Organic products received a nice boost in sales over the pandemic. With health at the forefront of most shoppers’ minds, more and more chose to purchase organic goods where possible in an effort to improve their nutritional intake.
It’s expected that those who switched to organic produce will stick with it, even in the face of recession. The natural and organic products industry in the U.S. is poised to hit $300 billion in sales in 2023. This offers a unique growth opportunity for CPG brands, especially those with organic products and sustainable practices.
As the industry continues to boom, competition is going to get fierce. To stay ahead of the crowd, CPG brands are going to need to create marketing strategies that are just as fierce. 
Why CPG marketing is essential for organic products
Put simply: poor marketing efforts equal poor sales figures. Customers need to be aware of your product, or they simply won’t know that there are alternatives to their usual purchases. Let’s look deeper into why marketing your CPG brand is so important in 2023.
CPG is a competitive industry
Let’s not beat around the bush here, there are some giants in the CPG industry. They’ve dominated the industry for a long time and will continue to dominate going forward. This obviously can be intimidating for smaller businesses, but it shouldn’t deter you from pushing forward.
A strong marketing campaign targeted toward the right people can offer a competitive edge over the big brands. While the big brands benefit from saturation, you can leverage your position in the market by focusing on a specific audience. This will also help build brand loyalty as customers will be happier buying a brand that speaks directly to them.
Organics are getting more popular by the day
With health at the forefront of many shoppers' minds again, we’re experiencing another organic boom. Organic products are growing more and more popular as customers are looking for sustainable products free from unnecessary chemicals.
With that in mind, CPG brands should be looking to promote their most popular products. This will help customers discover your strongest products, leading to further sales as they explore your brand’s offerings.
While it may seem smart to push poorer-performing products, you should be capitalizing on current demand. Marketing your strongest products will help you get an edge on your competitors. Customers already love the product, so it’s simply about getting your name out there.
Customers want to shop in line with their values
Operating in a market dominated by giants isn’t as big a problem as you might think. Shoppers are increasingly becoming more aware of where their food comes from and the companies they’re buying from. Organizations are no longer able to get away with a lack of transparency or greenwashing their products.
There is a significant portion of shoppers who prefer to steer away from the big brands. They’re looking for local, organic produce and would rather support small businesses. These are the customers you want to target.
Connecting with your target audience on a deeper level will create brand awareness and real connections between brand and customer. The modern customer knows exactly what they want, and they’ll stick around for a long time if you can provide that to them.
Being able to reflect those values in your marketing — and do your product justice — will allow you to reach consumers who are looking to buy organic as a result of strong values. If they don't know your product aligns with their values from marketing, why would they choose to buy it?
The importance of salience and visibility
In marketing, salience and visibility go a long way to helping your brand reach the right people.
How salience helps your marketing efforts
The concept of salience is simple, it’s about how noticeable or important something is. So for your CPG brand, you want your products to have some sort of salience when lined up against your competitors. Much of this will come from the product itself, especially if you have a unique offering like Barnana.
You’ve likely noticed an increase in healthier snacks hitting the impulse buy areas of the supermarket. This has been driven by customer demand for healthier products, especially snack foods. Barnana is just one of the companies that are targeting this new healthy snack market. The company is a truly unique brand offering a way for consumers to enjoy healthy snacks while reducing food waste and supporting sustainable practices.
The unique aspect of Barnana has given the brand a huge amount of salience, helping them to stand out in the heavily contested snack food industry. Barnana knew their selling points and marketed them to the right people, helping to build them into the serious CPG contender it is today.
They managed to double their sales in just two years, which is an incredible feat for any brand. Even more impressive is that their salience helped them to do this during a global pandemic.
Why visibility matters
While Barnana’s success was mostly due to the product’s salience, marketers can help improve their product’s salience by increasing visibility. To do this, you need to focus on reach and regularity.
Reach represents how far and wide your marketing efforts are spreading. Traditionally, marketers simply looked to reach as many people as possible, whereas modern marketing efforts are much more specific.
Focusing your reach on a narrowed target audience can be much more effective than a general campaign, as it fosters a connection between the brand and the customer. Customers want a brand that speaks to them personally and doesn’t just treat them as a sales figure.
Regularity is how often your brand and message are visible to your target audience. The human mind can be incredibly forgetful, so you should aim to appear to your target audience at regular intervals. You can then increase your regularity to support specific initiatives. 
Work with a distributor that specializes in organic products
Marketing for your organic CPG brand is only half the battle. You also need to ensure that your products are readily available on the shelves — in markets where your customers shop most.
Buffalo Market works with some of the fastest-growing organic, natural, sustainable, and health food brands in the biggest retailers across the United States. To find out how our tech-forward distribution model can help grow your business, reach out to one of our experts today.
Support
Sales