, a food and product photographer who specializes in creating custom photography for gourmet packaged foods. Based in Los Angeles, she works to bring the transformative power bold, beautiful imagery to packaged food producers big and small.

Congratulations - you’re at the point where you're ready to start investing in your brand by hiring a pro to capture your brand and make it stand out from the crowd. Your images are going to be scroll-stopping, loyalty-building and oh so beautiful, but before you get on the phone or start reaching out to your favorite product photographers, there are four things you should be prepared to discuss. a few things that you should make sure you are ready to discuss. Knowing where you stand on these topics will ensure you can get the best return on your photography investment.

Make sure you know how and where you want to use your images

You should be prepared for your photographer to bring up licensing and usage. More often than not, when I ask client’s what they plan on using the images for they say ‘everything’. At first, it sounds great to have full licensing rights, but if you understand how licensing works you’ll know this can mean your incurring additional unneeded costs, since images rights are billed based on the usage and the estimated number of views each image could have. For instance, if you plan on using this image on your sell sheet, there will be a lot less views of it than there will be for a billboard image facing rush hour traffic in a major city. So telling your photographer what you’re going to use the images for means that they don’t have to assume that you’ll be needing those billboard rights. This means that you’re going to save money if you can be upfront with what you plan on using the images for, and remember that you can always pay for additional licensing if you need it in the future.

An additional benefit of making sure your photographer knows how you plan on using the images, is that they can tailor the creation of your images (both in setting up the framing, shooting, and while editing) to ensure that the images do what you need them to do in the locations you plan on using them. For instance, if one of your goals is to update your website banner, your photographer will need to shoot in a horizontal format, and style all the components of the image to fit within a 16:9 aspect ratio (or whatever sizes your site uses!) - which is far narrower than a typical horizontal image.

Social media uses are another common example where it helps to know your orientation in advance. If your photographer shoots your images in a 4:5 ratio, but you always post in square (1:1), you could end up cropping out significant parts of your image and possibly even your product, as you crop the image. I also like to bump up the brightness of my clients social media images so they stand out a little more as most people have their phone brightness lowered.

These are just a couple of examples why knowing the usage will save you time and money if you’re able to articulate them up front.

Understand whether you need a stylist or not

You should be prepared to talk to your photographer about stylists - prop, wardrobe, food etc. Stylists are critical to big productions so if you’re planning on having highly produced images where every leaf and crumb has been placed just-so, or your idea includes multiple moving parts, it’s probably good to consider whether you can afford a stylist and whether your photographer is comfortable using a stylist. Plan on asking your photographer if they styled what is in their portfolio, or if they had help so you have a good idea of what you can expect. Some photographers really do do everything themselves - which can save you money - but a stylist will ensure that the food looks it’s best, that the props convey the feeling you’re going for and the clothes do not fit awkwardly. I once had a model show up in a stained shirt 2 sizes too big - let me tell you how much I had asked for a wardrobe stylist on THAT shoot. So, if you want to ensure that there aren't any calamities and you have the budget, a stylist might be a good fit.

Be able to communicate who your ideal customer is and what brand values you have

You should be prepared to talk about your target audience ideal client and the values behind your brand. Do you know who you made your product for? If you don’t, or if you can’t articulate it clearly, you and your photographer may not be on the same page. Photographers are full of ideas, but in order for them to execute your ideas in a way that benefits your brand, you’ve got to give them a framework. The easiest way to do this is by letting them in on the psychographics and socio-economic information, so the photographer can tailor their ideas to suit your specific market segment.

Make sure your product timeline matches your image needs

This one is a little tricky because the landscape shifts so much. I can tell you that if you do not have a package for your product, I would seriously reconsider whether you’re ready for a substantial professional photography investment. Being 2 steps ahead is great, but without your final branding and packaging, it’s going to limit your opportunities to use the images that are produced, or that you’ll need to update them in the near future. Additionally, if you haven’t had your recipe formulated by your copacker yet (this is specific to food brands), because the viscosity or color might change slightly which can impact your final images and might lead to a need to retouch or reshoot all your images once that process is complete.

While investing in professional photography can be intimidating, preparing these four things can help you feel more confident AND get exactly what you are looking for out of a shoot!

Thanks for reading these tips! I always love to hear from brands, so I invite you DM me on

if you have any questions, want to connect, or want additional resources or ideas for your next shoot. If you’d like to know more about me or my work, feel free to check out my website

4 Things You Should Be Prepared To Discuss When Investing In Professional Food Photography

About The Author: I'm a marketing 'jill of all trades,' freelance brand manager and email marketing automation expert for food and beverage brands. I have worked in the CPG industry for over 5 years almost exclusively at small brands where I need to be scrappy and wear a ton of hats!

In this post I’m spilling the details on why 

 email marketing is key for your brand and how to build a strategy around it. You cannot just show up in folks’ inbox on the holidays and expect a high conversion rate from your list.

Let’s play out a scenario. You really haven’t talked to your roommate from college, Shelly, since graduation. You all grew apart - it’s only natural. Several years go by without so much as a Facebook like or a text on your birthday. One day you're checking the mail and there it is, an invitation to Shelly’s wedding - and you’ve never even met the groom. Feels a lot like they just want a gift from you right?

 when months of the year go by with no email from you and then boom they see the subject line: “Black Friday Sale: 20% Off Our Amazing Products!”.

 amazing! But your customer has long forgotten signing up for your email list, who you are, and what you are all about. So, unless you are offering a pretty sweet deal and standing out from the Black Friday or Memorial Day or Valentine's Day sale crowd, chances are the email doesn’t capture their (very short) attention span.

So, here are some helpful tips on how not to be a Shelly and nurture your email list all year long so that when a big sale comes along they are itching to shop::

Consistency But It Looks Different For Everyone

It’s clear that consistency is key here but are we talking Costco-sending-an-email-daily consistent or can you be a little less involved than that?

Chances are the latter. But, do not just shoot in the dark here thinking you know what is going to work best for your email list! Test, test, and test some more. Do they like weekly emails, bi-weekly, monthly?

Your open rate is how you will know your sweet spot. At what point in frequency have you hit email exhaustion and are starting to see less of your audience open emails? As long as that frequency is realistic for your workload and for your content flow - you’ve found what consistent looks like for your audience!

Now you are probably starting to think ‘I’m not a content machine and I don’t have a team behind me to be able to help generate weekly email content to test and test and test some more.’ Fair enough. Here are some quick tips:

 Make them laugh, educate them, or pose an interesting question. Let your emails be something they look forward to receiving!

Take your customer profile and your brand strategy and think about what kinds of content buckets you can create based on the values, likes, etc etc of both you and your customers. (This is helpful for social media too!)

. That recipe reel you made for Instagram? Get that on the blog and share it in this week’s email.

80% of your content should lean towards the entertainment and education side of things while 20% should be sales-y. That makes the fear of being too pushy go away.

Share something from a like-minded partner. 

You share values with a lot of other brands out there: grab something from their site, their Instagram, and pop it into a newsletter (with credit to them of course). It will generate some good will AND give you a chance to test whether your customers click through.

How will you know your content is sticking? Consistent open rates week after week mean people want to come back for more. Click rates give an indication that your audience liked what they read and your Call To Action was enticing enough to keep going.

Tackling the stress of creating content is where segmentation can be key - are there pieces of content that you want to share with your list, but don’t think everyone would appreciate it? That’s okay! Is there a way to segment the list down by purchasing behavior, location, etc to create a segment of your list that will enjoy it? Send that content to just them this week!

Segmentation also comes into play here in terms of testing send frequency - you may find that you can get away with emailing your subscription customers A LOT more than anyone who has not purchased from you. Split them out into two segmented lists and email accordingly -- more on that below.

Use all those fancy segmentation tools and flows in your email service provider (ESP) to their full advantage and start segmenting content based on where your customer is in their lifecycle to remain consistent in their inbox and generate more revenue.

You probably have your basic welcome series running (and if not that’s step one) and maybe you have a post purchase flow. But, after that do you rely on automation to help keep consistent content flowing?

Here are some ideas to get your wheels turning:

 When someone hasn’t re-ordered within a timeframe that would be reasonable for your brand have an automated email or two set up to remind them to restock. (For example, do you sell cereal in packs of 6? Maybe after 6 weeks you would have expected that second sale.)

 Did someone order shampoo, but not conditioner? A bit  before they hit the timing of your average time between purchases send them an email about how perfectly the two go together. (So if most folks order shampoo again after 2 months, send them the conditioner email at 6 weeks).

 Has someone ordered three times and is still not subscribing? An automated flow going out to really charm them on your subscription could do the trick!

Note: If you are using automations make sure you look at the ‘smart sending’ option in your ESP. When sending a standard campaign you can skip anyone who has received an automated email from you within a specific time frame to avoid over sending (and the subsequent unsubscribes).

This is just a small piece of the puzzle. There is a reason large brands have whole teams dedicated to their email marketing. The three main metrics of email marketing: open rates, clicks, and conversions – they don’t live in a vacuum. Consistency is just one piece of the puzzle to help you reach your brand's goals and fulfill each customer’s needs wherever they are in the lifecycle. But, it’s an important piece and one you can get started on today.

Need some help with your email marketing? Head to 

If My Clients Only Knew: How Key Consistent Email Marketing Is

Guest blog by Cynthia Samanian, creator of

. She is passionate about helping culinary business owners create and market profitable online experiences.

What a crazy few months it has been, am I right?

With demos and events at a standstill, chances are your marketing efforts have fully shifted to the online space. Believe me, I want nothing more than in-person experiences to return, as I’ve built my career on helping brands create engagement in the offline world.

But, guess what? There IS a silver lining and I invite you to explore it with me. Constraints drive creativity, and by being limited to online channels, our industry is innovating in ways that may have never been thought of before. No longer is Instagram just a place to share photos of your product or behind-the-scenes stories. And no longer is Zoom just a tool used for business calls and team meetings. With each day that passes, we are rethinking and repurposing the platforms we have in front of us. Without a doubt, our world has changed, but with change comes opportunity.

In this blog, I’m sharing five creative ways your brand can show up and serve your customers through online marketing. As with any successful campaign, compassion and authenticity are key, and I’ve been impressed by how these food brands have integrated both elements in their marketing.

If you’re stuck on how to move forward with your brand’s online marketing, then get ready to get inspired!

The most popular way I’ve seen brands connect with their audiences is through programming on Facebook Live, IGTV, and of course, Zoom. Food brands are truly stepping up their game as content creators, some even offering daily programming.

Within this trend, is the opportunity to be super resourceful and partner with chefs and other like-minded brands. 

 has shown how this can be done really well. In fact, just this last week, they kicked off their IGTV programming big with Alison Roman, followed by other great chefs. Partnerships definitely require planning ahead and staying organized, but the upfront work can really pay off! You’ll end up with more diverse content and partners to help spread the word and grow your reach.

Plus, given that we’re all tucked away in our homes, collaborating with others, who are also in their homes, creates this level playing field where it’s not about fancy cameras and studio sets. Naturally, the content feels more personal, relatable and authentic. That's where Parsnip can come in - if you are a member simply 

 for the right partner based on the values you are looking for or send them an email with what you are looking for!

, maker of sparkling herbal tonics, is thinking outside of food for their upcoming online event. They’re hosting a “Virtual Paint Night” on Zoom. You might be wondering what does painting have to do with tonics? Well, they invited artist and textile designer Lital Gold to teach participants how to paint a 

 piece of art. I love the creativity in bringing in a discipline outside of food that still relates to the overall brand.

Diaspora Co: Use FREEHIPPO for free shipping on orders $30+ AND they're donating $4 out of every $12 Pragati Jar of turmeric to COVID-19 relief efforts.

Sunwink: Use code PAINT30 for 30% off online orders.

2. Sell whatever you can, however you can

With people making fewer trips to the grocery stores and opting to shop online as much as possible, there’s a ripe opportunity to sell direct-to-consumer.

 has done a great job of this by offering online-only bundles to meet the needs of their customers. Their “Butter Bundle” gave fans easy access to vegan butter staples to help them cook and bake without braving the grocery store aisles. After selling out, they just released an online-only “Mac Pack” with everything you need to make their vegan mac and cheese.

Some brands have even offered a free delivery service within a certain radius, to ensure they can still get products to their customers.

With all the uncertainty in the world, one thing is for sure: everyone loves to give care packages and everyone loves to receive care packages. While I’ve seen a good number of brands generously donate their products to organizations, the concept of gifting is a bit different.

When you empower your customers with the ability to give someone a gift through your brand, it adds an emotional layer that makes the experience more meaningful and share-worthy to the giver and recipient. Your brand becomes positively associated with these feel-good emotions, and the impact of that can be long lasting. That’s why gifting is one of the five creative ways your brand can show up and serve online!

 leveraged the concept of gifting by offering to send an “ice cream sammie care package” to anyone. That’s right, anyone you want! They cleverly shared their hope to “sweeten up social distancing” by taking on the logistical challenge of getting frozen goods to your coworkers, loved ones, and more.

If you have a great designer on your team, or you know your way around Adobe’s creative suite, then this option might be for you. Digital goods are a fun, light way to add instant value to your customers and they don’t require a lot of planning or logistics.

Recognizing that Zoom was becoming a household name very quickly, 

 designed and shared 15 different virtual backdrops. The designs each featured fruits and vegetables, tying back to Plenty Farms’ brand. While they did incorporate their logo, it was done in such a subtle and tasteful way, that the backdrops didn’t feel overly branded.

We’ve also seen brands create clever fill-in-the-blank Instagram story templates, downloadable coloring sheets for kids, and more.

This last category is a bit of a grab bag, because it’s really up to YOU to figure out how your brand can best serve your customers. Think beyond just your product, because your brand is so much more than that. Consider your values, beliefs, origin story, team, supply chain, and other elements that make your brand unique when you are thinking of creative ways to show up and serve online.

, a community for women who love food. If you’ve followed Pineapple, then you know they have quite the obsession with pantries. Their online content features a look inside the pantries of influential women in food. And, Pineapple recently launched their own line of pantry essentials including olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

Given this, it’s no surprise that they launched The Pantry Hotline on Instagram. Just reply to Pineapple’s story prompt with what you have on hand, and they’ll magically find a recipe you can make. While any food brand could do the same thing, it feels most authentic coming from Pineapple.

Pineapple: Free shipping on orders over $50 with code BETTERTOGETHER

So, how will YOUR brand show up and serve your customers and community online? Even in today’s turbulent times, people are seeking to support small businesses and discover new brands, especially those that are aligned with their values. With these examples as inspiration, you are well on your way to crafting a marketing campaign that is creative, authentic, and compassionate. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

To learn more about how you can create engaging online experiences for your culinary business, be sure to check out my 

. Inside, I walk you through the 6 essential steps to creating and marketing a profitable online cooking class business.

Thanks so much for reading today! If you’d like to stay in touch, head on over to my private Facebook group

 where you can connect with other culinary pros. You can also say hello on

5 Creative Ways Your Brand Can Show Up and Serve Online

About the author: Nourishing Food Marketing, led my Christie Lee, helps new and emerging food and beverage brands take flight and scale. We’ve taken classical marketing frameworks from Big Food and right-sized them for fast-paced, resource-constrained businesses.

As a CPG brand, you probably work with outsourced Creatives regularly. You might work with a copywriter for your newsletter emails, a photographer for your social media, and a graphic designer to design your packaging. I’m going to share my top Three Tips for working with Creatives from my experience as a food founder running a scrappy brand, Tiny Hero, and managing a multi-million dollar marketing budget at Kingsford Charcoal. You’ve probably heard horror stories of this photographer delivering off-brand assets or wasting money on a graphic designer who just didn’t get it. These tips will help you avoid these situations.

Working well with Creatives is key to your business success:

On-time and on-budget projects - prevent rework!

Creative that you love and communicates your brand equity consistently

Smooth communication that minimizes your time spent managing the project

I’m sharing my lessons learned so that your Creative Projects are always successful. I’m also sharing this for all of my Creative friends, in hopes that they will now have smoother projects!

1. Develop Tools to Onboard Creatives to Your Brand.

The Creatives that you’re working with are working with lots of different clients and are constantly context switching between different projects and brands.

Send one document with everything they need to know about your brand: who your brand is, what your products are, what your brand look and feel is, and previous examples of your assets. If you don’t have this already, check out my 

Send one Google Drive or DropBox folder with any assets they’ll need

Send an on-boarding package with product samples!

Set your Creative Partners up for success by communicating everything they need on Day One of the project.

Create a Creative Brief that summarizes what you want the Creative to work on. This should include your Project Objectives, Goals, Specs, and Creative Mandatories. If you created a RFP for the project, you can pull some of this information from there. The Creative Brief is an important tool that helps you get on the same page as your Creative Partner and serves as a reference resource throughout the project. Note that this doesn’t mean that you need to have an answer to every question, but you must put pen to paper to write down what you need and identify the questions you need help exploring.

If there’s necessary information for the Creative Project in multiple places, pull the pieces together yourself and put it in the Creative Brief. You are the best person to do this because you know your information and documents better than anyone else. This ensures that your designer doesn’t waste time and energy decoding your documents to get the information that they need or, even worse, using the wrong information for the project.

Be clear about timelines. Lay out a project timeline with at least two rounds, align with your Creative Partner on it, and know that sometimes Creatives don’t have linear work schedules so the timeline may shift. Check in with your Creative Partner as the project progresses to confirm timelines.

Your Creative Partner can then take the Creative Brief and give a quote for the project. Now, you both have clear expectations on what the project will cost you and what you’ll get in return.

Give high-level feedback first, ideally live. I like to use the framework, Stand Out | Engage | Communicate. Does the Creative Stand Out and catch your attention? Think the Super Bowl commercial that you look up from the chips to watch. Then, does it Engage you on an emotional level? Do you feel something? Do you like it? Lastly, does the Creative communicate the objective of the project? Your Creative absolutely must Communicate, whether it’s the top product benefit for product packaging or that the product is available at Retailer Z for banner ads. After you communicate the high level of what you’re overall liking and not liking, then you can dive into specific feedback.

If something isn’t sitting right with you, SAY SOMETHING right away. Don’t dismiss it as something that isn’t important. It’s a drag to fix these details later on for both parties and easy to do now.

Depending on the experience level of your Creative, you’ll need to give different levels of feedback. A junior Creative will need more guidance than a senior Creative. I don’t like to give specific directions to Creatives because that limits their creativity. Let them know what isn’t working for you and what you’d like to see, but don’t tell them to move your logo by 10 pixels.

As you get further in the project, you can give more detailed feedback. In the Final Round of work, it’s OK to give directives (move the logo by 10 pixels) if you know what you want.

Scrappy, small CPGs rely on a lot of outsourced help to run their companies, from Creatives to Brokers to Strategic Consultants. By developing an onboarding Brand Primer, establishing clear expectations with a written Creative Brief, and providing constructive feedback, you’re on your way to having successful Creative Projects!

Need some help with your marketing or brand strategy? Head to

Three Tips for Working with Creatives

If you're a marketer, you probably understand the value of influencers supporting your brand. According to a 

 study, marketers rated influencer outreach “as the fastest-growing online customer acquisition channel, beating organic search, paid search, and email marketing.”

In this day and age, influencer outreach is an amazing way to reach thousands (if not millions) of potential customers. Influencers have mastered the art of connection over social media, with millions of followers, thousands of likes, and seemingly dozens of partnerships showcased in their photos month after month. Their followers look up to them, and more importantly, trust their opinions and endorsements, making influencer outreach the valuable tool that it is.

We’re not here to help you figure out how they do it, but instead to help you get inside their minds: to learn more about what THEY think about working with YOU, a brand that might like to be featured in their feed. Like every partnership, the work that you do with an influencer is only as good as the alignment of your values and intentions with theirs.

 (281K followers) mentioned @bobsredmill in a #spons post.

 that one time. Maybe you even noted it was Bob’s and connected Bob’s to her beautiful cookie cake. But if you never see Bob's again on Molly’s Instagram, you'll forget the whole thing happened.

Too many brands send free product to influencers, or pay for one-off posts, thinking it will help them build brand equity, amass new followers, or drive new sales. These same brands often get upset when a single post doesn't have that effect.

We’re calling it: Not developing long-term brand relationships with your influencers is a lost opportunity.

So what about that basic marketing principle: it “takes seven "touches" before someone will internalize and/or act upon your call to action?

Or what about Molly’s desire to “[use] from-scratch recipes to keep the traditions I grew up with alive and well in this little challah-less, babka-less town”? (

.) As followers, we’ve come to love Molly for her fish-out-of-water feelings in North Dakota, and the beautiful sweets she still concocts on her farm there. How can Bob's plug into and align with this aspect of Molly's personality to create an authentic partnership?

Bob's and Molly are well down this path. She regularly mentions Bob's Red Mill by name in her recipes, recommending and linking to their almond flour in her 

 recipe, and to their all-purpose flour and coconut flour in her 

. (The links take you to Bob's Red Mill's site, where you can purchase their flours directly; Molly likely receives a referral fee for the sales she helps drive.)

They have taken this partnership one step further. Bob's recently launched their 

 campaign, in which they featured 50 recipes from 50 bloggers across 50 states. Guess which blogger was behind North Dakota's 

Influencers WANT to share more than one photo. They want a long-term relationship with a brand. They want to hear from brands that want more than the one mention. It’s not just about the one photo, it’s about showcasing a relationship that has longevity. And the best way to ensure that’s easy and natural? Make sure the values and intention alignment is there from the start, and keep building on it over time.

Influencer Outreach: Turn It Into a Long-Term Partnership

 is a copywriter and content strategist for CPG brands. She helps businesses find their core messages and writes data-backed copy that's packed with flavor. She writes from North Carolina where she lives with her husband.

Product Descriptions aren’t the flashiest element on your site – they’re not as flashy as your tagline, or as fun as great photography.

But good product descriptions are absolutely essential for any successful ecommerce venture.

They’re what your customers are scrutinizing just before they either click to add your item to their cart, or… they click back to check out the rest of your selection (if you’re lucky), or click all the way back to the search results, and choose your competitors instead (ouch!).

In the old days of the internet, we had fairly standardized product descriptions that followed Amazon’s lead. They almost always contained a description paragraph followed by a list of bullet points.

Sites like Shopify made this format really simple and easy. The page template has space for photos on the left side, and on the right side you see the product name, description, and Add to Cart button.

Mobile views condense this so that everything is in one column, with photos slotted in below the product name.

But these days, brands are expanding beyond the basic template box. Now, product pages are being built with custom code to include videos, icons, charts, infographics, customer quotes and unboxing videos, and more.

The end result is an interactive product detail page that goes way beyond just a description.

If creating fully designed custom PDPs sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. The basic description format still works too!

Figure out what job your PDPs are doing for you


What do your product detail pages (PDPs) need to do? Do they need to:

 shoppers about a new kind of product they’re not familiar with?

which item from your product line is right for them?

Help them figure out if they’ll like the 

Some PDPs have to do all of this. If you’re selling cookies made with a new sweetener, you’ll have to do some education. You’ll have to help folks pick the flavor they’ll like, assure them that their kids will probably like them too, and convince them they’re worth paying more for than Oreos.

But not all PDPs have to do this. You might be selling one SKU - in that case you don’t need to help anyone choose between products.

Or, you might not have any cheaper direct competitors.

Or, you might be selling a familiar product that is self-explanatory.

The best way to figure out what jobs your PDPs have is to 

You can proceed without research, but you’re likely to make mistakes. It’s easy to think our keto banana bread mix is completely self-explanatory, but shoppers may disagree.

And remember, if they’re confused, they won’t purchase.

Informal chatting with shoppers at your farmers market stand or in-store demo

Online services like usertesting.com and UsabilityHub.com

Sending an email survey to your email list with carefully chosen questions

As you talk with them, you’re going to be listening and watching for confusion, frustration, and curiosity. What questions are people asking about your products? Those are the questions your PDP needs to answer.

Ok, Let’s Get Down to Writing Your Product Description

Once you’ve got your strategy nailed down and you know what questions you need to answer, here’s how to write and format your description.

Remember when paper catalogs were a thing? (Tip: they still are, and quite profitable for some businesses too!) Each item would have copy that described it in cutesy, imaginative terms. With consumers’ shrinking attention spans and competition for SEO primacy, those descriptions have all but become a thing of the past.

If you’re a Parsnip brand, then I assume you’ve got an amazing, wholesome product that’s a far cry from the CPG giants racing each other to rock bottom prices for sub-standard goods.

If you’re not competing on price, that means you’ve got to sell more than just a widget. You’ve got to sell an experience or an outcome.

You’ve got to sell productive workdays, not just coffee.

You’ve got to sell peaceful afternoons, not just ready-to-eat after-school snacks.

You’ve got to sell slow summer evenings on the porch, not just all-natural ice cream.

Your first short paragraph of text is a chance to do just that. Paint a picture of life that’s a little sweeter with your product in it.

Bullet points have been proven to make it easier for readers to skim longer sections of text. And that’s good - you always want to make it easier for readers to absorb your message. So don’t be shy about using bullet copy in your product descriptions.

Group your bullets by category with headings for each one, such as “5 Ways to Use our Herbal Face Wipes” or “The Key Ingredients that Set Magic Skin Serum Apart.”

Focus each bullet point on a benefit, not a feature. Here’s an example of a benefit-forward bullet:

Soothe irritation and get glowing skin with rose water

See how desirable that makes the ingredient? Now here’s the same bullet, but with the feature as the focus:

Infused with rose water, which can help soothe irritation

It’s not bad, but it’s not great. And when you’ve got one chance to make the sale, you want great, not good.

When it makes sense, elaborate on the benefit of each feature.

The vast majority of buying still happens in a retail setting. Even though 100 million people have Amazon Prime accounts, and ordering everyday items like clothing, diapers, and groceries online is now mainstream.

Just because it’s commonplace doesn’t mean ecommerce businesses aren’t still losing sales to their brick and mortar competitors.

So remember that when you’re writing your product pages: you’re still trying to sell someone something sight unseen. Un-felt. Un-sniffed. Un-tried on.

It’s not enough to say a skirt “hits above the knee”. Take the extra time and get those extra details into your description: What’s the skirt length in inches, how tall is the model, what’s the fabric, will it be opaque, will it arrive wrinkled… giving your customers a heads up helps relieve their anxiety about ordering something, not liking it, having to return it and then start all over again.

Other Things to Include on Your Product Page

In that vein, I always recommend my clients allow for customer reviews on the product page.

Hearing about size, fit, and quality from third parties does wonders to increase your credibility and help new customers feel more at ease clicking “Add to Cart.”

You might think it’s enough to have this on your FAQ or Customer Service pages, but shoppers will often be checking for shipping details and your return policy when they’re deciding whether to take that last step and click Add to Cart.

So make sure you make these logistics easy to find!

Sometimes a product just doesn’t hit home. Save those visits that are on the brink of abandonment by suggesting products that might be a better fit. This is a great opportunity for cross-sells and upsells too, especially if your products are meant to go together (Bread and jam, swimsuit tops and bottoms, picnic baskets and blanket…).

So remember: painting a picture with a short paragraph, using outcome-focused bullet points, and including very clear facts about your products are all great ways to write product descriptions that stand out in a crowded marketplace.

When you include these elements in your product descriptions, you’re equipping your potential customers to buy with confidence.

How to Write Product Descriptions that Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace

, a freelance brand manager for growing CPG brands.

Email marketing is such a low cost, high conversion marketing tool — we all know that. Combine it with the 

 and you could really be building a targeted, engaged, and converting audience with the help of your partners.

So let’s break down how email marketing can be a tool for generating, converting, and nurturing an audience by leveraging a partner. Read on for 3 ways partnerships can drive revenue through email.

We talk about it all the time on our blog: one of the biggest benefits of collaboration is that if you choose the right partner - with an audience with similar behavior, fears, emotions, values, and needs to your own - you have their captive audience at your fingertips.

One of the major pain points of email marketing is list curation. How do you generate leads? How do you generate GOOD leads? Partnership can help. Here are just a few ideas on how:

Run a web-based giveaway. How do you do that exactly? Funny you should ask. I wrote about it in 

 blog post. In essence, you create a giveaway that requires entry through an email address. Each brand shares the giveaway with their email list. In the end both parties end up with a new list of emails of about 50% new leads.

Swap blog posts and include them in both companies’ email marketing (more on how in another one of 

). So you wrote an amazing blog post for your partners blog? Why not promote your email list at the bottom - linking them to a sign-up form? Then your partner can share that blog post via their email newsletter for some email marketing ‘inception.’ (Email marketing within email marketing).

Co-host an event together. In-person events are all the rage right now, and the best event execution doesn’t end when you break down the table. Collect email addresses at the event to share with all brands involved. More on planning those events 

. (If you couldn’t already tell we have a pretty extensive set of resources on our blog!)

Okay, so you’ve got a list of potential customers from one of these partnerships, now what?

 Make sure you are tagging or grouping these contacts together by similar characteristics — one of which being origin of acquisition. This will influence the type of content you send them down the road.

 There is absolutely nothing worse than getting an email from a brand totally out of the blue, and they never acknowledge how they got your email. Don’t be that brand.

 A series of three emails sent within 3-4 days of each other is the perfect way to be transparent on why you are emailing them, begin educating them on your brand and the value you provide, and potentially giving them an incentive to buy. This email flow might look something like this:

Day 1: “15% Off | So Glad We Met You at The Yoga Open House”: Tell them you were one of the brands tabling at the event and hope they had a blast. Give them a refresher on who you are and what you have to offer. Did you offer them a discount at the Open House? If so, extend it into the email 

 remind them of that activation by giving a special incentive to buy right now! (This also helps boost your sales and hook them in!)

Feature	Starter plan	Pro plan
Customizable profile	Yes	Yes
Discoverable profile	Yes	Yes
Own your own leads: brands can connect directly to you	Yes	Yes
Curated matchmaking from the Sprilly team when brands are searching for you	No	Yes

Perk	Starter plan	Pro plan
Social share from Sprilly	Yes	Yes
Blog post feature on Sprilly	Yes	Yes
Participate in a virtual panel for brands, showcasing your expertise	Yes	Yes
Newsletter feature to 1000+ brands	No	Yes
Lead a virtual event showcasing your expertise for brands	No	Yes

Simple pricing, no commitment.

Your first month on Sprilly is always free!

Starter

Pro

Starter

Features

Monthly marketing opportunities

Pro

Features

Monthly marketing opportunities

Features

Starter

Pro

Monthly marketing opportunities

Check out our blog

4 Things You Should Be Prepared To Discuss When Investing In Professional Food Photography

If My Clients Only Knew: How Key Consistent Email Marketing Is

Simple pricing, no commitment.

Your first month on Sprilly is always free!

Starter

Features

Pro

Features

Feature comparison

Starter

Features

Monthly marketing opportunities

Pro

Features

Monthly marketing opportunities

Feature comparison

Features

Monthly marketing opportunities

Check out our blog

4 Things You Should Be Prepared To Discuss When Investing In Professional Food Photography

If My Clients Only Knew: How Key Consistent Email Marketing Is