One of the many buzzwords over the last couple years was “pivot,” as in small businesses survived (and sometimes thrived through) the COVID-19 pandemic by “pivoting” to more to-go, delivery, and retail sales. The same goes for breweries. It's all about being nimble with your strategies and adjusting to the market as you see needed.
Overall U.S. beer volume sales were down 3% in 2020, while craft brewer volume sales declined 9%, lowering small and independent brewers’ share of the U.S. beer market by volume to 12.3%.
Retail dollar sales of craft decreased 22%, to $22.2 billion, and now account for just under 24% of the $94 billion U.S. beer market (previously $116 billion). The primary reason for the larger dollar sales decline was the shift in beer volume from bars and restaurants to packaged sales. (stats via Brewers Association)
While there may have been a shift in sales, you still have an audience segment that enjoys coming in to the brewery to drink their craft beer on-location. And with COVID-19 restrictions relaxing and more people venturing out and about, it's an audience segment you can't ignore as they are a contributor to your bottom line.
So you may be asking, "how do I attract more guests to our brewery without spending a fortune?". That answer is digital marketing. Google Ads, social media ads, email marketing, SEO, and more. It's a marketing tactic that doesn't have to be expensive if you're efficient.
Let's use a realistic example so you can see how effective digital marketing for breweries can be:
Goal: XYZ Brewery in Chicago, Illinois wants to bring more awareness to their taproom in their localized area.
Budget: $300 per month
Tactic: Google Ads within 10-mile radius of their taproom
Reasoning: With Google Ads, small budgets can still be effective. By selecting the keywords that XYZ wants to bid on, they'll only show up for people searching for "local brewery near me", "best breweries in chicago", "craft beer near me", etc.
Metrics they could expect: 100+ clicks to designated landing page, 75 clicks to find out physical taproom address, 25 clicks to call the taproom, and more.
ROI: If XYZ's average customer spend is $20/person, they would only need 15 new customers that month to break even on their Google Ads marketing efforts. If you serve food and sell apparel, that number of customers decreases, making it easier to break even.
It's important to remember that all Google Ads campaigns perform differently based on geographic location, competition, budget, keywords, etc. The numbers shown here are a hypothetical scenario based on an actual brewery client.
So what are you waiting for? Are you ready to drive more customers to your brewery and increase your revenue? Contact 3Eighty Marketing to see how we can help you with digital marketing.