3 reasons why food and beverage CPG brands don’t see ROI on their content marketing

There might be many different and unique for each brand reasons for why this is happening. But there are certain principles, brand owners and marketers should keep in mind before they commit any $$$ amount into content production. It might turn out that instead of the $30K that the creative studio quoted them for, they only need to spend $2K or less.

Below you can read about a few important components that often make content and campaigns unsuccessful, so the next content marketer or creator you hire can’t talk you into “shooting in the dark”:

1. The content was irrelevant.

It was well produced, technically executed to perfection, or looked cool and trendy. When you hire creatives, they know how to create technically and esthetically impeccable images. They know what is trending on social media but don’t necessarily understand the art of subtle psychological persuasion of the customer behind the content idea. They are executors of your idea or copycats of what they see going around in the wild. They are typically visual or sensual people with the technical skills that allow them to execute content but more often they won’t understand nuances of how the performance of the content relates to consumers’ needs.

2. The content doesn’t resonate with the target consumer.

The content is called “content” for a reason. It isn’t about the form but about its “contents”. All of that includes psychological and sociological knowledge of the targeted buyers: demographics, their cultural and behavioral patterns, and much more. This knowledge has to be translated into a very focused creative direction for the content. Figuring out these details into a creative strategy should always be the starting and most crucial point of launching any product campaign (way before the content is created). Creative direction is about translating the targeted buyer’s behavioral patterns into the most compelling and believable story that persuades him to buy the product. Effective content marketing is about building a believable, relatable, and aspirational narrative around the product.

3. The content was placed in the wrong marketing channel, or in front of an audience who wasn’t interested in the product in the first place.

In times when marketing distribution channels are more diversified than ever you need to understand that content isn’t universal for all of them. What works on a brand’s website or the internet won’t work on social media. TV-style ads won’t have the same effect on social media. Choosing the right format for the content is an important strategic decision. Then CPG brand marketers need to understand what styles of content and creative techniques perform best in each of them.

I can’t tell you how many times I worked with clueless marketers representing food or beverage CPG brands relying on the support of creatives who just copied ideas from other brands. This also wasted a lot of studio time and billed unnecessary overtime to the client because of the random process without much thought put into it.

Effective content marketing requires more than just shooting cool-looking images. It takes time, research, and often product testing for optimized ideas, deep thought, and psychological expertise that inspires consumers.