Craft breweries have experienced a surge in popularity in recent years, making it an exciting time to enter the industry.
However, with so many craft breweries vying for customers, it’s important to have a strong marketing strategy in place. Let’s take a look at the top seven marketing tips that you can use in your craft brewery business.
1. Utilise Social Media
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be powerful tools for reaching and engaging with potential customers. By creating a strong social media presence, you can:
- Showcase the unique character of your brewery
- Promote events and special releases
- Build a community of loyal followers.
Utilising social media is a great way to make yourself visible in a sea of craft beer breweries. To effectively utilise social media, it’s important to have a clear strategy in place. Define your target audience and determine which social media platforms they are most active on. You can do this by creating a buyer persona. This will help you determine where to focus your efforts and ensure that you are reaching the right people.
Once you have identified your target platforms, it’s important to create engaging and shareable content. This could include photos of your brewery and its products, behind-the-scenes glimpses of your production process, or information about upcoming events and product launches. By sharing high-quality, relevant content, you can build a loyal following and attract new customers.
In addition to creating content, it’s important to engage with your followers and respond to comments and messages. This helps to build a sense of community and shows that you value your customers’ feedback. You can also use social media to ask for reviews, and conduct polls or surveys to further engage with your audience.
Engage with other users by adding location tags to your social media posts, which could be your store or a British beer festival. This will enhance your presence and reach on social media platforms.
Additionally, it is essential to interact with other craft beer enthusiasts!
Engagement is the key to success when it comes to social media algorithms. If your posts are engaging, they will be more likely to go farther thanks to the algorithm’s boost.
To maximise success, it’s important to regularly create high-quality content and interact with your audience on social media. Doing so can build trust and loyalty and form a community around your brand.
2. Host Events
Hosting events at your brewery is a great way to create a sense of community and build brand loyalty. By inviting customers or key figures from the craft beer industry to experience your brewery in person, you can create a personal connection and give them a taste of your brand’s unique culture.
Offering exclusive experiences can help inspire your followers and create a sense of exclusivity and community among your consumers.
This can drive customer loyalty and encourage them to continue buying your products and following your craft beer business. By offering unique and memorable experiences, you can differentiate your brewery from competitors and build a loyal customer base.
Events can take many forms, from tastings and tours to live music. By offering a variety of events, you can appeal to a diverse audience and create a sense of excitement and anticipation around your brewery.
3. Collaborate
Collaborating with other businesses and organisations is a powerful tool for craft breweries to promote their brand, attract new customers, and network.
One way to collaborate is by teaming up with local restaurants, bars, and other venues. This allows your brewery to expand its reach and gain exposure to new customers who may not have otherwise discovered your brand.
This can also create a mutually beneficial relationship, as the venue can attract customers with the unique offering of local craft beer.
Working with influencers and bloggers in the craft beer community is another effective way to collaborate and promote your brand. Influencers and bloggers have a built-in audience who trust their opinions and are likely to be interested in trying new craft beers. By providing them with free samples or access to exclusive events, you can gain valuable exposure to their followers.
Collaborating with other local businesses can be a great way to promote the local economy and create a sense of community. By working together, local businesses can support each other and create a vibrant and thriving local market. This is demonstrated by Donzoko Brewery Company, who collaborated with Leeds based film lab to create ‘Take It Easy Lager’ a beer that features a peel apart label with images on the inside, similar to a roll of film!
Additionally, many customers prefer to shop locally and support their local economy, so promoting these collaborations can be a great way to appeal to these customers and promote your brand.
Networking with other businesses and organisations can be a powerful way to promote your craft brewery and build a strong sense of community. Whether you’re partnering with local venues, hosting events and promotions, working with influencers and bloggers, or supporting local businesses, there are many ways to build mutually beneficial relationships and attract new customers.
4. Create a Loyalty Programme
Creating a loyalty program for a craft brewery can be a great way to reward loyal customers and encourage repeat business. A loyalty program is a system where customers can earn points or rewards for making purchases or engaging with the brand. These rewards can include discounts, free merchandise, or exclusive access to events and promotions.
Another important aspect of creating a loyalty program is making rewards desirable and valuable to customers. This can be done by offering a wide range of rewards that cater to different customer preferences, such as discounts on beer purchases, exclusive access to events and promotions, or merchandise. Additionally, it’s important to make sure the earning and redemption of rewards are simple and straightforward.
Finally, to increase the effectiveness of your loyalty program, consider promoting it through various mediums such as on-premise, off-premise, social media, and email campaigns. This can help to increase awareness of your program and attract new customers to your brewery.
A loyalty program is a great way for craft breweries to reward and retain customers. By creating a digital loyalty program, offering valuable rewards, and promoting the program effectively, craft breweries can increase customer engagement and drive repeat business.
5. Be Consistent
Being consistent is a vital aspect of any successful marketing strategy, and this is particularly true for craft breweries. Consistency in branding, messaging, and social media posting can help to build trust, establish a strong brand identity, and attract new customers.
Firstly, consistency in branding is crucial for craft breweries. This means using the same logo, colours, and overall aesthetic in all of your marketing materials. This creates a sense of familiarity and helps customers easily identify your brand. Additionally, it’s important to ensure your branding is consistent across all your channels, whether it be on-premise, off-premise, or online. This is particularly important for social media, where customers are likely to come across your brand for the first time. Ensuring that your branding is consistent across all your social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, will make it easy for customers to recognise your brand and increase the chances of them following you.
Secondly, consistency in messaging is essential to building trust with your customers. It’s important to communicate a clear and consistent message across all your marketing channels, whether it be on social media, email campaigns, or in-store promotions. This helps to create a sense of trust and makes it more likely for customers to believe in your brewery. Additionally, if your message is consistent, it will be easier for your customers to understand what you are all about, what your values are, and what you stand for.
Consistently posting on social media is crucial to attracting new customers and increasing customer engagement. A consistent posting schedule can help to keep customers engaged and build a sense of anticipation. This can help increase customer retention and drive repeat business. Additionally, regularly posting on social media can help your brewery to stay top of mind for customers and increase the chances of them visiting your brewery or purchasing your beer. A consistent schedule of posts can also make it easier for customers to follow your brewery and stay up-to-date on your new beers or upcoming events.
6. Use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is a crucial part of any online marketing strategy, and it is important for businesses of all sizes and industries to incorporate it into their digital marketing efforts. By using SEO, businesses can increase their online visibility, attract more potential customers, and establish their brand as an authority in their industry.
One of the primary benefits of SEO is that it can increase your online visibility, making it easier for people searching for products or services in your industry to find your business. When your website and social media profiles rank higher in search engine results, they are more likely to be seen by potential customers.
Additionally, SEO can help establish your brand as an authority in your industry. By creating high-quality content and optimising your website and social media profiles, you can demonstrate your expertise and establish trust with potential customers. This can lead to increased conversions, higher engagement rates, and ultimately more sales.
Furthermore, SEO is a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website, as it does not require a significant investment like paid advertising. It is a long-term strategy, the results can continue to drive traffic to your website even after the initial optimisation work has been completed. This means that the investment made in SEO can continue to pay dividends for a long time.
Lastly, SEO is an ever-evolving field, with new techniques and strategies emerging all the time. This means that businesses can always find new ways to improve their website’s visibility and reach a larger audience without having to spend a lot of money
In summary, SEO is a crucial part of any online marketing strategy and should not be overlooked by businesses of all sizes and industries. By using SEO, businesses can increase their online visibility, attract more potential customers, and establish their brand as an authority in their industry.
7. Experiment with your Marketing
Experimenting with different marketing strategies and tactics can be a valuable approach for craft breweries looking to stand out and attract new customers. This can help to identify what works and what doesn’t and allow breweries to continually improve and refine their marketing efforts.
Experiment with different platforms and channels to see where your audience is engaging the most. For example, it might be discovered that Instagram is a more effective platform for attracting new customers compared to Facebook. Or, it may be found that beer festivals are more beneficial than hosting a taproom event. Experimenting with different platforms and channels can help to identify where you should focus your efforts, and increase the chances of reaching the right audience with your message.
One of the main benefits of experimenting with marketing is that it allows craft breweries to stay ahead of trends in the industry. With the craft beer market becoming increasingly crowded, it’s important for breweries to find new and unique ways to promote their brand and attract customers. Experimenting with different marketing strategies can help to identify new opportunities and stay ahead of the competition.
In Summary
- Utilise social media to showcase the unique character of your brewery, promote events and special releases, and build a community of loyal followers.
- Host events at your brewery to create a sense of community and build brand loyalty by offering exclusive experiences, tastings and tours, and live music.
- Collaborate with other businesses and organisations to promote your brand, attract new customers, and network.
- Optimise your website for SEO to increase online visibility and reach a wider audience.
- Use content marketing to create valuable and informative content that appeals to your target audience.
- Leverage influencer marketing by partnering with influencers in the craft beer community to promote your brand and reach a wider audience.
- Create a loyalty program to reward customers for their loyalty and encourage repeat business.
Feeling Thirsty For More?
Ready to take your craft brewery to the next level? Don’t miss out on this opportunity to transform your brewery’s marketing strategy. Email us and let’s chat about how to achieve success!
