I Have An Idea To Market A New Food Product. Any Ideas On Where And How To Start?

February 8, 2010 · Filed Under New Product

And is it feasible to market using brand product as one of the ingredients?

Tags: Food, Have, Idea, Ideas, Market, Product?, Start, Where

Comments

2 Responses to “I Have An Idea To Market A New Food Product. Any Ideas On Where And How To Start?”

Red Dog on February 8th, 2010 8:31 pm

Starting a new food product is a GREAT idea.
First place to start is your state or local SCORE chapter.
This is top-notch business advice totally unbiased and free of charge from retired business excecutives.
Next you might consider attending food product trade shows nearby to see what the competition is doing and to talk to prospective partners. See the link below for food expos.
It is also a good idea to read the trade press for prepared food products. Your local library will probably have an online database which contains articles from food related magazines and journals. Ask your local librarian for help.
Don’t worry too much about using a trademarked brand product in your offering. There are two ways to deal with this. First use the free linkedin website to see if you can make a contact in the company you are targeting. Or use your traditional network to reach someone there. You can also search the internet for the product or brand manager and cold call them with a co-branding proposal. In some cases they will license to you at NO COST because you are giving them free publicity. Try it, you’ll be surprised!
TM Express™ on February 9th, 2010 1:39 am

There are plenty of PPC (pay per click) programs. The 2 biggest, I think, are Google & Yahoo!.
Also, consider signing up for an affiliate program. These programs enable you to advertise on other’s sites (your affiliates) and once a sale is made to you, your affiliates & the program are paid a commission. We use ShareASale & pay out $25 to our affiliates once a sale is made & ShareASale takes another $5. $30 a sale is a pretty small price to pay for us. And I’m sure most programs like that allow you to set the commission rate (no point in your commission being half the price of a sale for you!)
I listed a couple of handy sites relating to marketing, promotion & advertising. I hope they’re helpful for you.
As far as using another party’s trademark within your product, I recommend speaking to a trademark attorney about this. If you need a referral, please contact me — my information is listed in my profile.
Lastly, have you checked to make sure the name you’re using is truly available? Prior to investing your time, money & effort into a name, it is strongly advised that comprehensive research be conducted to ensure that the name you’re interested in is truly available.
This entails searching the pending & registered Federal and State trademark files as well as the US National Common-Law files. Then, if clear, you can decide if you would like to file for a Federal or a State trademark.
Research is needed to make sure your trade name is legally available, before opening, before expansion, before incorporation or before designing your logo. Similarities in sound, appearance and meaning affect you too!
There are 16+ million trade names in use in the United States. Similar names matter, if close in sound, appearance or meaning. Similar names in related classes, distribution channels and customer matter too. You are affected by Common Law use (14 million), State Trademarks (500,000) and Federal Trademarks (2 million).