If you’re a savvy business person, you understand the value of thoughtful branding. Creating a cohesive brand – from an eye-catching logo to a beautifully designed website to smart packaging to relatable brand voice – not only differentiates your products from everyone else’s, but it can also punch through the noise to attract (and keep) the consumers you want.
What Does This Have To Do With Food?
Brand cohesiveness and consistency are intuitive best practices for any company. When it comes to food brands, this philosophy translates into recipes. Original recipes posted and shared online can drive sales, brand awareness, and website traffic. This trend will only continue to increase as more and more consumers buy groceries online, making the journey from recipe to reality much, much shorter.
Can’t I Just Use A Generic Recipe?
You might be thinking, “Okay. I get it. Having recipes on my site is important.” But why invest the extra budget to develop original recipes for your brand when a quick Google search will produce hundreds of generic recipes for free? There are three main reasons your product deserves to be showcased in original recipes.
1. Stand Out
For starters, using generic recipes and simply plugging in your product makes your brand look and feel generic. You would never buy a generic stock photo logo or put the product you worked so hard to create in generic packaging. Sure, recipe creation isn’t as crucial to a brand’s identity as a logo or packaging, but recipes are how many of your potential customers will learn to use and appreciate your product. By standing out from the crowd, you’ll turn your target consumers into brand-loyal customers.
2. Generate Buzz
While ingredients on their own have their merits, it’s the finished dish that really gets people excited. Having unique recipes that showcase your product will help consumers visualize your product as a staple in their meals, and really get them excited about bringing you into their kitchen. When you inspire your target audience with a delicious, beautiful, and well-crafted recipe, you create a golden opportunity to connect with consumers on a deeper level, educate them about the product, and help them envision how they can integrate your brand into their lives.
3. Get Chatty
Posting original recipe content on your website, blog or social media platforms is also an excellent opportunity to engage directly with your customers by responding to their comments and questions. This kind of interaction not only boosts engagement, it will leave your followers with a good feeling about your brand. Those good feelings will inspire loyal customers to spread the word of mouth and get their friends on board as well.
What Original Recipes Can Do For You
Any recipe associated with your brand should be delicious, reliable (meaning someone has tested and tasted!), and have the potential to photograph beautifully. The internet is awash with mediocre recipes, recipes accompanied by unappetizing photos, or recipes that just don’t work. The last thing you want is for a consumer to trust you with dinner and come away feeling disappointed or angry.
Leave it to the Pros
If you’re busy running a company, chances are you don’t have time to set up camp in the kitchen, testing out recipes, tweaking formulas, writing engaging copy and shooting gorgeous photos of the final creation. Recipe development and writing are skills, so hire a professional who knows that they’re doing.
Professional recipe developers know how to create recipes tailored to fit your brand identity. They take into account a host of factors including target audience, price point, seasonality and region to write recipes that will complement your brand. They know how to use your products in a cohesive, thoughtful way that will get consumers excited and generate buzz.
The best recipe developers are as competent in the kitchen as they are at a keyboard – they can tailor their writing style to suit your brand voice, while following standards and style guides that make recipes a breeze to read and follow.
While it certainly isn’t necessary to have recipes to accompany all or even most of your social media posts, regularly posting recipes offers added value to your consumer base. A picture is worth a thousand words – especially if those thousand words are a delicious recipe!
If that delicious recipe is elegant and perfectly in tune with your brand identity, so much the better. Original recipes will always be of interest to those who already know and love your brand, and they can catch the eye of new customers. If the recipe is a good one, your brand may just win a new loyal fan.
