… by posting free recipes like Smoothie Recipes does.

I could see how a grocery store or food outlet, like a nutrition store or “organic” shop, could also post cooking and health food tips based on their products …

… but the principle is simple: Find ways to promote your products or services in innovative, creative ways.

Use a blog to do it … set a regular and realistic post schedule … and have your employees brainstorm (or even remember) useful tips that your customers would love to have …

Do you have a little organic shop? Give me 10 ways to discern real and “fake” organic products.

Do you have a specialty grocery store? Give me free savory recipes stuff … you might even look at the calendar and have “themed recipes” for Halloween, Christmas, Fourth of July, etc.

FROM SMOOTHIES TO DUCT TAPE …

All this talk about smoothies makes me think about good ole Duct Tape here.

I couldn’t find it immediately but I remember a while back there was a big stir about 101 ways to use duct tape or something like that.

It was the work of a marketing genuis.

Take a product — a rather boring one, in fact — see how many different ways you could use it.

A simple search netted these sites: Duct Tape Fashion and Make It Yourself with Duct Tape.

OK, remember … we’re talking about duct tape, not smoothies!

Some keys to doing this successfully for food products is to:

• avoid marketing talk (it’s not a brochure)
• make it useful, practical, helpful (think in terms of benefits for your customers)
• create something that could ultimately be printed and taped to the fridge (lists are always great posts, but for food products, think recipes, like the Smoothies did!)