As a marketing professional of a quarter-century who spent nearly a decade working in the brewing industry, I marvel at the widely held misconception that marketing is some above-and-beyond non-necessity for craft breweries. In far too many cases, such businesses have no plan, designated personnel or even a budget line-item for marketing. This despite the fact many of the most successful U.S. craft breweries are those which focus time and resources on marketing.
The truth is, every business, from mega-sized retail and hospitality chains to single-shingle consultancies and freelancers, need to market themselves to realize their potential, lest they wither away in anonymity. If nobody knows you exist, where you are, and what you have to offer, it doesn’t matter if your wall is covered in World Beer Cup plaques and all your industry friends think you’re the most legit brewer in town. Quality, accolades, and the respect of your peers don’t pay the bills, and they only matter if the public knows about them.
Making the Effort
It’s easy to throw one’s hands up at the notion of marketing. Running a brewery is difficult and time-consuming, leaving little time to focus on anything beyond operations, production, sales, distribution, and personnel. Most brewery owners are engineering-minded—often brewers themselves—who started their businesses to work outside the corporate world, which marketing is understandably, yet incorrectly associated with. And despite the fact so many think they know what marketing is and everyone has an opinion, the truth is most do not, and their greenhorn attempts at it often fail, thus discouraging them from trying at all.
But breweries should be commended for putting forth effort where marketing is concerned. Even practitioners with decades of experience and awe-inspiring success stories have come up short from time to time. Like baseball, even All-Stars strike out, but it’s important to keep walking up to the plate and swinging for the fences. The key is to focus on fundamentals and have a game plan, and it doesn’t require tons of money, time, or labor.
When I started in the industry, I worked for one of the 10 largest craft brewing companies in the country. We had a marketing team of more than 20 individuals with talents spanning across every discipline from web development, multimedia production, and social media to graphic design, public relations, and so much more. It was a marketing pro’s dream come true and I learned so many lessons—both good and bad—which would help me when I moved on to head marketing for two other breweries. The first was a mid-sized operation where I had a staff of three helping with graphics, photography, and social media, followed by a small brewery where it was just me and I had to do everything myself and had almost zero budget.
And I loved it!
Marketing with limited resources allowed me to be creative. Like a brewer crafting a pilsner, there were no trendy hops, specialty malts, or adjuncts to lean on or hide behind. It was up to me to make sure my brewery’s fans knew what we were up to, while bringing new followers into the fold by communicating what we had to offer via our properties as well as media publications and outlets. In doing so, and doing so effectively, I gained valuable experience that any brewing company, regardless of size, region, or style, can use, and it’s a privilege to share that with you here.
1. Website Dos & Don’ts
We are passionate about brewing and brew the beers we want to drink using the finest ingredients. Our communal tasting room is a comfortable place to sit back, hang out and enjoy one of our quality beers.
At some point in the history of American craft-brewing, hundreds of companies assembled at some clandestine meeting and passed a motion that they would all use essentially the same anemic verbiage on their homepages. What’s missing from the synopsis above? Almost everything.
Consumers expect you to be passionate about brewing, produce beer you would drink, use decent ingredients, and provide an acceptable place to drink their products. Your introductory statement on your homepage is essentially your 30-second elevator pitch to potential customers and should be more than a collection of baseline qualifications.
In addition to my work as a marketer, I am a journalist who has covered craft beer for 16 years. As part of my initial research, I regularly visit the websites of breweries that are new to me and am far too often disappointed by the lack of details available at what should be the primary source of information for anyone curious about a company.
What you want to provide up front for all to see is:
- Where you are located: What neighborhood or community within your greater city, especially if you’re near something of interest (e.g., airport, tourist attraction, shopping area, residential community).
- What types of beer you produce: Lagers? IPAs? Both? In either case, which types. Perhaps call out beers that are particularly popular, award-winning, or emblematic of your overall brewing style or MO.
- Differentiators: Standing out is important and in a market as saturated as craft beer, businesses need to play up anything that makes them different (e.g., in-house food, patio, amenities, activities, entertainment, fun or unique thematic, family- or dog-friendly status).
Your website is your most important point of contact. Even more than your physical location, because before most people get to your tasting room, they will Google your business and use what they find to determine whether they’ll ever step through your doors. So, tell them what you’re about, drilling down so you can appeal to would-be customers who are into the same things as you. If you make amazing German-style lagers, you want people who enjoy lagers to know that, but if your website generically notes that you make “quality beers” you’ve missed the chance to reel that sect in.
(Side Note: Remember that “quality” does not mean “good” or “excellent”. Without a modifier, it means nothing in relation to something’s worth. “High-quality” or “top-quality” are descriptive, “quality” on its own is not.)
Keep in mind the type of people and demographics you are trying to reach and be sure to speak to them as well as the general public. It’s important to capture the former while remembering the latter. Have something for beer geeks if that’s your crowd, but don’t get so next-level—or worse yet, pretentious—that you alienate people who are simply in search of a tasty brew.
Use photos to show people what you have to offer as far as beers and an attractive environment. They really do speak a thousand words. (As a writer, I hate to admit that.) Don’t have photos? Take some or get some taken. I would recommend shelling out a few hundred dollars to have a qualified professional take a wide-ranging set of site and product shots so you have a library you can use for your website, social media, and requests from media outlets. If that’s out of your price range, we all have cameras masquerading as phones in our pockets. Put yours to good use and snap away or have someone you know who possesses a keen eye and photographic capabilities (they are probably a family member not of drinking age) do it for you.
The following are the website tabs I have found to be most useful as a marketer and end-user.
- Homepage: Lead with your elevator pitch, then go into important aspects (owner’s and brewers’ pedigree, awards, etc.) further down or on an “about” page. I’d recommend the latter only if you have plenty of relevant information to share, otherwise it’s more than most visitors need or want.
- Beers / Tap List: If your page doesn’t share the specific beers your company produces or include a (for goodness’ sake current) list of what you have available at your location(s), rectify that right now. Would you go to a restaurant if they didn’t publish their menu?
- Tasting Room / Locations: Your tap list could go here. That’s a good idea if you have multiple locations with different tap lists. List your hours of operation and don’t forget to update them if they change.
- Events: This can be combined with your tasting-room/locations page but having its own page allows customers to find event information more easily. If you rent your facility for private events, include that information here.
- Contact / FAQ: Allow interested parties to reach you but provide answers to as many of their questions as possible to keep the amount of mail you receive from getting out of hand.
- Store: Put your website to work for you by selling merchandise and, if you’re legally able to, your beer.
- Header Extras: Icon links to your social-media platforms should be included along with a means by which to subscribe to your newsletter/email list.
Before moving on, I’d like to stress the importance of telling people what you do versus what you don’t or won’t do. Craft brewing is a passionate industry and many businesses within it operate off a closely held set of tenets that mean a great deal to companies’ owners and employees. It’s great to share what’s important to you and keeps your blood pumping but keep it positive and relevant to your customers.
I’ve worked for breweries that proclaimed they would never brew certain styles or sell the business, only to do those very things down the road. If the past half-decade has taught us anything, it’s that the brewing industry is everchanging and no one can predict the situations breweries will find themselves in. The economy, legislative updates, changing consumer trends, a global pandemic, or any number of factors can lead businesses to do things they never thought they would. Reneging after years of grandstanding on an issue is not only embarrassing, but often detrimental to consumer confidence and a company’s bottom line…especially when nobody asked what you wouldn’t do in the first place.
People only want to know what you do or aspire to do. Focus on that.
2. Social Media Savvy
Given craft beer’s casual air and role as a gateway to fun times, it seems like just about anything goes where brewery social-media content is concerned. That leeway lends itself to plenty of shenanigans, and I’m not here to criticize that, but it’s important to know the bread-and-butter content that is important to present to existing and potential consumers who followed your brewery to stay in the loop with what you have going on.
Here is what you should, at a minimum, be posting about…
- Upcoming Beer Releases: This is why most people follow your brewery.
- Existing Beers: Don’t post about beers once then never mention them again. Find fun new ways to spotlight them.
- Tap List Updates
- Upcoming Events & Fundraisers
- Collaborations with Breweries, Nonprofits, Charities & Organizations
- Merchandise
- Company News
- Email Newsletter Signup: You should always be looking to increase the number of subscribers as this is your most direct communication channel with your most engaged customers.
Notice the lack of food-vendor schedules. This is not an oversight. Few are the individuals who have based their decision to visit a brewery on whether a certain food truck will be present. Posting your food-truck schedule does not motivate patronage. If anything, it has the potential to keep someone away if, say, they don’t like empanadas and that’s the culinary option du jour at your tasting room. Make it clear on your website that you have a food option (assuming you do) and leave it at that. If anything, your culinary partners should be the ones posting they’ll be at your brewery.
No matter what you post, keep quality in mind. Ugly, crooked, badly lit photos of three-quarters-full glasses of beer with deflated heads have no place on a brewery’s feed. A certain degree of lo-fi is accepted by craft-beer fans, but have some pride in your product, tasting room, and staff. More damage is done by a bad image than the benefit gained by a stellar image, meaning that if all you have is a subpar photo to put up, get a better one or just skip that post.
Still Pic-Stitching multiple photos together for Instagram? Cease and desist immediately. Overlaying tons of different fluorescent-colored type over photos to advertise events? That technique subliminally hints your event will be similarly slapped-together and janky. Using the same photos over and over (and over) again? People don’t scroll in search of things they’ve seen before, but they stop following accounts with repeat content. Take some new photos.
If you’re auto-feeding posts from one platform to another, take the time to post to each. Yes, it’s faster and easier to go automatic, and that’s fine for personal accounts, but a professional organization should look more buttoned up than that. You wouldn’t cut corners like that on your beer (I hope). Communicate that attention to detail across all phases of your organization and it will become associated with your brand. Take shortcuts and you run the risk that will be what people remember about your brewery.
It’s a lot of little things that all add up and make a difference in consumers’ eyes over time.
3. Working with Media
An expert public relations professional is a terrific weapon to have in any organization’s arsenal. They provide great worth, particularly in crisis or high-stakes situations, when it comes to messaging, strategy, and media outreach. That said, affording one, even on a consulting basis, can be difficult for smaller brewing companies. Fortunately, the media is easier to reach than ever before and pitching to them in an effective manner requires little more than understanding members of that sect and being able to put yourselves in their shoes.
Just like you want to know your market, you want to be familiar with your local media outlets. Newspapers, news sites, magazines, blogs, podcasts, radio, and television. Television? Absolutely! You should know the anchors and reporters on every major station in your market and what they report on so that when you have news that fits their beat and can provide them value, you can get in touch. Many have contact info in their profiles on their stations’ websites or can be reached via their social media accounts.
If you go the DM route, it’s best to ask if they accept press releases via email. If they do, they’ll let you know their address and you’ll be on your way. When emailing media professionals, take the time to personalize your message specifically to that media personality even if you are soliciting coverage from multiple outlets, which will typically be the case. Write an email containing the basics of who, what, when, where, and why. But in this case the why is why you think this is a good fit for them, their outlet, their audience, and why your news is special.
Attach a full press release and, if you can, include a link to imagery to drive home what your release covers and make it more exciting. (If you’ve never written a press release, you will want to research that or hire a copywriter. They’re typically affordable and adept at working quickly to their clients’ individual specifications.) And it never hurts to let them know you’d be happy to send them samples of your beer even if your news isn’t specifically about your beer. You’re a brewery and people tend to like beer. Use that to your advantage.
I can’t stress this next point enough. If your pitch is picked up by a media outlet—especially a TV station—be available! We’re all busy, but you requested this opportunity and now you’ve got it. A media outlet is going to give you a no-cost marketing opportunity that will reach thousands. If you need to get up at 4 a.m. for a morning-news segment, go to bed early and set an alarm. If the coverage doesn’t sync with your standard brew schedule, delegate, come in early or stay late. If you already have a meeting scheduled, let the other party know you’re going to be on the news and need to reschedule. They’ll understand, and if they don’t, they probably aren’t someone you want to be working with.
Come through for a reporter and they’ll often remember that and come back to you time and time again when they need something or when you pitch them. Make things difficult, grouse about, or act like your time is more valuable than theirs and they’ll remember that too. Worse yet, they’ll go to another local brewery, maybe even your closest competition. Put your best foot forward, get your message out to the public, and with any luck you’ll get to do it all over again the next time you have something to share about your brewery.
And don’t forget trade publications like The New Brewer and national beverage media outlets. Consider the content they produce and, when appropriate, reach out to them. Bottom line, journalists and outlets are always in the market for engaging content. If you have it, share it. But make sure you actually have good content. Don’t pelt outlets with emails and press releases about everything that happens at your brewery, regardless of whether it’s a fit. Only send what makes sense and has a legitimate shot or you will quickly find yourself in the dreaded spam folder or blocked altogether. Be respectful of the media’s time. That common courtesy goes a long way.
Hitting a Triple
Here’s a brief wrap-up of three low-cost, effective platforms to promote your brewery.
- A brewing company’s website is a static repository for basic, necessary information needed to motivate new customers.
- Social media is a vehicle for sharing anything and everything, particularly timely items, to maintain existing customers’ engagement and continued patronage while providing them the means to help share and evangelize on your behalf.
- The media is a tool to help amplify your message when you have news that matches their established format and typical content. Examples of newsworthy content include brewery openings, expansion, large-scale events, fundraisers, and collaborations.
Marketing is a vast subject that can’t be tackled in a single article, but hopefully some of what we’ve covered here can help you to maximize your efforts online and with media professionals regardless of workforce or budgetary constraints.
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2023 edition of The New Brewer Magazine, a publication of industry trade organization, the Brewers Association