Craft Beer Marketing: 4 Things To Remember

The early 21st century has seen the rise of the microbreweries. The entrepreneurial spirit has made these small enterprises a collective force to be reckoned with. The sheer love of making (and drinking) one’s own refreshing homebrews couldn’t have hurt either.

Do you have a formula for a special drink that you think will make people throw away the heavily commercialized swill that they’ve been gulping down for lack of a better alternative? It’s not too late to get into the action. It doesn’t even have to be alcoholic. Marketing to people who can’t (or shouldn’t) imbibe alcohol is still pretty lucrative.

Today is a both a good and a challenging time to be making and selling your own crafted drinks. Good in that the internet allows you to promote your product effectively and inexpensively. Challenging because the same global information network puts you in competition with products from just about every corner of the world.

So, let’s say you have the formula and production methods all figured out, how are you going to get the word out there? There are literally thousands of homebrewn beverage products out there, each one determined to take a bite out of the market share. How will your concoction stand out and prevail?

4.) Build a Local Following

I know many of you entrepreneurs have the ambition of going beyond the borders of your town or city with your product, but it’s always a good idea to establish yourself first in your locality. If your craft beverage is truly as good as you want it to be, then word of it will naturally travel far and wide.

Reach out to the local bars, clubs, liquor and general convenience stores in the area and offer to supply your product to them. Have some attractive posters and flyers made to increase awareness of your product, and be sure to include the establishments that you are supplying your drink to. You’ll be promoting your product and creating goodwill between you and the establishments that are retailing your beverage.

3.) Create Labels With Personalities

Build some brand identity by having an attractive design for your bottle label. Don’t go for an extravagant bottle; just make sure it’s not flimsy and easily broken. Invest in a little to get a great design made for the label itself so that your product will be easily identifiable.

As a reference, here are some labels we found that can catch the eye and spur the imagination, without looking cheap or gimmicky. Put a lot of thought into the design so you won’t need to keep changing it, and so that your prospective customers won’t have trouble remembering what your product looks like.

2.) Know What to Do with Feedback

Getting customer feedback is necessary for you to make your product more appealing to a larger audience. If you were crafting beverages for personal consumption, this may not be a concern at all, but if you have dreams of building a brand and making a profit, then this quite necessary.

Do be aware that you also can’t please everybody. There’s no one beverage that will capture the hearts of all the customers. If your brew has a substantial enough following, stick with the formula and make only very minor adjustments (even a company as big as Coca-Cola endangered their market share due to a formula change). Look over the negative feedback and see if you can create another formula entirely: a product that answers the criticisms of those customers who didn’t like your initial product.

1.) Keep the Love Alive

Always remember that one of the most important things that sets homebrews apart from the bigger, more commercialized brands is the impression that the product is carefully and lovingly made for the enjoyment of the customer. While you might not care too much about actually making money, consider craft beer marketing and all the other related work as a way to keep your passion alive. Remember that you got into the homebrewn beverage business because you yourself are an aficionado of good drinks and happy times spent with them.

Every person’s dream is to find something he or she loves doing, and at the same time, derive a comfortable livelihood out of doing it. We raise our glasses to you, the microbrewery and crafted beverage entrepreneur, hoping that you gain prosperity with every bottle of fine drink you masterfully create. Cheers!

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