We hear it all the time from new, upcoming brands – How do I get a buyer to respond to my emails and actually look at my brand?
At The Good Food Group, we work closely with buyers across all major UK retailers and we know what they like and don’t in a brand’s outreach to them.
Here’s 5 mistakes you may be making that are hindering your respond rates:
Being afraid to be creative in your emails.
Just because you’re sending an email doesn’t mean you have to stick to just text! Think about potentially creating a personalised video for that buyer of your brand’s spokesperson introducing the brand and WHY they should stock it in their stores.
Reaching out to the completely wrong buyer or retailer.
It’s important to not rush your outreach and instead, to carefully plan what you are going to say and making sure you have the right contact. As well as this, you need to properly assess the range of that retailer – Are your products the right fit for them? Pick 3 retailers you believe fit your brand’s ethos and mission and focus on them.
Not having an end goal to your emails.
When reaching out to buyers, you need to be clear in what you are actually asking for… Whether that is inviting them to a pitch call, asking for an address to send samples to or to just get the ball rolling. Make sure every email you send to a buyer has clear end goal for them to action.
Sending your emails at completely the wrong time.
Buyers as we all know, are extremely busy people, so timing your emails can be very effective in them responding or your email going straight to the bin to clear their inbox! Mondays & Fridays are a NO GO…. these are typically the days in which they will be doing sales reports, so avoid those.
Having a boring, paragraph heavy outreach.
This may be the most obvious mistake to avoid, but it still happens on a daily basis! Buyers do not and will not spend their valuable time reading an email with long paragraphs of text. Instead try to include just top line information – don’t be afraid of bullet points and tables! This clear way of showcasing your top figures and incentives for that buyer is what’s going to make them stop and read.
Guilt of any of these mistakes? Don’t worry. It can be daunting reaching out to buyers and wanting to create that perfect message – our last piece of advice is not to overthink the approach buyers want: Clear information, An end goal & to see something different to what they have on shelf.
Let your innovative and exciting products do the talking.
You can read more retail tips on our blog at https://thegoodfoodgroup.co.uk/blog/