Online labels have been my go-to label provider and printer for years. Why? 2 reasons selection, and price, ( oh yeah actually 3 reasons) their software! You can print amazing labels for a fraction fo the cost of having them printed for you!
Online labels make it simple and offer a software program that takes the creativity off your shoulders if your not a graphic designer!
Create Food Labels, Food Packaging Labels, Bottle labels, Boxed Labels, andy type of food product can look amazing with Online Labels.
Below is the transcript from this video
I am the founder of marketing food online. And today I'm actually partnering with online labels, startup Academy to bring you eight specific steps to take, to get your food business up and running from home. And I'm going to dive into those right
Now.
So number one, the most important of any, and all of them is to check with your state County and city about the types of permits licenses that you may need. Now. Every state is slightly different when it comes to this. So you need to double check it, do a little bit of a Google search to find out what your state role require and trickling down to the city and County. You live in, find out as well, if there's any additional permits or licensing that you may need. So number two, you're going to need to incorporate now, many States don't require a company to incorporate believe it or not. But I personally, being in this business for over 12 years, highly recommend that you form some type of LLC or another business entity formation that is going to protect you personally, from any business activity that you have.
And when you're dealing with food, a lot of times people can potentially get sick or ill or have an allergic reaction. And if that happens, you want to make sure you're covered. And that is where your food business insurance policy comes in as well. So incorporate yourself and get yourself a food producers, insurance policy. These are normally about five to $600 a year. Now the great thing is that that you can actually break up these payments. Many insurance companies who write these types of policies can let you pay over a period of time. So anywhere from like a 40 to $50 a month, bill is much better than having to come up with 600 upfront. Number three, you want to perfect your recipe. And you're probably thinking, well, I know how to make my product. I know how to, that's not what I mean. If you begin to produce this product in large batches, you need to be able to scale your recipe and you need to make sure that your recipe doesn't include a lot of time to produce and really expensive ingredients.
Why? Because that's going to cut into your profit margin, producing a food product and giving it to friends and family. That's one thing. When you begin to create a product for a business, you need to be able to scale it. You need to be able to produce a lot of it very quickly and at a very low cost, because that is how you make a profit number four. You want to make sure that your packaging and labeling looks amazing, especially your labels. That is where of course online labels comes in as well. You want to make sure that you're creating a unique look to your label because that is going to dictate the direction of your brand and the perception of your customers. So the first thing they see when they see a food product is always going to be the label and the front part of the packaging.
So you want to find a really great package and a label to go on the packaging. The two have to really work together. So number five, you want to create a website, okay? You got to have some type of online presence and creating a website is a no brainer. If you're going to sell a product online, you have to have a website, or at least you should. Now, the great thing is you don't have to be a web designer to create one of these by yourself. There are some fences, classic websites out there like Shopify Weebly, and a few others that make it very simple for you to create your own website, literally a drag and drop process. But a website is super simple to make nowadays it's very easy and doesn't take a lot of time to do now. Keep in mind the cost for that as well.
When you create it site, it has to be hosted by a website online. That could be something from 20 to $30 every month. So keep that in mind, as far as your expenses are concerned, now, number six, having the idea of having a website sounds great. Unless, like I said, that is a step that you should definitely take, but getting traffic to your website and getting those customers who actually show up to pay for your product is very challenging. I know because I've been doing this for a very long time. I have multiple websites online and it takes real challenge to get them to go there. But number six is open a store on eBay, Etsy or Amazon. That is the best way to actually get traffic to your own website. Sorry. Why is that? Well, these three different selling platforms have algorithms. They have a built in customer base of hundreds, of millions of customers who go to these sites already.
If you happen to be selling a food product, and let's just say it was chocolate chip cookies, they have a lot of customers versus that are already looking for chocolate chip cookies. So having your store on those three platforms, I personally would recommend you beyond all of them, but at least beyond one or two of them, those customers will be interested in finding out more about your product. So that's where your website comes in from there they'll go all the way over to your website and they will check out your food products, other items that you may make or learn more about the product they just bought on Amazon or eBay or Etsy. So bringing those two together, having a store on one of these existing platforms and having your own website is definitely the way to go. Number seven, if you're going to be making a product and shipping it, you better know how to ship it.
So I highly recommend you experiment with shipping. Now you're probably thinking, well, what does that, that sounds a little weird. What do you mean experiment? Well, if you have a food product that let's just say is a chocolate covered pretzel during the spring and summertime, it gets very hot outside. Do you even know how to, how to pack a product that could potentially melt during winter and fall? The weather temperatures change as well. So is the product that you're making, going to have a challenge arriving beautifully and perfectly to your customer during seasons. You want to experiment and you want to find out what is the safest best and fastest way to get product when you make it to your customer. Now, some products obviously can go in high heat or high temperatures have a high winter time. And those are things like granolas or nuts, things that are not sensitive to heat or hot or cold.
So keep that in mind. So does your product particularly need to be packed and shipped a certain way? That is where you need to experiment. Okay. Number eight, got to have a presence on social media. Yes. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, uh, even LinkedIn, all of these different Pinterest by the way, is a fantastic one to all of these different social media platforms are free advertising. Now, can you run paid ads on some of them? Of course you can. I personally don't spend much of anything on any of these social platforms because I've learned how to use hashtags, how to use the right posts, how to use the right images and how to use the right keywords. Those in and of themselves will bring you a ton of customers. So those are the top eight tips to get your food business up and running. And like I said, we partnered with online labels.com, definitely check them out in regards to getting your labels. Because like I said before, that is the most important part of your food product. The first impression a customer's gonna have is the label. So thank you for joining us here on the startup Academy. And I'm Damien Roberto, again from marketing food online. You want to check us out, we've got over 700 videos on YouTube and they are all free. So I'll take care and I'll see you guys.