With the 2018 Winter Olympic Games almost over, sports fans will start turning their attentions to other activities. Not so for marketers. As we know from our own experience as Olympic hosts in 2012, marketers will continue playing on the popularity of the Olympics for a few more months. Some will even keep milking the Olympic cow until the Summer Games gear up two years from now.
As a vendor specialising in sports nutrition, we want to encourage our clients to follow the Olympic lead of sports nutrition distributors. Continue to use the topic of the Winter Olympic Games to promote nutritious food choices among your customers. Encouraging them to make healthy choices will drive your sales.
Remember, vending is an industry that relies mainly on impulse purchases. You have made the choice to put healthy vending machines on your premises rather than other machines that dispense sugary, fattening snacks. You can still take advantage of your customers' impulse to buy if you are willing to point them to more nutritional choices while at the same time explaining to them why the items in your vending machines are better.
Marketing Is All about Image
Nutrivend is extremely proud to be part of the sports nutrition industry by offering our healthy vending machines to property owners. We are thrilled to work with leading sports nutrition distributors to offer the kinds of products our clients' customers want. But we are also not afraid to admit that marketing is a big part of what we do.
It's hard to sell anything at retail if an effective marketing plan is not in place. That is just the reality of business. At the same time, marketing is more than just telling people you are selling something. It is all about image. Successful marketing is presenting your product in a way that makes customers want it.
We can think of no better image for sports nutrition than the Olympic Games. The Olympics have historically represented the world's best athletes competing to see who among them can be dominant. And whenever you're talking about the world's best, you are presenting an image that people aspire to.
Create an Image Customers Want to See
We cannot tell you specifically how to market your vending machines in a way that takes advantage of the Olympic image. We place machines in so many venues, and each venue is different. What we can advise you to do is talk to your customers. Get to know where they're at, what they think, and what kinds of images appeal to them. Then create an image they want to see.
The Winter Olympics are an excellent marketing tool for promoting sports nutrition. The sports nutrition distributors we work with have certainly taken advantage of the Olympics, and we think you should too. Find a way to tie Olympic competition into the nutritional choices your customers make. Then point them to your vending machines. Everything else will take care of itself.
