on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks to Sandra Velasquez, the New...

  When most people think of marketing, they think about promotion—pushing out your message to people and hoping they'll decide to buy. But who wants to be "marketed" to anymore? Instead, what if we thought of marketing as connecting? For this week's Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Beverage Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva lays out a 6-step framework for the journey our end consum...

Now that we've reviewed how to create a brand strategy in the past 3 episodes, hopefully you are excited to put those ideas into action! As you work to bring your brand strategy to life and move into the brand strategy activation phase, however, there are a few common mistakes you can avoid by learning from other emerging food brands. This week for the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and...

During this three-part Brand Strategy series, we've covered competitors and customers, so now it's time to look at the final C: Company. This is where we put together all of our inputs and start to look at outputs. Get specific about these components of company strategy, and you'll figure out how to really set your brand apart. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bever...

Figuring out your core consumers, aka the biggest fans of your brand, can be one of the hardest parts about building a food or beverage business, but it's critical to your success. Luckily, there's a tool to help you get specific about what you want to do: an ideal consumer profile. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Beverage Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva picks up wi...

We talk a lot about how Brand Strategy is the North Star for your food business that helps you align your team and guide them in the right direction towards your Purpose & Vision.  And while we already have some great episodes devoted to the topic (see below for links), we wanted to put everything together in one place to really walk you through each step and give you the solid foundation you need...

As Katie likes to say, "your Brand Strategy is how you'll meet your consumer's needs in a way your competitors can't, or won't, in order to set your brand apart."  When the front and back end of your business is integrated and aligned around your "North Star," every resource you put behind your brand is so much more efficient and effective.  When it comes to brand strategy though, it's so all-enco...

People need to be aware of your food brand if it's going to get from the shelf into their shopping carts. But how do you get people talking about your brand?  Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva sits down with Nikki Nardick, Founder of Knack PR, to discuss how to connect with media outlets to get press coverage for your food brand – a...

In this episode of the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Natural Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva shares a story that highlights why sometimes you need to just put in the work and watch out for shortcuts, what might happen when you change directions, and why you shouldn't be afraid to ask for help. In This Episode: How races are won and lost on hills. Why working hard now can pay off in the fu...

Every food business should be thinking about an integrated marketing plan that pulls all of your marketing efforts together into one coordinated strategy working towards one set of goals. Implementation of tactics just won't be as effective if you don't know who want to reach or what you want to say. Plus, it will be harder to measure what success even looks like.  Today on the Real Food Brands Ma...

Whether you lead a team of one or one hundred, it's critical to think about your role as a leader and how you're going to lead based on your values. For our guest today, that comes down to having the courage to acknowledge past mistakes and use them to learn and grow. Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks to Sadie Scheffer, CEO and Founder...

We use a lot of different terms to describe the groups of people who buy our products and love our brands (tribes, consumer groups, personas, end users...) but at the end of the day they are each real people and we want to get to know them as much as possible so we can create products that truly solve their problems and bring them joy.  But how do you get the information you need to do this? Today...

When your financials aren't in order, you tend to spend more time thinking about money. How much money is in the bank right now? Can we pay the team? Can we make this investment? There's a belief that when cash flow and profits aren't where we need them to be, the solution is to just work harder and sell more. However, there's a lot you can do outside of that to get a handle on your finances and i...

Consumers need us more than ever. As their needs are changing to adapt to the "new norm," they are building new routines and discovering new pain points that in turn create new opportunities for us to serve, support and delight. In this episode of the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Natural Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks through the Elements of Value pyramid, and how it can help you...

People want to feel a sense of belonging.  They like to be a part of something. Brands who tell a story that invites people in and offer a solution to a problem (versus just talking about themselves and what they offer) are more memorable, referable and create a sense of loyalty for all involved.    Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and food & bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva chats wit...

Your brand strategy serves as a "North Star" to align the front and back end of your business as you scale. But how do you know if what you're doing is working?  In this episode of the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva goes over the difference between a product and a brand, the difference between a brand refresh and a rebrand, a quick 3C's review and six signs you s...

Influencer marketing is a key strategy for growing food brands large and small, but how you go about finding influences and what you do once you've connected with them can vary widely based on your goals. For many of us, it can be hard to even know where to start. Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva gets a chance to catch up with Elexis Schroder, Founder...

Creating your point of difference can be a big challenge, especially in a crowded category. Our guest today has been able to do that and more, growing a product in an incredibly popular category into a brand with national distribution. Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva sits down with Abe Kamarck, CEO and Founder of True Made Foods. In this episode, we t...

While your marketing and sales plans are important steps to building your brand, you need to back them up with solid forecasting and demand planning if you want to grow your food business in a profitable way. Everything from efficient ordering and production planning to making sure you can properly serve your customers hinges on the work you do in this area. Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast,...

Stopping power is everything when you're trying to compete in a crowded category -- in the grocery store or online. How do you create a brand that jumps off the shelves and stands out from the rest?  Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva sits down with Candice Crane, Founder and CEO of Petal Sparkling Botanicals, a brand that stops you in your tracks when y...

Brand strategy is an essential part of building a business that will grow, but we see a lot of food businesses make the same mistakes when it comes time to actually put it into action. On this episode of the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva goes over the four most common brand strategy mistakes, and what to do if you think you might be making them. In This Episode:...

Having one integrated marketing plan, versus a more ad hoc and piecemeal approach, helps make sure that all of your efforts are consistent, coordinated and focused on creating a purchase cycle that eventually turns your customers into brand advocates. Between the visuals and the brand story that you're telling, your content is your chance to draw people in, build trust, and have a genuine conversa...

We talk a lot on the Real Food Brands podcast about having a Brand Strategy in place to align everything on both the front and back end of your food business to deliver on your brand's vision.  The same concept holds true within every area of your business; your strategy needs to come to life through your operations, marketing, customer service...even Amazon. Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast,...

Having a well-defined brand strategy in place for your natural food company helps you clarify a message that resonates with your consumers, and makes stakeholders like buyers and investors to want to learn more. Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks to Maria Garcia Brennan and Pete Brennan, co-founders of Soñar! Foods, an organic grain-free tortilla c...

There's so much that goes into developing and documenting the brand strategy for your food business, but if you want to pare it all down to the basics to define or refine your strategy in just a few minutes, this formula will help you get you started.  Today on the Real Food Brands Podcast, host and Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva does just that, with her V+3 C formula. That stands for V ision, C o...