Tag: digital marketing

Skroutz, e-food, booking, …: is there “life” for your brand without them?

You’ll notice that I put the word “brand” and not the word “business” in the title. Because it is completely different to talk about the life of a brand than the life of a business.

What is a business? An organization that markets products/services, has a specific target audience and aims to make a profit.

What is a brand?

Since I’ve already written about branding, I’ll go straight to the “grit”: it’s the “mark” you leave on the consumer’s mind and manage to make him think of your brand name when he has the need or desire to buy a product or a service

Batteries; C_____

Books; P____

Computers? PI____

What gives life to a brand? Apart from the classic 7Ps of marketing (product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence, processes) which build the brand, the most important thing is the “promise”, personality and values, which make it STAND OUT in the mind of the consumer.

What kills a brand?

Since what makes a brand special gives it life, what kills a brand is its “bashing” with many other brands where the main selection criterion is price.

This is exactly what happens when your brand enters price comparison platforms (Skroutz, Bestprice, …) and/or aggregating sites (e-food, booking, …)

“But from the moment I came in, sales went up”

Sales yes, but not your brand awareness.

What have these platforms accomplished? From “ordering pizza” to “enter e-food, wolt,…” and from searching for “men’s clothing XXX” to entering Skroutz and Bestprice and doing a search that will give us specific results.

“But is this bad? Doesn’t it give the consumer choices?”

Yes, but it takes him away from your brand. The consumer knows, thinks and remembers Skroutz, e-food, Wolt, Booking and not your name.

“But is it bad if sales go up?”

In the long run yes. Because whoever “keeps” the consumer also gains power: power to increase the commission you will give him, power to keep the consumer on his own platform and his own basket, power to make the delivery of the product so that HIS OWN impression is made brand even more strongly in the mind of YOUR customer. In other words, power to promote his own brand and overshadow yours.

And so you become a mere supplier of the platform and – to be able to increase your sales – you end up reducing your price and margins even more. And when you get to the point where you can’t bear to stay in the market, you may have to become an employee of the platform in some kind of pizza production “farm”, or the platform will make its own imports and throw you out of the market.

“But since everyone (everyone???) gets in there, what should I do?”

Do judo marketing.

What do you do with judo? You use your opponent’s strength to your advantage. So you too will use the power of these channels to make your brand known and win customers.

How?

Branding by “arriving” in the hands of the customer

If you sell a product, you have the advantage of packaging to impress your brand on the mind of the consumer. During the days when I was confined to my house for 14 days after a 10-day Covid-19 hospitalization, I did an experiment: I ordered food from five different restaurants through one of the food ordering platforms.

Only ONE of them sent the food in its own packaging, neat, with the restaurant’s logo visible. All the rest had the undifferentiated black plastic with the clear lid and the clear bag, or rather a paper bag with no logo.

“Steal” the consumer from the platform

Apart from the packaging that will attract your customer’s attention, you could take it a step or two further: have a fridge magnet and a leaflet with recipes / recommendations of the month.

The form could have a QR code (you know, the one that looks like a checkerboard and you scan it with your mobile phone) to link to your restaurant site or your mobile app where you will enable direct purchases but (to incentivize repeat visits) and recipes / tips / suggestions for nutrition and exercise.

I’m not telling you to work with a nutritionist and personal trainer so you don’t lose a lot, but it would really make a difference and cost you little (or nothing).

You could also have a unique code in the form or on the site or in the application that will link to a contest EVERY MONTH, with participants able to take part every time they order food from the restaurant.

Finally, you should have an evaluation form for the customer to fill out, either online or in physical form (and send it by simply photographing it) by entering a draw again or having a discount or winning a soft drink on the next order.

When you succeed and bring him to your eshop, you will have the opportunity to use remarketing ads as well as email or sms marketing to remind him of what he saw and what benefit he has to come back and keep buying from you.

These are the easy ones.

The difficult thing is to become different and the REFERENCE POINT in the mind of the consumer when he thinks, for example, “Glyfada Skewers”.

And that’s what BRANDING does. And if the recipe succeeds, your brand becomes irresistible and “enter e-food / Skroutz / Booking becomes…

Batteries; C_____

Books; P____

Computers? PI____

Skewers? Hotel; Electronics; Clothes; Your brand

Will you dare?

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