If you want your communication to go viral and raise awareness about the quality of your vegan products, even with the help of those who re-share your content, here’s how to use Buzz Marketing to increase your sales.

You would like your vegan business to be known to a wider audience and more potential customers. You have decided to engage more on social media and perhaps put out a press release. But with what content?
If your social posts get shared several times, that’s already a good result. Still, you want more. You want people who read it to share it and tell their friends, “Read this article, it’s super interesting!” or “Have you seen this picture? Look how cool it is!” And then you want them to search for your plant-based product and to try it out. This is Buzz Marketing – content marketing that gets people talking. Sometimes it’s unofficial news (the famous rumors) on topics of great interest. Other times it’s striking images or surprising news that makes people want to share it.

What is Buzz Marketing?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Buzz Marketing is “a method of selling a product by getting people to talk about it to other people, especially over the internet.”
Buzz Marketing’s purpose is not simply to capture attention and make people aware of the existence of your plant-based brand, but also to generate conversations about it.
Obviously, if you want to generate word-of-mouth for your vegan products, you have to give people something that makes them want to talk, and not everything stimulates the urge to do so. What are the topics that spark conversation more often than others?

How to stimulate word-of-mouth

Topics that have greater viral potential and are more likely to be shared or published are:

• controversial and taboo topics
• secrets revealed
• oddities and strangeness
• celebrities
• scandals
• absolute novelties

Bonus tip (our favorite):

• Something that makes you smile or is even hilarious; tastefully irreverent humor.

If your communication contains one or more of these elements, it’s more likely to go viral. But beware of what the Cambridge Dictionary writes: “Buzz Marketing needs to be used very judiciously for it to remain effective.”
Indeed, even if taboo and controversial topics can get your brand talked about, what memory will they leave behind? It’s often preferable to generate smaller but quality word-of-mouth than to seek sensationalist hype that isn’t necessarily in tune with your vegan brand.

How Buzz Marketing is beneficial for your vegan brand

According to Invespcro, “word of mouth marketing drives $6 trillion of annual consumer spending and is estimated to account for 13% of consumer sales.” Furthermore, they say, “Word of Mouth marketing impression results 5x more sales than a paid media impression and people are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend.”

What do you say? It definitely seems worth a try. But the benefits don’t end there; in fact, viral content that points to your site also leads to more backlinks, which benefits SEO.
Furthermore, when the buzz produces a pleasant experience, it helps develop good memories in your customers’ minds.

How to apply Buzz Marketing principles for effective vegan campaigns

We’ve seen that from time to time, it’s important to do something unique that gets you noticed and gets people talking.
Photographing the bizarre and outrageous secret life of a celebrity with your product would ensure you get the public’s attention, but… is that what you want?
First of all, it’s important that you decide how you want your vegan business to be talked about. You probably want people to talk about your brand and excellence in your specialty, your plant-based products. You could spread the following:

• Backstories of your work environment (they are secrets revealed and maybe there are some funny oddities too).
• Tutorials or useful information, possibly containing some oddity and suggesting a solution.
• A photo of a special vegan product you’ve discarded (controversial topic?) and its history (secret revealed) that you may want to reintroduce in the future (brand new).
• Anecdotes related to a strange plant-based ingredient that you will be using soon (brand new).
• Anticipation of a new vegan product: build suspense by revealing only part of the secret!

Bonus

• You could also make some of your customers feel special by revealing important details only to them; for example, by having them taste some new flavors under study (brand new) to decide which ones to market and which ones not to. When you know a secret, you are dying to spill it…

Buzz Marketing and storytelling

Remember another important element: the products that sell the most are those with a story. This is why “storytelling” has also become so important commercially.
If you share about the time you accidentally discovered that special ingredient, how an employee’s grandmother’s vegan recipe turned into your most successful product, your experiments and failures before getting good results, curious episodes… your potential customers will remember your brand more easily.
We are so hyper-stimulated by the amount of photographs we see every day that making an image go viral is increasingly difficult. Even more so a news story. However, an image plus a news story have a better chance of capturing attention.

Why is Buzz Marketing important?

For centuries, word-of-mouth has been a key factor for businesses. With the increasing popularity of social media, it has become easier to access opportunities to spread the word about your vegan products. At the same time, the trustworthiness of paid advertising is declining, and people are more likely to rely on what others have to say. But grabbing your potential customers’ attention is not easy. That’s why it’s so important to create impactful content with mouth-watering vegan food photography.
Remember, 71% of consumers trust online consumer reviews and base their purchases heavily on the advice they find on social media.

Best practices for creating a vegan Buzz Marketing campaign

1. Identify your intended audience, their wants and needs.
2. Decide how you want the audience to perceive your vegan brand.
3. Develop a strategy and plan your communications.
4. Commission compelling text and mouth-watering vegan food photos.
5. Publish your content, making sure it reaches an audience that can make it go viral.
6. Monitor the results.

Beware: if you don’t have an active base of followers who share and engage frequently, even the nicest post with an eye-catching, fun and inviting vegan food photo can go completely unnoticed. In that case, you should consider promoting your posts.

Start to increase your sales

Now that you know what you need to boost your vegan Buzz Marketing, you can get started with creating content.

Important: It is preferable to build an image that reflects one’s brand (even if it does not create “buzz”) rather than seeking sensationalism at all costs. In the long run, consistency pays off.
The principles of Buzz marketing are nevertheless important to know.

For your mouth-watering vegan photos, feel free to browse through our vegan food galleries and drop us a line to find out what we can do for your brand.
Remember: a quality picture sells more.
Win over your future customers with inviting photos and awaken their irresistible desire to taste your plant-based products.

The best type of light for photographing your plant-based products depends on the subject matter and the desired mood. What does your vegan brand want to express?

Food lighting to evoke a certain mood

Light can have a big impact on the appearance of photographed food. Soft, diffused light tends to create a warm and inviting atmosphere that is generally more suitable for photographing delicate, gourmet vegan dishes. On the other extreme, harder light tends to be more appropriate for photographing hearty, rustic dishes or plant-based products targeted at a younger audience.

Bright sunlight evokes the outdoors and physical activity and is often associated with products for figure-conscious or athletic people. Evening lighting (such as candlelight) can create a warm, intimate and romantic atmosphere that is well suited for certain types of food and brands. For example, a fine-dining restaurant or a vegan brand that sells luxury chocolate might choose to use evening lighting to create a sense of indulgence and sophistication.

A window light can help to create a more intimate and cozy atmosphere that is well suited for plant-based meals.
Finally, using a slightly warmer color temperature can help to create a comfortable and inviting atmosphere, and that’s why it’s often used in editorial food photography.

Daylight lighting in vegan food photography

Are you using only natural ingredients? Daylight can be a very beneficial type of light because it can help to communicate the genuineness of your ingredients in the final image.
Brands that are looking to create a clean, natural and healthy image often choose this solution for their food photography. For example, a vegan brand that sells organic, farm-to-table products might go for it to highlight the freshness and purity of its plant-based ingredients.

The light direction

In addition to the type of light, the direction of the light can also have an impact on the final image. Brands that want to create a luxurious, sophisticated atmosphere may choose to use soft backlight in their food photography. Backlight emphasizes the depth in the picture and helps create a three-dimensional effect. Moreover, it’s a great way to highlight the textures of the ingredients. Side lighting can also create dimension and texture, while front lighting is not often used because it can result in a more flat and uninteresting image.

The light and props

In food photography, the light can be matched to the props used to create a cohesive and harmonious image. This is because light and props can both play a role in setting the overall mood and atmosphere of the photograph. For example, if the props being used are rustic and earthy (such as a wooden cutting board or a wicker basket), then using a softer, warmer light source (such as a window or a lamp) can help to enhance the natural, down-to-earth vibe of the photograph.

Using a diffused, warm, inviting and homey light might appeal to a target audience that values comfort and familiarity.

On the other hand, if the props are more polished and modern (such as a stainless steel countertop or a glass jar), then using a harder, cooler light source can help to create a more sleek and contemporary look. This light might appeal to a target audience that values novelty and technology.

By carefully selecting both the light and the props to match the desired mood and atmosphere, photographers can create visually appealing and cohesive images that effectively communicate the brand’s message.

Same baked potatoes, different targets

It’s true that the very same baked potato dish can look very different depending on the lighting used, and each version may appeal to a slightly different target audience. This is because light has a powerful impact on the appearance of food, and different types of light can create even opposite moods and atmospheres.

Check the differences between these two images. The food styling is the same, but one has the light of a bright day at the beach and conveys that particular mood. It would be perfect for promoting a plant-based takeaway restaurant open for lunch. The other has a warmer evening light and evokes a candlelight dinner for two in a romantic vegan restaurant.

Still unsure about what is the best light to arouse in your customers the irresistible desire to taste your plant-based products? Just drop us a line. We’ll be delighted to help you achieve the results you want and deserve.