With the beer market expected to reach $145 billion by 2027, and the continued growth of the craft beer industry after the pandemic dip, craft breweries have a bright future ahead of them.
With the increase in competition, crafting a brilliant brewery marketing strategy is a must for your business's success.
With this brewery marketing strategy guide, we hope to light the way. Use these marketing ideas and strategies to improve your marketing efforts, reach your target audience, and attract more potential customers.
What Is a Craft Brewery Marketing Strategy?
Craft breweries, like all other businesses, need a brand. This is your identity and it is what draws customers to buy your product instead of others. Your marketing strategy is the plan you create to showcase your craft brewery brand to the world in the best possible light.
First, Audit Your Craft Brewery
Before you implement the below marketing strategy tactics and ideas, you need to analyze your craft brewery with a clear mind.
What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?
First, determine your strengths. Is your craft beer the best around? Does your store have an atmosphere unique from other breweries? Do you foster relationships and culture with clients? If you know what your strengths are, you know which aspects of your businesses to push to the public.
Next, establish your weaknesses. Whether it be the craft beer taste, a boring shop interior, or lackluster customer service, be brutally honest with yourself. Use this list of weaknesses to improve every sector.
What Makes Your Craft Beer Different?
What makes your craft beer different from other craft beers? It’s essential to have a brand identity that immediately stands out, especially as the craft beer market continues to become more competitive.
If you can’t think of something that makes your craft beer different from other craft breweries, focus on creating something. This could be your taste, packaging, store–anything, as long as it stands out from the craft beer crowd.
What Are Your Brewery Marketing Goals?
The most important thing to keep in mind when creating a marketing strategy is your goals. When you have an idea of what you want for your craft beer, it’s much easier to create an effective strategy that captures your marketing idea.
Sit down with your employees and partners, and determine what your short and long-term goals are. Use them and the below tips to create effective marketing strategies that boost your brand identity, improve brand retention, and increase revenue.
Craft Beer: 10 Brewery Marketing Strategies and Marketing Ideas
After analyzing your company and establishing your goals, use the below strategies to create a marketing plan that helps you reach your target customers.
Create a Craft Brewery Experience
Craft breweries are known for their beautiful designs. From packaging to stores, there’s a signature craft brewery visual that continues to draw in new customers. Not only does the visual aspect of craft brewery attract customers, but it helps elevate craft breweries from a local jaunt into a local experience.
Take advantage of this fact. Use interior and exterior visuals to elevate your brewery’s look and create a brewery experience, complete with beautiful murals, a distinct vibe, and Instagram-worthy spots.
Partner with local artists and consult your design team about creating a  brewery experience that has the signature laid-back craft beer atmosphere but with visuals that are unique to your brand.
Keep Your Craft Beer Brand Consistent
When we think of the biggest brands in the world, iconic brand designs like those of Coca-Cola, Apple, and McDonald's immediately come to mind.
From brand color to font type, successful companies dominate their respective spheres. When people think of a specific product, these brands are the first to come to mind.
While this is partially due to effective marketing campaigns and great products, it would mean nothing if these companies weren’t consistent in their brand identity.
The same rule applies to your brand identity. Keep your branding and your products consistent. Customers dislike change because changing long-term memory is hard work. For many consumers, brand changes also signal product changes–even if there were none.
If you do need to change your brand, do it slowly and get your customers involved in the process.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for your marketing strategy. Social channels have made it easier than ever to create content and spread it to your target audience.
On social media, leverage your brand designs. Use product designs and your interior and exterior designs to market your brewery as the place to be. You can even create a signature photo spot for social media, with rewards for people who tag your accounts.
Social media promotional tools are also powerful and surprisingly affordable. Use your social media analytics to learn more about your target demographic, then use promotional tools to send targeted ads to potential customers.
Take Advantage of Tastings
With a tasting, your product does the talking. It’s a surefire way to get the word about your products out there. Open your doors with a promise of free samples and watch as beer enthusiasts and other types flock to your business.
If you’re new to the craft beer industry, tastings are an easy and effective way to showcase your products.  Those who like it are likely to come back and share their experience with other beer enthusiasts.
If you’re an older company, hosting tastings is a great way to reinvigorate your marketing, especially if your beer sales aren’t doing as well as you’d hoped. Introduce new beers with free tastings or showcase oldies but goodies.
Work on Local Internet Results
Whether they are tourists or curious locals, people are more likely to search for a craft brewery online than to go on the prowl with no real plan. It should be your goal to appear on these search results when people search for “craft bear near me”.
Use SEO
Optimize your brewery website with SEO. SEO demands are always changing, so this is an ongoing learning experience. But by implementing keywords, links, and high-quality content, you will improve your search engine rankings and find more organic customers.
Collect Positive Reviews
Create a Google business profile. Fill out the profile, add attention-grabbing pictures, and keep it updated. Link the profile to your website. Finally, encourage people to leave reviews. Offer discounts or free beers in the future in exchange for honest reviews, and make sure to reply to the reviews.
Both of these steps will improve your rankings and help you establish credibility with locals and tourists.
Partner With Local Companies
One of the most effective ways to get your name out there is to partner with local companies like restaurants, bars, and hotels.
Go around town with product samples and visit the local hospitality industry. Give them product samples and ask if they want to stock your beer. It’s always a good idea to come with a discounted price ready.
If they can’t stock your product, don’t stress. Be flexible, leave some free samples, and let them know you’d like to work with them if they are open in the future.
This will ingratiate you with local businesses, open up future collaborations, and increase your word-of-mouth reach.
Work With Craft Beer Industry Publications
Your marketing campaigns should encompass more than just social media. An effective marketing tactic is to work with craft beer publications. They already have an established fan base with a vested interest in your product. A good word or review from them can help you establish your credibility.
Email big and small craft beer publications or connect with them on social media. Keep your pitch short and punchy, and get right into what makes your craft beer worth a feature.
If the publications have ad options, take advantage of them–even if your marketing budget can only support a small advert.
Host Events
As we mentioned earlier, craft breweries have a reputation for their relaxed atmosphere and creative designs. It’s for this reason that many breweries advertise themselves as event-hosting space as well as a brewery.
Marketing your brewery as both an event space as well as a brewery has two big benefits.
Firstly, it’ll increase your income. Hosting company gatherings, weddings, and other get-togethers will supplement your income while your business continues to grow.
Secondly, it’ll increase your brand reach. With dozens of people visiting your brewery and sampling your drinks, you’re guaranteed to win new fans.
If you are worried about managing your brewery and your events at the same time, don’t worry. Software like Perfect Venue will help you organize and manage your events.
Create a Newsletter
Craft beer connoisseurs like to stay updated. One of the best ways to do this is to create a newsletter and leverage email marketing. Email marketing software has streamlined the process, making it easier for restaurants and breweries to collect emails and send updates on events and new products.
Track Marketing Efforts With Analytics Tools
Before you implement your marketing strategies, use analytics software to establish your starting point.
As you continue to grow and implement new marketing ideas, remember to measure your campaigns. Not only is it rewarding to see the fruits of your labor, but measuring your campaigns will also pinpoint the campaigns that are working and the ones that need a few tweaks.
When comparing your growth, keep your goals in mind. Are you working toward these goals or have you strayed? What impact have your marketing tactics had? Do you need to adjust your initial ideas? Use the above data to make informed decisions.
Determine The Brewery Marketing Budget
A marketing budget is important to ensure you don’t overspend or underspend on your marketing plan. While we’d love to give you a set budget number, every brewery will have different marketing needs and resources.
Generally, you’ll want to spend 3 to 7% of your budget on marketing. Where you fall in that range will depend on your resources. If you have more, you can afford to spend more on your marketing.
Fortunately, social media offer free and affordable marketing options. So, even if you don’t have the budget for a big marketing campaign, you can still use social media and word of mouth to get your brewery’s name out there.
Conclusion
Success isn’t accidental. Instead, popular brands utilize trends, unique brand identities, and marketing to get their products to the right people. As a brewery, you can use the above marketing tips and ideas to establish a strategy that showcases your brand and your products.
Partner with locals, utilize social media and the internet, take advantage of tastings, and create a unique craft beer experience. All of these steps are guaranteed to help establish your craft beer brand.
Finally, if you want to host events, consider Perfect Venue. Try our free trial and experience the power of venue management software.
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