Prune news New tactics to sell

New look, new tactics to help sell prunes

A vibrant new website is helping the Australian prune industry identify consumer interests and how they interact with the Aus Prunes website and social media platforms.

Peter Raccanello heads Aus Prunes promotions portfolio and has been one of the driving forces behind the website.

“We wanted to provide a new and refreshed look for prunes that appealed to all ages and contained useful information for consumers and health professionals to ultimately increase consumption of prunes across Australia,” Peter said.

“As an organisation, we do not sell any product, but we are responsible for the Aus Prunes branding which our member processors/packers use to sell our members’ prunes.

“For too long prunes have been perceived as a dried fruit for the elderly with bowel issues. But the truth is they are so much more and we need to sell them as such.

“We need to increase awareness of prunes and communicate the wide range of health nutritional benefits.

“People also need to know that prunes can be a delicious snack eaten on their own, but they are also extremely versatile and can be used in everything from a prune and cranberry cosmopolitan through to Texan-style prune barbecue sauce and a choc chilli tart with chewy prune caramel and anything in between.”

Peter said the new website – ausprunes.org.au – had been created by Griffith-based digital marketing company, Candid Marketing, and included a new Aus Prunes logo and colour theme.

“We are really excited about the new look and the website is so easy to navigate,” Peter said.

“For example, our recipe tab is definitely more inviting, with the professional photos from our recipe cards appearing as thumbnails to entice consumers.

“It is also a lot easier to search for a particular recipe as they have been categorised into light meals, main meals, snacks, starters and sweets.

“But the real advantage is website analytics, which capture user information and tell us what interests those who visit the site.”

Essentially, the website analytics tell how many people visit the Aus Prunes website, the pages they visit and the frequency in which they visit.

The program is also able to track the demographic of the visitor, that is, their age, gender and location, as well as how they were directed to the page.

It will also monitor social media – the number of followers, likes and rate of engagement on both Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Peter said the analytics would allow the industry to monitor the website’s effectiveness as well as the effectiveness of promotional campaigns in which people were referred to the website.

Cassandra Cadorin from Candid Marketing monitors the analytics on behalf of the industry and is currently developing a strategy for engagement online including breaking the stereotype of prunes in Australia, and stories relating to growers and their on-farm prune production practices for use on social media platforms and to link in with the website.

The new website went live in March and is a work in progress with more content to be added.

Aus Prunes in the spotlight

Peter said the primary goal was to communicate information to consumers and health professionals to raise the awareness of prunes and ultimately increase sales of Australiangrown prunes.

“The media plays a huge role in helping spread our messages to a wide audience,” he said.

“The initial brief contained plans for a media page with past press releases, an image gallery and printed media clips. This is still on our ‘to do’ list, as is the plan for a portal for members to access a library of industry-specific information.”

Meanwhile, Aus Prunes has been busy in the past few months creating opportunities for content for those media clippings.

Peter said Destination NSW and QANTAS recently sponsored a media famil to Griffith to help promote the flight path to the region. Four food and travel writers were invited to the district to visit local producers with the expectation that they would write favourable articles.

Frank and Lucy De Rossi’s farm at Bilbul was on the itinerary where the writers were treated to fresh fruit on the trees and dried fruit samples as they wandered through the orchard. It was followed by an impressive morning tea featuring scones heaped with prune jam and other prune delights.

The theme for the famil was “People and Produce” and Frank and Lucy’s son,

daughter-in-law and grandchildren were on hand to help guide the visitors around the farm and talk about how their family grew and dried prunes.

Peter said the industry was fortunate to have so many growers willing to open their farm gates to help promote the industry.

“Grant Delves is another who is passionate about prunes and sharing his knowledge. His Hanwood property will feature in a cooking segment on Justine Schofield’s Everyday Gourmet television show,” Peter said.

Aus Prunes invested money from the prune promotional levy to be part of the event with both Angas Park and Verity Fruits contributing additional funds from their own promotional budgets.

“Justine’s passion for Australian produce is obvious and she appeared keen to learn about the Australian prune industry,” Grant said.

Several photos were taken around the property and activities captured on film. The highlight was the cooking segment in the orchard where Justine prepared a bruschetta comprising spiced prunes with marsala and ricotta cheese.

All material from the event will be made available to Aus Prunes for use in their own social media and promotion campaigns with additional promotion via Justine’s own social media, and that of Everyday Gourmet and Griffith Tourism. v

Phil Chidgzey APIA national secretariat secretary@ausprunes.org.au

Top: The redeveloped Aus Prunes website offers new opportunities in understanding consumers. Middle: Justine Schofield filmed a segment of her Everyday Gourmet cooking show on Grant Delves’ Hanwood prune property. Below: The Destination NSW tour bus at the De Rossi farm.