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In 2020, many snack food brands launched their DTC platforms mainly because the eCommerce industry saw a boom last year with the total eCommerce sales amounting to $759.4 billion in the United States alone. Another contributing factor is the changes in consumer snack habits. According to NPD, it was important for 37% of consumers to have sufficient snack foods on hand during the pandemic. Some significant snack food brands in the USA launched their Direct-to-Consumer platforms to take advantage of the above-mentioned factors. One of these brands includes Bimbo Bakeries USA which launched its DTC platform, sweetsnacking.com, to cater to the snack needs of its customers during COVID-19.
Why Does Going DTC Make Sense for Snack Food Brands?
The increase in DTC platforms makes a lot of sense, especially in today’s uncertain retail environment. These platforms give snack food brands an opportunity to boost growth and target a wider range of audiences.
Direct-to-Consumer platforms offer an array of other prominent benefits. These benefits include the opportunity to gather first-party data, personalization of customer experience, having more control over customer relationships because of the elimination of third parties. If you sell your products directly to the customers you have the opportunity to personalize your product either via packaging or by customizing assortments.
DTC platforms encourage brands to adhere to a more customer-centric mindset which helps them build brand loyalty and encourage customer relationships. At the same time, having your own customer service platform can help in developing effective marketing strategies. A DTC platform also enhances the customer service of a brand as the consumer queries would be directly reported to the brand itself so it can work on resolving the query in an efficient and timely manner.
How to Build an Audience Through DTC Platforms?
It’s quite evident that DTC platforms help cater to a wider set of audiences because an eCommerce store is available to more audiences as compared to retail stores from where only a specific set of audiences can buy your product. While it may cater to more people, brands take many other advertising and marketing initiatives to attract customers to these platforms. These initiatives include:
- Social media to get the word out there
- Partnering with people who can market the DTC platform for you like affiliate marketers
- PERSONALIZATION! This is the most important element that many big snack food brands that have a DTC platform add to their marketing efforts. Creating personalized packaging or personalized assortments can help create brand loyalty amongst the customers.
DTC and the Audience of Snack Food Brands
The main purpose of developing a Direct-To-Consumer platform is to create ease for the customers. Through such platforms, snacks are now readily available for the customers and they can stock up on their favorite snacks just by clicking a few buttons on their screen.
According to a survey, about 67% of millennials rely on a brand’s website to purchase packaged goods and around 73% of these consumers plan on keeping purchasing products online. This is where snack brands and their Direct-to-Consumer platforms come in. Millennials mostly represent the target audience of snack food brands and these millennials rely more on digital platforms mostly because of convenience and them being digital natives. So a DTC platform can be very fruitful for a food snacking brand.
Bimbo Bakeries USA’s Direct-to-Consumer Platform
Bimbo Bakeries USA launched its Direct-to-Consumer platform Sweet Snacking in September of 2020. This platform was created to cater to the snack needs of the consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform sells carefully curated bundles of snacks for different occasions and purposes. These bundles were created after a thorough study of customer’s buying patterns and behaviors. This adds a personalization factor to these bundles. The bundles include Bite-Size Collection which has an assortment of bite-sized baked goods appropriate for kids, Snack for All bundle which consists of a variety of sweet and spicy snacks from Bimbo Bakeries USA, Movie Snacks bundle perfect for a family or friends movie night, and a coffee or tea pairing bundle that has an assortment of baked goods that go best with coffee or tea.
Bimbo Bakeries USA is a very prominent baked goods brand in the USA and is known for catering to the needs of its customers. Their DTC platform does just that. It helps fulfill the snack needs of its customers. Expert 3pl for supplement fulfillment, excelling beyond typical offerings. They can order any bundle that fits their requirement and have it delivered to their doorstep in due time.
