For beverage brand marketers, increasing the exposure of your products and placing them within arm’s reach of consumers is the primary goal. Both of these objectives increase the likelihood that brand loyal consumers and new consumers alike will make a purchase. Addressing stagnating sales can be difficult, and requires seeking out new avenues of outreach that will spread brand and product awareness. However, too often beverage brand marketers forget the old truism in the industry, “if it’s not cold, it’s not sold.” While this statement can seem to oversimplify a complex issue, the kernel of truth embedded in it holds true across nearly all categories of beverages. In this article, we’ll look at why creating a beverage brand marketing strategy centered on making sure your products are cold, ready to consume, and visible will help boost sales by increasing product availability, while also showcasing your products in a more accessible and appealing manner.
1. Cold products do not equal decreased visibility.
Keeping your products cold does not mean that they have decreased visibility. This misconception is tied to the past, when technological constraints limited the viability of keeping beverages both cold and accessible. By utilizing a variety of different cooler designs, you can keep your beverages cold, and place them within arm’s reach of customers. Coolers today operate more efficiently, reducing the cost associated with storing your products on the floor rather than in a traditional single door or double door refrigeration unit. Additionally, reach-in coolers placed in high traffic areas can be customized with brand specific logos, resulting in both increased visibility and accessibility for consumers.
2. Capitalize on impulse sales.
In the past, marketing for impulse purchasing was largely relegated to room temperature items such as snacks, gum, or small food purchases. This is no longer the case. With new cooler designs, beverage brand marketers are able to position their products in key high traffic areas while also keeping them cool. Using this approach makes your products more desirable, visible, and accessible to your consumers. Not properly capitalizing on impulse shopping is one of the biggest mistakes made by beverage brand marketers. Doing so requires you to place yourself in the shoes of the consumer, and then placing your ready-to-drink beverages in the optimum areas for visibility and convenience. By using an impulse cooler that has brand specific imagery on the outside, you are able to draw attention to your products and increase the likelihood that retail customers will grab and go.
3. Cold products maximize convenience and accessibility.
Today’s consumers are the busiest they have ever been. By recognizing this fact, and making concrete changes to your marketing strategy to meet demand, you will be able to boost sales. Increasing the convenience of consuming your products requires strategically using your resources and knowledge of consumer buying patterns to place your products at key intersection points at retail. By placing ready-to-drink products within arm’s reach of your consumers at common high traffic areas such as at the deli counter, checkout aisle, and entrance, you can make a significant difference to your total sales. Additionally, retail customers will associate their purchasing experience with convenience and speed, making them more likely to return and repeat the process when they are on the go.
By making cold, accessible beverages the center of your strategy, you can realize measurable increases to your total monthly sales. Ensuring that your products are cold and within arm’s reach of your consumers requires strategically placing your products at high traffic areas throughout storefronts. In order to do this, you can utilize the new generation of coolers designed to be placed at impulse locations. As an added benefit, these coolers will increase product visibility by both bringing them closer to the retail customers, while also prominently displaying your brand logos and imagery on the outside. The beauty of this approach is that it will mesh seamlessly with other marketing strategies, such as product outreach through social media, which seek to drive increased traffic to locations where your products are located. The backbone of this strategy is to not only make your products more accessible and visible, but importantly also ready to consume. This capitalizes on the lifestyle of the modern-day consumer that is looking for convenience and speed in their shopping experience.
