Your Product Labels Should Appeal To A Niche Market

_{Ian Renton  | 02/08/2019 | Food Labels,Product Labels}

It is impossible to please everyone so your product labels should appeal to a niche market. It is difficult to find products that everyone buys. Perhaps toilet paper, toothpaste and soap are a couple of these products that come to mind. Do not think that everyone buys on price. If they did, popular restaurants would be empty, luxury cars would not exist and we would not have a choice of such a large variety of brands.

Did you know that a large Woolworths or Coles Supermarket will sell 30,000 different items?

There are hundreds of thousands of other products also sold in other supermarkets, retail outlets, weekend markets and on the internet. Competition has never been stronger so if those businesses selling food and other products are not competing on price, how are they competing? These businesses compete by appealing to a niche market and their product labels help that business appeal to a niche market.

Before the product is even brought to market, much research is undertaken to find a gap in the market. Many of our customers have done this successfully. The product labels we print for them enable them to be quite successful in a short space in time. The secret to any success in business is to create strong demand for your product and educate and market repeatedly and effectively to your clients as to why your product is better than other options.

There is a lot more to that then creating a colourful and appealing label or other packaging. What these businesses have done is find a niche market and then market their products and services to that niche. They are not trying to sell their products and services to everyone.

One of the fastest growing niche markets in Australia is the vegan market. According to Roy Morgan Research, over 2.25 million Australians identify as vegans. Reference: https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/5765469/australians-love-their-veg/

Designing Food Labels For Vegans

When designing food labels for vegans, there are so many things to consider. Whether you are vegan or not, you must understand what vegans want or more importantly, don't want. A vegan is someone who does not eat or use animal products. This means that meat, poultry and fish are not part of the vegan diet. Dairy products are also out as these come from cows or other animals. For a vegan, the most important characteristic are the ingredients.

Most food labels highlight the brand and taste. Vegan food labels highlight the ingredients, especially the absence of animal products, and also highlight the nutritional benefit of that food product. Always keep in mind that there are laws governing your food labels. These are designed to protect the consumers, not just their preferences but their health as a large portion of the population is allergic to something.

About two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Sydney Vegan Market. It was a sunny Sunday and very warm for July in Sydney. It was packed and there were large queues to buy vegan food. It was great to see so many small businesses thriving or getting started in a niche market.

I would suggest that probably none of these businesses had their products in Woolworths or Coles but over 100 vendors were serving their market very well and all exhibitors proudly displayed their product labels, packaging and signage.