CPG marketing is all around you. Take a wall of potato chips at a convenience store, for example. They can be thick, thin, wavy, or flavored. At the end of the day, they’re all potato chips competing for your attention.
Consumer packaged goods (CPG) are items you can purchase just about anywhere, use regularly, and easily replace—like potato chips. To convince shoppers to buy your item over your competitors’, you need more than a good product; you need a strong marketing strategy. The right language, logos, and advertisements can help a product stand out from the competition.
Learn how your consumer packaged goods company can use marketing to build brand identity, boost sales, and differentiate its products in a crowded marketplace.
Table of contents
What is CPG marketing?
CPG marketing is the process by which businesses promote consumer packaged goods. CPG marketing can serve a variety of business goals—such as increasing brand awareness and influencing consumer behavior—but its primary purpose is to drive sales.
Effective marketing strategies are essential for CPG businesses seeking to stand out in a marketplace with seemingly unlimited offerings.
Consumer packaged goods companies sell products that consumers use regularly and replace frequently. CPG product categories include food and beverage items, household supplies like cleaning products, cosmetics, and over-the-counter medications.
Challenges of the CPG industry
- Product differentiation
- Changing consumer preferences
- Changing consumer behaviors
- Consumer relationships
Succeeding in the consumer packaged goods industry requires a stellar product, a flexible team, and a compelling marketing strategy. These are some of the challenges CPG marketers confront:
Product differentiation
The CPG industry is highly competitive. There are many similar options in any given product category, and CPG brands may struggle to stand out as a result. Developing an effective differentiation strategy—a marketing technique focused on building a unique brand identity—helps you connect with consumers and distinguish your product from the competition.
Kat Kavner of Heyday Canning Co. did her market research before launching a new canned bean brand with her cofounder, Jaime Lynne Tulley. “We put together a spreadsheet of every single canned food product and mapped out what they were doing,” Kat says on an episode of Shopify Masters. By comparing competitor brands, they found that none were pushing the limits to stand out in their marketing campaigns. That presented an opportunity.
Changing consumer preferences
Legacy CPG brands may struggle to adapt to changing consumer preferences. The beverage industry, for example, has seen a surge in demand for healthy, sustainable products in recent years, according to Nielsen.
When customer desires shift, CPG brands may need to adjust their products or develop new marketing strategies to stay relevant. This explains why legacy brand PepsiCo acquired prebiotic soda company Poppi in 2025 for $1.95 billion.
Changing consumer behaviors
Online sales in the CPG industry continue to increase. This shift in consumer behavior presents an opportunity and a challenge for CPG companies—especially those who rely on in-person shopping to drive sales. As a result, brands have to adjust their marketing strategies to reach people online. Nowadays, online advertising and social media are key tactics for CPG companies.
Consumer relationships
Consumers today face an abundance of choices, making it difficult for CPG companies to build strong relationships with them. In CPG, customers often prioritize convenience and price over brand loyalty. Strong brand marketing can help overcome this by cultivating an emotional connection through meaningful customer interactions and personalized, relevant content.
CPG marketing strategies
- Digital marketing
- Offline marketing
- In-store marketing
- Social media marketing
- Omnichannel marketing
- Experiential marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Content marketing
CPG marketing can help your brand stand out from competitors and stay top of mind with customers in purchase mode. Explore strategies that belong in your marketing plan:
Digital marketing
Businesses use digital marketing to promote products or services online. Digital marketing includes tactics such as paid search, paid social, display advertising, and email marketing.
A solid digital marketing strategy can help CPG brands reach online shoppers and drive traffic to their online store.
Offline marketing
Offline marketing happens in the non-digital world. Offline CPG marketing efforts include billboard ads, print advertisements, radio spots, and TV ads.
See how beauty brand Glossier used billboards to advertise its collaboration with the band Katseye:
In-store marketing
In-store advertising remains crucial for brands, as 52% of CPG shopping happens in retail stores, according to the 2025 PwC CPG Executive Survey. Endcap displays, free samples, and in-store promotions are effective offline marketing strategies that can influence shoppers at the time of purchase.
“Getting in the store is one thing, and then staying in the store is a whole other thing,” says Kat Kavner of Heyday Canning Co. “And the way that you stay is to make sure that the product actually sells off the shelf once it gets on.”
To do that, Kat recommends employing a range of in- and out-of-store tactics, from “building awareness for the brand so that you’re driving people into store to go find it to doing in-store sampling and demos so that you can catch shoppers and actually give them a taste of your product and convince them in that moment to buy to running couponing programs.”
Social media marketing
CPG companies can use social media marketing to build an online community, interact with customers, and participate in trends. This field includes paid social media marketing, organic social, and influencer marketing campaigns. Maintaining social media accounts lets CPG companies communicate directly with loyal customers by replying to posts or resharing user-generated content.
For some companies, social media is a chance to showcase a different side of their brand personality. According to Michelle Razavi, co-founder of the protein brownie brand Elavi, social media is the perfect channel for engaging consumers. “To have an outlet like social media where you can share even a small glimmer of what’s going on behind the scenes, humanizes the brand and allows people to come be a part of something and really just build publicly,” she says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “And I think that’s the new age of building a consumer brand: building in public.”
In one video, Michelle explains why Elavi’s peanut butter chocolate protein brownie packaging doesn’t match the contents inside. Viewers responded positively, with comments like “It’s the inside that counts” and “Your brand is authentic.”
Omnichannel marketing
Omnichannel marketing is a blend of offline and online marketing. For CPG brands, it’s a way to meet consumers wherever they are by establishing a consistent brand identity across a variety of consumer touchpoints and marketing channels. Consumers who saw your online ads may be more likely to pick up your product in-store, while customers who saw your in-store display will have a tangible memory of it when they see your online ads.
Renard’s Cheese built its ecommerce business with Shopify, using Shopify POS to unify its brick-and-mortar retail presence and reduce operational complexity. Integrating the tools allowed the brand to create a unified commerce approach to customer relationships, inventory management, and advertising.
Experiential marketing
Experiential marketing involves inviting customers to participate in real-world or virtual events such as brand activations and pop-up shops. This strategy aims to build deep connections with customers by creating memorable, positive experiences. As a bonus, experiential marketing campaigns can generate press coverage and social media buzz.
That was the case for Heyday Canning Co. Although Heyday didn’t have a huge marketing budget at the time, founders Kat and Jaime decided to invest in an event where people could trade any cans of beans for Heyday beans or bean-themed merch. “We wanted to … focus all the money on one thing that had the potential to cut through the noise and grow brand awareness,” Kat says. And it paid off. Not only was there a massive turnout at the in-person event, but the bean swap also went viral on TikTok.
Influencer marketing
Partnering with influencers to promote products on social media platforms or blogs can help CPG companies reach an engaged audience. Influencers often focus on a specific content category, such as travel, food, or wellness. Working with a relevant influencer ensures that your marketing messages reach the right demographic.
Toral Patel is the vice president of marketing and ecommerce at the skin care and fragrance brand Kopari Beauty. When she joined the brand, she listened to customer feedback to identify ways to connect with audiences online. “All you want for [influencers] to do is to try the product, because if they love it … it will make its way into multiple pieces of content,” Toral says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “Internally, what you think is a differentiator may not be what the creator community or your customers find to be the most compelling benefit about the product.” Letting influencers share their honest opinions helped the brand gain traction online.
Content marketing
Content marketing is the process of creating and sharing original written and/or visual material to appeal to your audience. This strategy can deepen relationships by engaging consumers with interesting, appealing content. It primarily consists of organic content, or material you promote without paid advertising. Instead of paying to promote it, you typically optimize your content for search engines to bring organic traffic to your website. Common organic CPG marketing materials include blog posts, videos, tutorials, and recipes.
Canyon Coffee, a coffee brand with an online and retail presence, shares recipes on its website. It’s a subtle way to demonstrate the value and versatility of its products, such as this tiramisu recipe using Canyon Coffee instant coffee packets.
