The food and beverage industry is one of the fastest-growing DTC industries in the world.
In fact, in 2020, food and beverage became the largest online consumer packaged goods segment (44%), overtaking health and beauty (38%). And to top it off, total online sales of food and beverage jumped 125% year-over-year to $106 billion, according to research from the Food Industry Association (FMI) and NielsenIQ.
How can food and beverage brands take advantage of this surge of interested consumers? For most F&B brands, email marketing is the best marketing channel in terms of ROI—much more affordable and effective than paid ads.
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In this article, we’ll share some tips for creating effective F&B email marketing campaigns before sharing seven email examples to inspire your next campaign.
Food and Beverage Marketing Tips
Create an Experience
Create an experience that shows how a consumer’s life will be better by purchasing your product. That could mean highlighting how healthy they will feel or appealing to their more indulgent side.
Showcase Your Packaging
In our recent webinar with Amy Calhoun Robb, she explained the connection between packaging and sales. She made a great point explaining how showing people your packaging online can actually influence their purchasing decisions in-store and vice versa.
Use Seasons and Holidays to Your Advantage
Let your customers know if your offerings change with the season (or even if they don’t)! Again, this all goes back to creating an experience. Does your product go perfectly at a Memorial Day barbeque? Or maybe your beverage is perfect for a cold winter morning? Use the changing seasons to your advantage.
Colors Matter
The human mind works in strange ways. For example, cognitive scientists have made a peculiar discovery about how colors influence our appetites. Designer Jenn Davis created this awesome infographic that highlights how colors impact food sales.
Food and Beverage Email Marketing Examples
Now let’s take a look at how the best-in-the-business use email marketing to keep their products top-of-mind for consumers.
Welcome to Vivino
Our first example comes from Vivino. What we like about this email is that it is simple and instructional. Sometimes products and services require a little bit of education, and Vivino does so very succinctly.
The image shows someone using the product, making it very easy for consumers to imagine themselves as avid Vivino users.
Candy for breakfast! 🍬
Our next example comes from the good folks over at Magic Spoon. The brand is known for fun and magical cereals, so it makes sense for them to have so much fun in their emails.
First off, we love how the subject line (Candy for breakfast! 🍬) immediately draws you in. Once inside the email, Magic Spoon continues to captivate the reader with fanciful images and a clear call to action: Get Yours.
Welcome to TASTE
We like this welcome email from TASTE because it doesn’t try to sell anything. Instead, they showcase their latest stories to lure people onto their website. While TASTE is a magazine and not a product, there’s no reason a DTC brand couldn’t take the same approach to nurture their prospects.
What would you do for the last slice?
The Domino’s revival is the stuff of legends. Their marketing is a huge reason why they’ve grown to become one of the largest food companies in the world. We chose this email because it’s a great example of using a rewards system to incentive future purchases.
First, they show you how many points you’ve earned. Then, they have a plethora of purchasing options to earn more points. It’s simple yet effective.
So many ways to feel the ❤️
Here’s another loyalty program email example from Chipotle. We like that they don’t beat around the bush and focus on why people sign up for rewards in the first place: FREE CHIPOTLE.
Like Wine? Try Winc!
This email from Winc is excellent because it (1) is very clear about their value proposition, (2) has a very prominent CTA, and (3) educates the customer with a “How it Works” section. This is an excellent example of getting a lot of value from a relatively small email.
Our Newest Flavor Of Cider Is Here 🎊
We love this email from Austin Eastciders for one reason: it makes us want to try their product. You can almost taste this email thanks to the rich sangria-colored background and festive fruits.
