Dear Santa,
I haven’t written to you for years, so let me catch you up on what I have been doing. First, let me thank you for the great train set you brought me in 1953. It was just what I wanted and I had loads of fun with it for many years.
Since that time, I have been working in the foodservice industry. I’m sure you probably know what you need to know about my career, so I won’t bore you with the details. I was prompted to write to you today on behalf of my sales and marketing friends in the foodservice manufacturing channel. It’s been an interesting decade (and a more interesting last 15 months!) and a lot has changed in the way our customers learn about our brand and products. In the old days, we’d run a lot of ads in the trade magazines, and call on customers directly to provide them with product information and ideas. But lately, those tools and activities aren’t really open to us anymore. Everybody wants to use the internet and do their own research and decide for themselves.
That brings me to my specific request, Santa. It is apparent from a recent
Technomic survey of visitors to foodservice manufacturer’s websites that we need some help. The survey said that manufacturer websites:
· Provide inadequate product information
o Incomplete nutritional information
o No ingredient listings
o No handling or prep instructions
o Lack value-added product information (such as recipes)
· Make information hard to find
o Poor navigation or confusing focus of site
o Product listings out of date
· Don’t provide very good assistance with
o Local contacts for additional information
o Lack of direct links to manufacturer sales reps or brokers
I’ve seen it myself, Santa. When I’ve visited potential client websites in doing my research, one of two things is apparent:
· The site is part of a larger corporate branding effort, and the foodservice division is buried away in a sea of corporate CPG messaging, or
· The site is superficial and stale, with virtually no useable product information to be found
There are some sites that do a great job, Santa. But alas, not many. So, Santa, I’d like to request that you do two things for my foodservice friends:
1. When they’re sitting on your lap to tell you THEIR list, lean down and whisper “You need a blue chair for Christmas”…and then…
2. No matter what they ask for, bring them one.
Tell them, Santa, that before they spend another nickel on marketing or sales promotions, to go sit in their blue chair and really think about how their customer might see (and use!) these things, and to try and really understand what their customer might need. And then to make sure they are delivering it.
You see, Santa, the blue chair is a kind of virtual metaphor for their customer’s perception to everything they do. The problem with ineffective websites is just an example of how far away from the real world many of us have strayed as we’ve grown up. We spend lots of money on snazzy websites that don’t provide useable information, and even more money on sales promotions that don’t help improve a product’s long term sales. And don’t even get me started on the pathetically weak field support many of my sales friends get nowadays. Some of us have lost our way, and don’t realize it. Bring us all a blue chair to help us get back on track, Santa.
Thanks for listening, my friend. Please pass my best regards to Mrs. Santa and to Rudolph and the rest of the gang. And here’s wishing you the best trip ever this year. Fly safely with all those blue chairs…
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."
--- from the ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ poem