The chocolate market is a wild world. And chocolate consumers love it!New brands are born every week. Chocolate professionals fight over the finest cacao beans from all over the World. Pictures of winnowing and tempering machines in action are all over Social Media. Online magazines are filled with articles about fine chocolate. A different research on the health benefits of chocolate pops up every month to persuade consumers to buy more.Discounts, sales, promotions, giveaways, collaborations. Chocolate companies are on the hunt to gain and retain precious customers in such a competitive field, and are not afraid to try everything they can. It's a daily fight.On the other hand, chocolate consumers are enjoying the sweet side of the deal.For their willingness to spend a consistent amount of money on fine chocolate, they are rewarded with an infinite choice of brands and flavors. They are targeted by chocolate companies especially during crucial days like Valentine's Day, Christmas and Mother's Day. During off-peak seasons chocolate professionals still try to get attention with appealing offers and new creations. The mission is to never get out of the customer's mind.Even though the hustle is real, some of the marketing strategies used by chocolate companies have the opposite effect. They turn chocolate customers away instead of making them stay. And most of the time chocolate companies aren't even aware of their bad moves.Today we examine 4 SUPER ANNOYING marketing strategies that chocolate companies should definitely avoid if they don't want to turn off chocolate consumers.  

• 5-10-15% Discount - AN INSULT

True chocolate lovers appreciate and respect chocolate makers and chocolatiers. Finding the patience to deal with wrong temperatures, broken machines, wasted materials, failed trials, disappointing combinations and more is not for everybody.Chapeau to all the chocolate professionals that have to cope with these things every single day. Most creations are (hopefully) worth the price on their packaging, and chocolate consumers are happy to sustain such sweet businesses. But they don't like to be taken for fools!Do chocolate companies TRULY believe that consumers are going to get all excited and break their back to buy chocolate with a 5-10-15% discount?To do the math on a $20 purchase: 5% discount corresponds to $1 saved, 10% to $2, 15% to $3. This is nothing fine chocolate consumers will go out of their way for. This is not only an unsatisfying saving offer, but it's a backlash for the company's image. The chocolate brand ends up looking "cheap" for not offering something more substantial and that really makes the difference. They are better off not offering any discount and keeping their image intact.What to do instead? Apply a 20% discount only on special occasions, or offer Free Shipping. 

• Unwanted Emails - NO, THANKS!

Emails are an amazing tool for chocolate companies to communicate with loyal customers. They can give info on the latest products available, send invitations to events, encourage to follow Social Media accounts, and so on. Effective and low-cost, email marketing can really help a company hold a prime position in the customer's mind. In fact, customers will be thrilled to be kept updated with a company's latest news, IF THEY SIGNED UP FOR IT.By using the method of sending unwanted emails, the recipients will definitely remember that specific chocolate company. Probably not in the way the company was hoping. Now the brand is put in the black list of desperate companies that have to force their product down consumers' throats. The chances of the recipient buying from that specific company is now even lower than if that person had to find the company by chance.If a chocolate company doesn't want to be remembered for the wrong reasons, it should stop collecting emails from unaware Internet users and focus on better its advertising strategies to have people willingly sing up for its newsletter.What to do instead? Use less invasive (and more targeted) Facebook and Instagram paid ads. 

• Fake Discounts When Buying In Bulk - NOT FUNNY

To persuade consumers to buy more than they had originally planned, a great marketing strategy is to sell in bulk. Talking about fine chocolate, bulk can be used to indicate an amount between 4 to 20 bars when the buyer is a private customer.Many chocolate companies have on their online stores the option to buy single bars or buy a pre-selected package of multiple bars. The added value is supposedly a certain amount of money saved than if somebody had to buy the same amount of bars but in singular purchases. In a few words: the customer buys more now because he saves money compared to making smaller purchases spread in the future. Nowadays customers EXPECT a discount when they buy in bulk, and this would be a great strategy.Chocolate companies don't seem to agree.After checking many website of both chocolate makers and chocolatiers, the disappointing truth is that there is absolutely NO ADVANTAGE when buying in bulk. Taking the price of the package offered and dividing it by the number of the bars/chocolates included, in many cases it came out to be exactly the same price of the product taken singularly. In all the other cases, the advantage was a ridiculous saving of a few cents up to $1.As a smart friend of mine suggested, this strategy of no savings when buying in bulk could work if the bars were attentively put together to guide the customer through a tasting path or a journey of flavors. But if there is no added value, then making the customers pay the price in full makes this marketing practice ineffective (and customers disappointed).What to do instead? Apply a 10% discount when customers buy 4 or more bars. 

• No Loyalty Programs - WHY?!

Acquiring a new customer costs a business about 5-10 times more than it does to acquire an existing customer. It is common knowledge among marketers that current customers spend way more than new customers. This is why loyalty programs are a wide practice among many industries: airline companies, clothing retailers, food chains, just to name a few. They can take place in many forms, like earning points or charging an upfront fee for VIP benefits.Apparently the chocolate industry is unaware of all these strategies.Fine chocolate brands with a loyalty program are yet to be found. This is a terrible move considered the fierce competition that reigns in the chocolate industry. Unfortunately, there is no encouragement in being a big fine-chocolate spender, since there are no brands that will give rewards for that. No advantage is offered in being a returning customer. Loyalty is underestimated, and this is pretty counterproductive in an industry where consumers have a million other options to choose from. Chocolate consumers don't feel valued and appreciated. This is why they change their minds easily and don't stick to the same brand for very long.What to do instead? Look through THIS LIST and choose the strategy that best suits your company. Marketing is not about tricking chocolate customers into buying more, squeezing their wallets as much as possible and letting them go to find new preys.Marketing is an incredible tool to let potential customers know what a high-value product a company can offer. If used in the right way, it allows to make returning customers stick around by providing advantages that they won't find elsewhere, and put in place all the necessary strategies to serve them at best.Use it wisely. Which marketing strategy does turn YOU off the most?I did NOT get paid and did NOT receive any kind of favor for writing this article. These are my honest opinions at your service.