Are you a restaurant or food company planning another foray into the wide world of marketing, but feel that your trade show displays and other promotional material just aren’t cutting it anymore?

Maybe that’s because your competitors know something you don’t: story sells.

We’ve been hearing it for years that to sell more, you need to grab people’s attention and connect with using people-oriented stories. Well, there’s a really specific way to do this in the restaurant and food industry, and the iMedia Connection blog clues us in with their piece on “4 New Rules of Food Marketing:”

“It’s not enough for a food product to taste good or be healthy. For a restaurant, it’s not enough to have a great menu and attractive setup. For any food brand, origin stories are becoming increasingly important. Consumers are interested in where their food comes from, whether it’s the origins of the recipes or the origins of the actual ingredients used in the dish they are eating.”

People want to feel conencted to their food. It’s not enough now to feature a mouth-watetering image fo a plate of spaghetti — or even mention great grandma-ma’s secret blend of herbs and spices. Your customers want to know where their SPECIFIC food is coming from: who’s making it, where the ingredients are coming from, who’s farming those ingredients.

“The farm-to-table trend … has shown that consumers are interested in talking about where things originate.”

Even companies like McDonald’s have taken advantage of this, featuring smiling beef and egg farmers to assure restaurant visitors that their burgers are made with “100% Canadian Beef.”

Next time you’re planning out those trade show banners, stop and ask yourself how you can show the people behind the product.

You can find more advice on how to do this over on the Hubspot Marketing blog: “The Psychology of Stories: The Storytelling Formula Our Brains Crave”

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