The Information Age: Where do Gluten-Free Consumers Go for Answers?
CONSUMER MUST WORK HARD TO DIFFERENTIATE PRODUCTS
The gluten-free snack food industry is growing exponentially. While manufactures strive to differentiate their brand from a sea of competitors, consumers are having to work hard to distinguish one product from another. Through a 2017 consumer survey, Germinal Organic (partnering with Qualtrics) sought to understand where consumers interested in gluten-free products turn to, to get information on new products.
Initial results were not too surprising. Google is still king in the world of online information flow. For businesses, this dominance translates into aggressive, but strategic, Google Ad and SEO strategies. However, the key interest areas for companies trying to nail down the best way of get their message out to consumers lie in the comparison between traditional information channels (TV, Magazines, etc.) and social media.
WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY?
While traditional channels are preferred by only 29% of consumers, the major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest) are used as a regular source of information by over 60%. At this point, strategy becomes the name of the game for a company’s marketing team. The big question to answer is this: what type of consumer are you looking to put your product and message in front of?
Women in the sample prefer Instagram to any other information channel (excluding Google). Perhaps even more importantly, Pinterest ranks in the top 3 channels as well. Like Facebook, Pinterest is evolving into an e-commerce channel and it is certainly a platform worth investigating. Surprisingly, male consumers seem to largely ignore most social media channels, except for Facebook. In fact, males in the sample still rely, at least in part, on television and magazines to provide them answers and insights into new products.
PAY ATTENTION: HABITS MATTER
When survey participants were classified according to consumption habits, the results were much more uniform. Two major trends can be outlined. Google remains the preferred source of information for occasional consumers of gluten-free snacks, followed by. Heavy consumers, however, listed Instagram as their top choice, above Google. This shift makes sense if one considers that regular consumers will have a much better idea of what brands are out there and will looking to engage with a community rather than discover basic information.
SO, NOW WHAT?
What does this mean for your company? The easy part is following the data and concentrating communication efforts into digital rather than traditional information channels. The challenge is pinpointing a strategy that will allow you to get in touch more easily with your target audience.
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