Selling Healthy Food Online? Get Your Content Right!

Selling healthy food online? Get your content right, as right content drives right action. Right content should help a consumer discover the product, understand its benefits and usage. Right action includes buying the product, using it, returning to re-purchase it and convince others to buy too. Following are four steps to guide you with content development, when you are selling food online:

Step 1: Create Awareness About The Existence of the Product

Selling healthy food online needs extra effort with an awareness campaign. For this, you need a website to showcase your product or range of products. If you have a big budget, you could launch the health food product with a TVC or an ad campaign. Alternatively, you may just want to invest in online ads. If you have a limited budget, selling through local markets or street fairs may be the way to go. Collecting email IDs at point of sale is advisable for future promotion activities. YouTube videos that highlight the benefits of health food products could also be considered at this stage.

 

Step 2: Highlight Product Benefits To Consumers

Selling healthy food online needs the use of multiple platforms to help consumers truly understand your health product.

Create a product information tab on your website.

Include the nutrition panel, the ingredient list, and product benefits on that site. All healthy product benefit linked claims should be nutritionally sound, and in compliance with local regulations.

If you have invested in clinical research:

-share positive product benefit research and the published paper on the website.

 

If you have compiled research on product benefits:

-develop a health food product brochure that lists all the benefits. This brochure can be emailed to health professionals, so that they understand product benefits, and promote your product to their clients. You could also upload a short video on the website or YouTube to explain product benefits, for consumers who prefer videos to written content. Don’t forget to reference all healthy product linked claim statements for regulatory compliance. Also, SEO optimize the content for ease of find.

TO HELP CONSUMERS UNDERSTAND THE PRODUCT, THE PRODUCT SECTION ON THE WEBSITE MUST INCLUDE NUTRITION, INGREDIENT AND BENEFIT INFORMATION.

Step 3: Help your consumers understand product usage

Selling healthy food online requires the roll out of recipe blogs, to help consumers understand how the product can be used. There is one caveat here, as your base ingredient is a health food and your target consumer is health conscious, limit the use of fat, sugar and salt. Also, ensure that only healthy ingredients are used to make up the recipe. Include nutrition information and attractive pictures for all recipes to entice consumers to try the recipes. Pay attention to recipe blog responses, as consumers may have queries about recipes. Respond to consumer comments on the recipes as soon as feasible.

AS YOU TARGET CONSUMER IS HEALTH CONSCIOUS, ONLY USE HEALTHY INGREDIENTS AND LESS FAT, SUGAR AND SALT IN ALL RECIPES. DON'T DILUTE THE HEALTH BENEFIT OF THE PRODUCT WITH UNHEALTHY INGREDIENTS AND NEGATIVE NUTRIENTS!

Also, encourage consumers to contribute their favorite recipes online or on YouTube.  To motivate recipe contributions, consider giving out discount coupons or organize recipe competitions with attractive prizes online. Once consumers become regular recipe contributors, re-purchase is guaranteed as they begin to build a strong association with your health product. With this association, it is also likely that they may bring other customers along.

Step 4: Help your consumers stay on the healthy lifestyle track with your product

Most organizations stop at this phase, but what they fail to understand, is that a healthy food or beverage is part of a healthy lifestyle.  To keep your consumers with you and  maintain the momentum of selling healthy food online, you need to help your consumers stay on the healthy lifestyle track. Use insights from your concept research to start a healthy lifestyle blog and continue healthy food conversations with consumers every time they buy food online.

TO PROMOTE RE-PURCHASE, MOTIVATE YOUR CONSUMER TO STAY ON THE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE TRACK.  YOUR CONSUMER MUST LINK THE HEALTH FOOD WITH A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE.

Also, get your consumer to share their healthy lifestyle success stories with articles on the website or with YouTube videos. With this initiative, your consumer begins to see your product as an important component of his healthy diet and healthy lifestyle. He may fall off the healthy lifestyle band wagon occasionally, but when he hops back on, it is likely that he will re-adopt the product. This hook is often ignored, but it is an important hook to help keep consumers and their friends coming back to repurchase your product.

Conclusion

Selling healthy food online demands constant consumer engagement. To promote healthy food sales online, focus on content that will help create product awareness first. Then highlight health product benefits and how to use the product. And finally, support your consumer with maintaining a healthy lifestyle, so that establishes a link between your product and his healthy lifestyle. With this,  he will be likely to re-purchase the product, as he sees the health product as the crutch that keeps him on the healthy lifestyle track.