Food and drink NPD - you’re doing it wrong

Imagine you’re getting married. How joyous! How wonderful!  

You and your betrothed, giddy with amour and blissfully oblivious to the rest of the world and its many ills, enjoy a tearful engagement evening and look forward to the wedding.

The Big Day arrives and you excitedly turn up at the venue to begin the rest of your life with your beloved. 

But no-one else is there. Not even your closest family and friends.

You make some panicked and ill-tempered calls.

“Where are you?” you demand. “Today is our wedding day and you’re not here! It’s the most important day of our lives!” (by now you’re weeping dramatically).

“Er… what?” comes the reply. “I’m at the shops getting a pizza for tonight, mate. BOGOF at Asda.”

How dare they! Despite this momentous occasion, not one of your nearest and dearest has arrived. The venue has no record of your planned nuptials. There are no caterers. No band. No cake. No balloon arch.

Of course, you didn’t actually invite anyone or arrange any of this stuff. You were so convinced of your wedding’s importance you just assumed these trivial matters would converge around your unique, perfect love and all would be well.

And this is how many businesses approach new product development. And it’s one of the main reasons why a staggering 95% of new products fail within two years. Ninety-five percent.

Well, it stops now, people.

In partnership with the excellent people at TRKR, I’ll be running a workshop on how to create a bang-on marketing strategy for the launch and success of new food and drink products.

The session is part of a wider programme, which you can find out more about here, which will equip food and drink businesses with a brilliantly practical toolkit for planning NPD to reduce wasted effort and improve margins.

I’ve seen the content for the programme and what you’ll get from it is a comprehensive, applicable approach to NPD that’ll quite simply make your products better and your business more money.

The marketing session, which will clearly be the highlight of the whole shooting match, will cover:

-        How to set proper objectives

-        Preparing a comms plan that works

-        Budget setting

-        Writing better briefs

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a straightforward template for a marketing plan which will get your spiffing new product off to a great start – and get you a storming pay rise*.

Places are limited so find out more and sign up here.

*A storming pay rise is not a guarantee and is probably quite unlikely, truth be told, but I needed a strong finish and I was stuck.