Scenes from Natural Products Expo West 2018, Anaheim, California

Photos | Natural Products Expo West 2018

Take a behind-the-scenes look at the recent Natural Products Expo West 2018 trade show. As always, Expo West was a great use of time to connect in person with clients, colleagues and friends. 

Green Purse PR's Lisa Mabe at the entrance of Expo West

Nice to see so many GAP (Global Animal Partnership) rated products at the show.

Grass fed continues to be a big focus.

We LOVE this brand and this particular flavor of LaCroix!

Lots of Aussies at Expo West.

Representing some Kiwis from New Zealand too.

Made the social media visualizer board at Expo West.

Also don't miss this time-lapse video directly from the show. 

Download our 2018 list of holidays for food marketing

Download our New List of Holidays for Food Marketing + Get Access to Our Upcoming Webinar on How to Leverage Food Holidays to Drive Awareness & Sales

Ever heard of National Cheese Lover's Day, Coffee Day or Beef Tallow Day? What about Weed Day or Farmer's Day? There are a lot of these so called food holidays or marketing holidays - some are silly, but some are serious. Serious in that some of them can help drive real awareness and sales.

We see retailers, media and consumer-influencers, like food bloggers, leveraging these holidays on social media, such as Instagram, and retailers using them for in-store promotions. Some holidays, like National Cookie Day (December 4) are made into big promotions at grocery retailers like Whole Foods Market. (See an earlier post we wrote on retailers taking a bite out of Cookie Day here.) 

If you're keen to see how you can leverage food related holidays to market your specialty or natural food product, download the list here. We’ll be hosting a one-time bonus webinar session exclusively for those who downloaded this list during our initial offering phase. The webinar will highlight some of the most relevant holidays and why holidays like these are worth incorporating into your social communications program.

What Shoppers' Grocery Carts Can Tell Us About Them

Shop and Learn | You Don't Really Know a Shopper Until You've Shopped With Them

Next time you're in the grocery store, take a peak into your fellow shoppers' grocery carts. It's fun to see what ends up in shoppers' carts, especially if it is your brand, or in my case, a client's product. By the way, whenever I do spot a client's product in someone's shopping cart, I almost always strike up a quick conversation with them. I usually carry coupons from my clients and offer them a few as a way to thank them for their loyalty. It's a nice touch point that often goes a very long way.

My perspective is you don't really know a shopper until you've shopped with them. That’s one of the premises that makes Green Purse PR unique and why shopper research is fundamental to all the public relations and social communications work we do. Being successful in your consumer marketing starts with understanding the consumer – identifying how they learn about products, how your products are likely to fit into their lifestyle and how to better serve their needs in order to create and maintain a connection (or relationship, if you’re lucky) with those shoppers. 

“You don’t really know a shopper until you’ve shopped with them.”

— - Lisa Mabe, CEO, Green Purse PR

What can you tell about the shopper from this look inside her shopping cart?

Maybe she is gathering ingredients to make a special meal. Perhaps it's for a weekend celebration, a dinner party, or maybe it's a work-week meal for her family. Whatever the case, it looks like she has kids, or a lot of cats, because that's a lot of whole, organic milk in there. 

I frequently conduct shopper research, shop-alongs, with women all around the world. Each time I shop with someone, I take into consideration every single product that gets in her cart. Taking into account what products #GetInHerCart, is one of the ways our shop-along research helps us uncover insights that later help us intelligently build successful consumer PR programs.

Some of the insights we learn from shop-alongs include:

• What products catch her eyes, and what does not.
• What other products (besides yours) she is buying and how those may even be used together.
• Why she buys particular products over others.
• What third party certifications, verifications or ratings she may be looking for.
• How she connects, or does not connect, with brands and retailers.
• How your product fits into her lifestyle.
• How best to build and foster a relationship with consumers like her.

The list goes on and on.

Do you think it sounds smart to plan and implement a consumer marketing program or campaign without first bothering to do a little research on the very people who are hopefully going to buy your product?  No; that's not smart at all, but that's exactly what a lot of companies do.

Be the savvy company that DOES invest in understanding its target shoppers, and gets things right the first time. When you do, the insights you learn and connections you start, will deliver value both in the short and for a long time to come.

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder, Green Purse PR

---

Want Green Purse PR to shop with your consumers and garner insights to help you better connect with health-conscious women?

Getting to Know Whole Foods Market Shoppers

New Guide Uncovers How Female Whole Foods Market Shoppers Think, Behave, Buy & Share

Some big changes have been happening recently for Whole Foods Market. Being acquired by Amazon means changes at the store level and potential for change amongst consumer behavior. Green Purse PR's new report takes a look at how brands sold at WFM can best connect and engage with shoppers now to drive awareness, sales and buzz.

This report is one of Green Purse PR's first digital information products, sold under our new #GetInHerCart Innovation Studio. Our report was created for brands whose products are already sold at WFM, or for companies intending to get their products onto WFM shelves. Scroll down to learn more about our new report, Guide to Winning with Whole Foods Market Shoppers.

You don't really know a shopper until you've shopped with them.

So we do just that, shop-along with the type of shoppers are clients are keen to attract. All of our public relations consulting is driven by our unique understanding of shoppers resulting from our shop-along research. Shopper insights derived from our in store research and online communities equip us with current understanding of what influences consumers' purchases, how they shop certain categories and how specific products fit into their lifestyles. These insights are important because they direct what our consumer marketing communications programs ultimately look like. 

Good time to learn more about WFM shoppers.

With the recent acquisition of Whole Foods Market by Amazon, our clients are seeking to better understand how WFM shoppers learn about products, identify purchase influencers and how best to reach influential female WFM shoppers.

Green Purse PR just conducted our own research with WFM female shoppers to identify how they currently think, behave and buy, and share. Our new report, Guide to Winning with Whole Foods Market Shoppers, is designed to give brands insight into the retailer’s shoppers in general, as well as actionable steps they can use to take their consumer understanding to the next level. The shopper intelligence we share in this guide is based upon our shop-along research, one-on-one interviews, social listening, online surveys and questions in our private community where we are constantly learning from health-conscious mothers.

Here are 10 things you can expect to find in our new report:

1) List of media outlets and blogs she reads, follows or subscribes to.

WFM shopper reading Bon Appétit Magazine

2) How she connects online with WFM directly, as well as the brands sold on their shelves.

WFM shopper reading the retailer's blog, The Whole Story

3) Who she follows on social media + a list of influencers.

WFM shopper reading MindBodyGreen.com

4) How Instagram influences brand awareness and purchases.

WFM shopper scrolling through Instagram

5) What catches her eye inside the store.

Shopping for natural and organic products

6) The journey new mothers go on to cleanse their diet and lifestyle in an effort to get healthier for themselves and the baby.

Mother and baby shopping for healthy groceries

7) What she loves about Whole Foods Market. Coffee seems to be pretty high on the list!

WFM shopper happy with her heatlhy choices

8) How WFM + Amazon fulfill her need for healthier options that fit her on-demand lifestyle.

Some of her favorite things from WFM

9) How she looks to WFM to curate the best products for her, so she does not have to do as much homework herself.

Trusting WFM to curate healthier options in every category

10) Direct shopper quotes from women who report WFM as their primary grocery outlet.

Feeling better about the meat she eats

Good to be back in Sydney, Australia

Green Purse PR's Lisa Mabe Back in Sydney

It was so nice to be back in Sydney during June to speak at conferences and meet with some of Green Purse PR's clients. Being previously based in Sydney, many of our clients are in Australia and it's a place I absolutely love. 

Below are some photos showing a visual recap of my recent business trip. Highlights of the trip included speaking about marketing to millennial consumers at the Naturally Good Business Summit, and Naturally Good Expo / Fantastic Food + Drink Show. More on those trade shows + links to my presentations here.

While there, I toured some of the local grocery stores, and visited some of my old stomping ground. Have a look at some of the grocery stores we visited here:

• About Life in Crows Nest, Sydney

• Fourth Village Providore in Mosman, Sydney

• Woolworths in Crows Nest, Sydney

The Australian market continues to be a major focus for myself and Green Purse PR. Australia has a lot to offer the world in terms of natural and organic products. I'm keen to help those companies be successful in markets like the USA, Middle East and Asia. Learn more about our expertise and capabilities here and contact me if you're keen to learn more. 

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder, Green Purse PR

Curious to know what women in the USA think about products from Australia?

Watch this video I produced, featuring our shop-along research, for the Naturally Good Expo.

Speaking Engagement | Lisa Speaking at SupplySide West, Las Vegas Sept. 26

We are excited to announce that Green Purse PR Founder & CEO, Lisa Mabe, will be a speaker at the trade show and conference, SupplySide West September 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

CPG manufacturers, marketers and formulators rely on SupplySide West when searching for their next innovative ingredient. More than 15,000 people will attend SupplySide West -- companies in the global dietary supplement, functional food and beverage, personal care, and sports nutrition industries to drive their innovation, growth and profitability, with input from purchasing, R&D, product development, executive management, marketing, compliance, supply chain management, QA/QC and more.

Lisa's session, How Millennials Are Transforming Modern Marketing, will focus on how health-conscious Millennials think, behave, buy and share. The session takes place Tuesday, September 26 at 9 AM.

For more details on the panel presentation, click this link. Also listen to this new podcast from Natural Products Insider where Lisa previews some insights on millennial women that she will share at the workshop at SupplySide West. 

Plan to join us if you are attending the trade show. If you are interested, but cannot attend the event in person, follow the dialogue online by using the hashtag, #SSWExpo. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaMabe and the conference at @supplyside both will be tweeting from the show.

Stay tuned on our speaker page for other upcoming speaking engagements. 

Photo Tour | Woolworths in Crows Nest, Sydney

I recently returned from a business trip to Sydney, Australia, where I used to be based. I was in town to speak at the Naturally Good Expo and Naturally Good Business Summit. While there I had a look at some of Sydney's grocery retail scene, including some of the stores I used to shop at when I lived in Sydney.

One of the stores I visited was Woolworths in Crows Nest. This 'Woolies' store just reopened in April 2016 after two years of major renovation. I shopped at this Woolies during my time in Sydney; last time I was here it was still being demolished. Now, $52 million later in redevelopment, it's a completely different store. Previously it was a very tired, soulless, one-level store -- the kind that's so unpleasant, you can hardly wait to get out of it. Now it's shiny, new and includes multiple-levels. 

Below are some photos I took of Woolworths located at 10 Falcon St, Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia.

Woolworths - Crows Nest, Sydney

Such a beautiful structure on the outside. Crows Nest is an adorable community, but it could use some updating. The new Woolworths helps modernise the community. 

Main level includes lots of grab & go options.

Spotted several products featuring the Australian Certified Organic bud, Australia's most recognised organic certification amongst Australian consumers.

This Thomas Dux corner on the first floor made me sad. I'm glad Woolworths still managed to let the brand live on in some form, but I'm disappointed that the stand alone stores no longer exist. Thomas Dux Grocer closed about two years ago. There used to be an outstanding Thomas Dux right around the corner from here; it's now a different store, called About Life. Read my blog post, photo tour of About Life here.

Stayed tuned here on our blog, #GetInHerCart, for more information on grocery retail and from our travels around the world as we speak at various conferences and conduct shopper research in different markets.