Gain more customers through a more effective, eye-catching, and entertaining website
By Victoria Walling
Websites have long been a great tool for businesses to reach more people. In the better-for-you F&B CPG industry, it’s a way for brands like yours to establish an online presence and be found by potential customers.
But what really makes a great website that will help you sell your better-for-you F&B CPGs more, and eventually grow your business even further? Here are some useful ways to beef up your better-for-you F&B CPG website that can jumpstart your sales tenfold:
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#1: Clear and Compelling Message
Your website messaging should be clear, concise, and compelling. Aside from informing them of what your product is and its key benefits, you want to move your potential customers to action – you want them to purchase your products.
Make sure you communicate the benefits of choosing your brand and highlight its unique value proposition. Find out what your target market’s pain points are and craft your messaging that addresses their concerns through your products. It’s always about YOUR TARGET MARKET, not about you but on how you support, help, and address what is important to them.
Use language that resonates with your target audience and emphasize the health benefits of your products. Pro tip: instead of using first person pronouns, use second person. (‘You’ is better than ‘I’ and ‘we’). People want to know how they can solve their problems with the help of your products.
Take Hooray Foods as an example with concise and clear messaging for their plant-based bacon:
Source: https://www.hoorayfoods.com/
You can easily see that they offer plant-based bacon that is crispy and has a chewy texture, tastes like real bacon, and has fewer calories, less salt, and no cholesterol. Their message is clear: they want to make delicious, harm-free food made from plants and not pigs. It’s simple, straight to the point, and no BS. If you’re conscious about what you eat and prefer not to consume meat but want to still have bacon, then this is the perfect choice for you.
Source: https://www.middaysquares.com/
What’s great about Mid-Day Square’s website is that one-line that you see when you land on their page – functional chocolate squares that satisfy your sweet cravings. It encapsulates what their products are and what it is for, supported by its sub-headline: everything a chocolate bar isn’t and everything a functional bar wishes it was. It’s simple, direct, and easy to understand.
Want to cross-check if your website messaging is on point? Follow this website audit questions to gauge where you are right now:
1. Is your main message visible on the landing page?
2. Is your brand positioning strong enough?
3. Do you highlight the pain points of your customers?
4. Do you use emotional power words?
5. Are you using the right call to action functions?
Being conscious of these key factors to ensure your messaging is on point can pivot your website’s performance in ways you can imagine. Spend time auditing your existing website and refocus your messaging if it’s too much about you and less about them.
#2: User-Friendly Design and Navigation
You don’t want to be that better-for-you F&B CPG brand that no one can understand because your website is too ridden with copies and difficult navigation. Remember, you want to make sure that your potential customers can easily get what you are selling and would want to purchase and try your products.
Your menu must be accessible, and your pages must load quickly. Use high-quality images and videos to feature your products and make it easy for them to find what they are looking for on your website.
Pro tip: design your website with your end-user in mind. If you’re targeting women, make your design more feminine. If you’re targeting children, appeal to the mothers of these kids. If you’re aiming to gain more male subscribers, align your design with their taste and what appeals to them the most.
Source: https://tryboredcow.com/
Take Bored Cow, an animal-free dairy product, as an example of great design and navigation combined. The website is clean and has easy-to-read fonts. It’s visually appealing as it uses high-quality images to showcase its products. It’s engaging because it not only focuses on product selling but also on the unique experiences of real-life users. It’s informative but not boring with the overall layout, buttons to click, and the user experience. The website is even optimized for mobile devices so it’s convenient to use on all platforms.
Source: https://drinkperfy.com/
Source: https://drinksanzo.com/
Perfy and Sanzo are two other better-for-you beverage brands that have really great, interactive, and easy to use websites because of the way they were laid out, designed, and optimized for user experience.
#3: Social Proof Presence
Customer testimonials are powerful ways to showcase social proof and build trust with potential customers. What your customers say about your product means a lot and these reviews from satisfied customers on your website will help boost your credibility. You can also include any awards or recognition your brand has received that can amplify your standing and positioning in the market.
Source: https://miraclenoodle.com/
Miracle Noodle, calorie-free and low carb shirataki noodles, is one better-for-you F&B CPG brand that has featured testimonials and media features in their website to showcase the reviews and third-party recognition they received.
Source: https://sweetlorens.com/
Meanwhile, Sweet Loren, which offers clean, plant-based, gluten-free, dairy free and non-GMO cookies and cookie dough, has made use of testimonials of real people with photos of them with the products.
Pro-tip: including product reviews and testimonials from the media and real fans on your landing page can boost not only your credibility but also entice users to stay longer on your website because they get inspired, entertained, and encouraged with what others are saying about your products.
#4: Attractive Calls-to-Action
Your website will not work if it’s all just information without any call-to-action buttons. These CTAs will encourage users to take specific actions – such as purchasing your product or signing up for your email list.
Use clear and actionable language to make your CTAs stand out. Some sample CTAs you can use:
Get Started – can be used to encourage potential customers to jumpstart their better-for-you eating or drinking journey.
Learn More / Discover More – used to direct visitors to a specific product that highlights benefits and features
Shop our Best Sellers – used mostly to highlight the most popular and successful better-for-you F&B CPG products
Get Your Free Sample – primarily used to encourage visitors to try a product before committing to a purchase
Shop Now / Order Now – can be effective with websites that offer online shopping for their products.
Try It Out – also used to encourage to try a new product
Find Your Perfect Match – more personalized CTA that will match user’s needs and preferences with your products
Pro tip: Use a minimum of three CTA buttons on each page of your website to maximize action in every page.
Lesser Evil, for example, offers better-for-you plant-based snacks using clean ingredients. Their website uses fun CTAs such as Hop.Pop.Shop, Click for Cosmic, and Get it Poppin’!
Source: https://lesserevil.com/
Hippeas, which offers organic, vegan and gluten-free chickpea puffs and chips, also has fun CTAs like Get Puffed Up or Click for Chips.
Source: https://hippeas.com/
#5: E-commerce Capability
One way to ensure you drive sales for your business is capitalizing on your website’s e-commerce capability. You can expand your customer base beyond just a physical location while providing online shopping convenience to your customers from the comfort of their own home.
Having e-commerce capability eliminates the need for a physical store and the associated costs such as utilities, rent, staff, and can be cost-effective for any better-for-you F&B CPG brand. This is an easy way to give customers access to your products in a very convenient manner.
Pro tip: If you expand your delivery partners for your e-commerce website, you can reach customers all over the world, breaking down geographic barriers and opening up new markets.
I’ve purchased a lot of products from various better-for-you F&B CPG brands but the ones that have seamlessly made it very convenient to add to cart, check out, and pay would be the likes of Whoa Dough, plant-based gluten-free cookie dough snack bars that I’ve truly begun to love.
Other brands that make it easy to order online per experience are Magic Spoon, high protein and better-for-you cereal, and Power Up Foods, better-for-you caffeinated snacks.
There are many ways to increase the performance of your website if you are aware of the key factors that can bring you closer to your target market. It’s not an easy journey but once you get it right, you’ll see your database grow and your sales hitting the roof.
How is your website performing so far?
