Planning For Your Product’s Future

We’ve been fortunate to work with many new successful startup products and brands but one that really stands out is NurturMe. They came to Shelf in 2010 looking for a creative partner to turn their product into a brand. They needed all the tools to tell their story: name, logo, packaging, copywriting and brand strategy to clarify brand story and product benefits. At the time they only had 1 baby product, now they have over 20 products in their family.

I had the chance to catch up with powerhouse entrepreneur Caroline Freedman of NurturMe. She walked us through her CPG experience and how she was able to pivot to the success of their products in the marketplace:

Know Your End Goal “The end goal for a brand like NurturMe is to become a household name. In order to do that we had three strategies: 1. Expand in more stores. 2. Expand product line or 3. Expand into other categories and growing into other aisles. We knew if we wanted to grow, we’d have to expand our product line to grow with our audience.”

Lean On The Experts Caroline relied on CPG industry experts and focus groups to turn concept into action. The next step was to get the product designed, packed and on the shelf.  “There was a lot of color going on at the time. We weighed whether to go with illustration or photography [on the pack]. I relied on the Shelf team to interpret the current baby space and create a brand that went from baby to toddler to kid, all while standing out on the shelf.”

Grow With Your Consumer “We have a product development roadmap and release a few SKU’s every year as it’s a function of our specific category. Starting in the baby category, our cut off age is always being pushed. We had to expand our age demographic and product line to grow with the whole family and their food sensitivity needs. So now we are expanding into healthy kid snacks for the lunchbox aisle with Ancient Grain Cookies and Dairy-Free Yogurts all the while keeping our brand integrity of being gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, and egg free.”

If you want to have a long shelf life, you have to have a long game plan. We’ve had clients that know who and where they want to be in five, ten or twenty years and those who are living for the now. We love both. But ultimately, if you want top line expansion in the shelf space, you’ll want to consider having a product expansion plan.

Not sure where to start? Here’s a few questions to get you going:

• What stage of product development are you in?
• Do you have all the requirements food packaging, beverage packaging, cosmetic or skincare packaging or product packaging?
• How do you envision your product line expanding? A beverage company might be fine with only creating 4 flavor SKU’s but a family company like NurturMe had to expand beyond flavor SKU’s and grow with a child’s food journey from spoonfed foods to lunchbox.
• Have you done sales forecasts for years one, three and five?
• Are you utilizing your consumer’s social media suggestions as well as retailer feedback for future planning?
• What’s your point of difference? NurturMe identified a consumer need that wasn’t being met and was able to leverage and trademark their “tummy friendly” products for baby and eventually, for the entire family.

Questions about planning your brand and pack? Post a question below or contact us directly.

We’ll see you at the shelf!