Branding and marketing in the food processing industry

Download our eBook for the process industry

Continue reading below or download the full ebook PDF here.

Summary – Feed your market growth

Stand out and be relevant

Like many industries today, the global food processing sector is changing rapidly, creating a number of challenges for businesses. But these challenges also come with opportunities for brands to stand out as innovators and clearly demonstrate the value they provide for customers and end-consumers.

In these volatile times, buyers are looking for a brand they can trust. To win that trust, your brand needs to demonstrate reliability and a clear strategy for the future. A solid brand positioning will allow you to make the right impression on your customer at every point of contact.

Engage the modern buyer

With a strong brand as a foundation, your sales and marketing teams must work together to address the transforming buyer journey. The typical B2B buyer now spends much more time educating themselves online before contacting potential suppliers. This means you need to translate your brand positioning into engaging, meaningful content that matches every stage of your customer’s buying journey.

Cross-Border Communications offers 40 years of experience and a unique understanding of the branding and marketing challenges inherent in the global food processing sector. Here, you will find some inspiration from client portfolio of food and processing suppliers, along with some practical tips for cross-border branding, lead generation and sales campaigns.

Marketing strategy – Turning challenges into opportunities

Challenges facing the food processing industry

Evolving consumer trends require food processing suppliers to create new products that meet changing dietary preferences and the demand for a wide variety of flavour profiles. Staying profitable while meeting those demands is driving innovation in areas such as ingredient replacement, improved shelf-life and more efficient production processes.

The combination of consumer demand and increased regulation is driving the move to eco-packaging and more transparent sourcing. A shift to greener transport and improved traceability is transforming supply chain management, as is dealing with local demand, fluctuating commodity prices, natural hazards and changing trade routes.

Be your customer’s problem solver

All these challenges add up to a need for increased innovation across the industry. But as innovative as your business may be, you can’t focus on product specs alone. You must continuously communicate the greater value you provide your customer and their consumers.

Challenges and opportunities

• Consumer trends
• Regulation
• Sustainability
• Trade agreement
• Supply chain management
• Labour
• Labour

Case – GEA

As a truly global organisation with thousands of employees and customers in virtually every market, the challenge for GEA Process Engineering was combining cross-market appeal with cross-border efficiency. We created a comprehensive internal and external communications platform that united and elevated GEA’s global brand profile. GEA now speaks directly to each relevant segment, highlighting the company’s responsiveness to customers and a deep understanding of their problems.

Read full case here

Branding – Unifying your message internally and externally

Unite your culture behind a strong brand

The foundation for your business is your brand; it provides direction and ensures a consistent customer experience. Your brand unites your business internally and differentiates it externally. Internally, you need to unite your organisation behind the brand promise you make externally.

Your sales organisation (including partners, resellers and local reps) should be able to understand and deliver on that promise. A clear understanding of your shared mission will improve internal collaboration and efficiency. This is especially true of businesses with a broad brand portfolio, and for brands undergoing mergers or consolidation.

Build a brand that your customers believe in

On paper, your customer’s buying process is a rational one. But when making a tough choice between two equally competent suppliers, the ultimate decision may come down to a gut feeling. When it’s time to make their purchase, your customer will pay a price premium for a recognised and trusted brand.

To tap into your customer’s emotional drivers, you need to prove that your brand is smart, trustworthy and ready for the challenges ahead. The next step is turning positive expectations into positive experiences.

Branding starts with a few simple questions

• Is it clear what your brand stands for?
• Why should customers choose you over the competition?
• Does your brand unite your business internally?

Case – Qupag

Qupag is the world leader in tray denesting and handling solutions for food producers. QUPAQ is owned by Solix and formed by the successful consolidation of Intech and Carsoe’s food handling activities. To leverage the combined strength of two brands that previously competed, the new owners determined that renaming was a strong long term solution to embrace both strong product lines. CBC worked on the renaming and rebranding project including developing an original company name and logo, implemented these across a new CVI, and sales and marketing activities to support the launch.

Read the full case here

Market research and analysis – understanding the customer journey

Address the new B2B buyer

The buying process for food processing businesses is changing. Purchase cycles have increased signifi-cantly, and buyers are spending more time online researching their potential suppliers before reaching out to sales reps.

Your customers are out there searching for solutions, which gives you the opportunity to engage them with valuable content. By sharing content that supports the customer’s decision-making process, you will build relationships, differentiate from the competition, and ultimately drive leads and sales.

Dig into your customer’s drivers

In order to provide valuable content at the right time and on the right channel, you need to map the customer journey. Depending on your offering, you may need to know what drives your customer’s product development, procurement, maintenance, marketing and management teams.

If you want to be the trusted source of knowledge in your market, you need to conduct research to understand what’s really on the customer’s mind. Relying on experience and instinct isn’t enough anymore.

Taking a data-driven approach to market research will give you a more nuanced picture of your customer’s needs and processes, and your brand potential. Conducting qualitative and quantitative market research will help you stay in tune with the market, know where to focus, and prepare your next move.

Research your customer

• Survey and interviews
• Workshops and events
• Social listening
• Mining historical customers data

Content creation and lead generation – Filling the customer journey with value-adding content

Turn data into insight

With a strong brand and solid market research to support you, you can create content that demonstrates experience and industry-specific insights and speaks directly to your customer’s needs.

Using content in combination with marketing automation will allow you to generate more leads and move them through the pipeline faster. With digital targeting tools, you can micro-focus on your audience.

Convert opportunities into revenue

Once someone exchanges their contact information for your content, you can quickly determine if they match your lead criteria and keep nurturing them with targeted content until they’re ready to engage. With the ability to track the entry point for each lead, you learn more about the buyer journey and can clearly demonstrate the ROI from your branding and marketing budget.

It’s essential your teams understand that content marketing is an iterative process which requires ongoing commitment. Tracking and evaluation will allow you to see what’s working and what’s not, enabling your brand to become stronger over time.

Case – Lactosan

As the leading provider of cheese powder solutions, Lactosan knew that keeping its brand relevant was vital to its ambitious growth plan. The campaign “Bringing your next product to life” conveys Lactosan’s strengths to clearly differentiate the brand from competitors, with all messaging focused on customer needs. Lactosan now has a strong value proposition and powerful brand platform to connect with new and existing customers.

Read the full case here

CBC = B2B – A specialist resource for international business to business marketers

Do you need help growing your brand? Do you want to make your marketing efforts more profitable? Our experienced team is ready to help you get there faster.

At Cross-Border Communications (CBC), we combine an international mindset and a creative approach with a deep knowledge of B2B marketing gathered over more than 40 years of experience. We offer a full spectrum of branding, marketing and communications services that will help you engage your audience, boost awareness, generate leads and drive sales.

Our B2B experts in Denmark, the UK and Singapore have been handpicked for their specialised knowledge in international branding and communications. This means you always get an effective team behind your project with no need for long consultation processes. If you’re ready to take your brand and business across borders, talk to us.

Client testimonials

“The tagline Fresh Thinking helped perfectly position Dansensor as an innovation and thought leader within MAP testing. This was particularly important, since potential customers don’t just buy”

Karsten Kejlhof,
Former Sales & Marketing Director
Dansensor

CBC takes you from complexity to clarity to commercial results

Brand development

CBC helps you define the cornerstones of your global B2B brand: a solid brand position and clear value proposition; a strong visual identity; and the Big Idea that makes you relevant and compelling.

Our brand communications platforms, built on 40 years of B2B sector expertise, deliver strategic insight, razor-sharp copywriting, and world-class design.

You need this to:

• Refresh or rebrand your company
• Clarify your brand hierarchy
• Update your digital brand experience
• Create a more relevant identity
• Improve your value proposition
• Align your brand after an acquisition
• Communicate customer-centric messages

Marketing activation

CBC is an international team of dedicated B2B experts who get the complexities of your business and will develop tactical campaigns tailored for your markets and KPIs.

Whether you need greater brand awareness, stronger product marketing, or tighter internal alignment, we help you connect with audiences and increase your marketing ROI.

You need this to:

• Increase brand awareness
• Launch a new product or service
• Reach more customers online
• Get more from your marketing ROI
• Enter a new segment or market
• Secure internal stakeholder buy-in
• Attract new talent

Digital engagement

CBC enables you to drive digital lead generation with high-value content via ABM and marketing automation programmes that deliver the right message, in the right format, at the most influential moment in the buying journey.

Our engagement activities are tailored for your business to create both qualitative and quantitative inbound results.

You need this to:

• Generate more business leads
• Create better quality content
• Find new ways to engage prospects
• Give your sales teams greater support
• Drive and convert online traffic
• Improve your sales activities
• Optimise your online sales

If you’ve got a particular challenge to solve, a target to reach or you’re simply looking for inspiration, let’s talk. Give CBC Managing Partner Ralph Krøyer a call on +45 35 25 01 75 or send him an email at rk@cbc.dk