Crafting Connections: Five Dynamic Marketing Strategies to Engage Beer Enthusiasts

In today's dynamic craft beer industry, breweries face fierce competition, making effective marketing and engaging activations essential for success. To stand out in a crowded marketplace, breweries must develop innovative strategies that captivate beer enthusiasts and create memorable experiences. In this article, we will explore the world of brewery marketing and activations, highlighting key strategies to engage and delight consumers.

Building an Authentic Brand Identity:

Craft breweries thrive on their unique stories and passion for brewing exceptional beers. Developing an authentic brand identity is crucial to attracting loyal customers. Breweries should focus on telling their story, emphasizing their brewing process, ingredients, and commitment to quality. By showcasing the brewery's values and personality through consistent branding and messaging, breweries can forge a strong connection with their target audience.

A brand is not just about our exceptional products; it's also about the heart and soul of the people who make it all happen. Take pride in showcasing the individuals behind the scenes, fostering a strong sense of camaraderie and family amongst your customers 

Social Media- Strategies to Consider:

Sharing stories and images of your staff members on a regular basis. Feature different employees in each post, highlighting their role, expertise, and contributions to the brewery. Include a brief interview or Q&A session where they share  brewing techniques, or interesting stories related to their work. This creates a lifestyle image and not  just a product centric image for your brand.

Behind-the-Scenes Brewery Tours: Take your Instagram followers behind the scenes of your brewery by sharing glimpses of your staff in action. Capture moments of brewing, canning, or labeling processes, and showcase the hard work and dedication of your team. This not only gives your followers a unique perspective but also allows them to appreciate the craftsmanship and passion that goes into every beer.

Staff Favorites: Create posts featuring staff members' favorite beers from your brewery.

Influencer Partnerships and Beer Influencers:

Influencer marketing has become a powerful tool for breweries to reach new audiences. Partnering with beer influencers, bloggers, or local beer enthusiasts with a significant online following can help generate buzz and attract attention to your brand. Collaborating with influencers for tastings, reviews, or social media takeovers can expose your brewery to their dedicated followers and create authentic connections.

Need to know- It's important to note that bigger isn't always better when it comes to influencer partnerships. Nano influencers, those with fewer than 10,000 followers, can be a cost-effective method for creating awareness around your brand. These influencers may require minimal or even no payment, often requesting only food or beer in exchange for their promotion. Embracing partnerships with nano influencers can be a budget-conscious approach that still yields valuable exposure for your brewery.

Loyalty Marketing

Realizing the potential of data and personalized marketing is crucial for achieving success. With the advantage of first-party ordering provided by advanced POS technology, breweries can take their marketing strategies to unprecedented levels. This facilitates seamless, real-time data transfer from the point of sale system to marketing efforts, encompassing customer details, menu/product preferences, average order values, and more. This wealth of data empowers operators to leverage the capabilities of the marketing platform, facilitating targeted email campaigns, automated sequences, the implementation of customer retention initiatives, and informed decision-making based on data insights. Whether it's tailored email marketing or automated customer interactions, having these capabilities offers essential tools to enhance marketing endeavors, increase customer engagement, and maximize revenue.

Brewery Tastings and  Events:

Hosting brewery events and tastings is an excellent way to showcase your beers and create immersive experiences for your guests. Consider organizing beer tastings, brewery tours, or special release parties to engage directly with beer enthusiasts. These activities allow customers to sample your beers, learn about their unique flavors, and gain a deeper appreciation for your craft. Additionally, hosting trivia nights, sports nights, or clubs on off nights can generate a consistent crowd. Promote these events weekly on platforms like Eventbrite or partner with "things to do" pages on social media to reach a wider audience. Depending on your location, opportunities to be a sponsor bar for recreational leagues is another avenue for bringing in business and building brand awareness.

GoTab Brewery Solutions:

For breweries, leveraging innovative technology is essential to drive success. With GoTab's Brewery POS and KDS Solutions, breweries can take their operations to the next level. Our comprehensive suite of features and integrations empowers brewers to enhance guest experiences, increase revenue, and optimize operational efficiency.

The Labor Shortage Myth: It’s Not What You Think

Labor shortage. It’s a refrain frequently heard as we make our way out of the pandemic. No industry has been hit harder than the hospitality and restaurant industry. Tales of truncated hours, fewer tables, and slower service fill our news feeds. 

The blame often falls on workers, with many being pegged as people who would rather collect pandemic-related unemployment than get back on the job.

That’s not true, and it’s not what’s happening. 

What’s being revealed is a reckoning of sorts. Some food and beverage workers are leaving an industry they may never return to, as they seek new opportunities with predictable hours, better wages, and accommodations for family life. Employers are still struggling to recover with limited capacity and lower margins, while slowly rebuilding their teams by reminding workers why craft is a great place to be.

How Did We Get Here?

PANDEMIC UNEMPLOYMENT 101

Service industry employees were forced out of work in March 2020 when the pandemic closed the world. Unlike others who were able to work from home, or those deemed essential, the majority of hospitality workers were benched. A small portion returned to manage takeout and curbside.

Food and beverage workers were in crisis. So were their employers who saw margins shrink in the takeout/curbside economy.

ENHANCED BENEFITS ARE NO WINDFALL

Unemployment benefits simply offered breathing room, the chance to explore new options. There’s no state in the union where you can live on unemployment alone, particularly if you’re a low-income worker, Black/Latinx, female and/or in the restaurant and hospitality sector. 

UNEMPLOYMENT MISSED KEY WORKERS

Only 18 percent of the unemployed had received unemployment benefitsbetween April 2020 and January 2021; some fared worse: Black, 13 percent; those without a college degree, 12 percent; and Asian, 11 percent. Those sectors are a significant part of the hospitality industry.

Given the length and uncertainty of spike-related shutdowns, some hospitality workers sought other opportunities and left the industry for higher-paying jobs.

UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE WITH BENEFITS ACTUALLY SEARCH HARDER

Most disheartening, the unemployment blame-game focused on the false claim that food and beverage workers are “lazy.” This has been routinely debunked with studies showing that laid-off workers who receive benefits—generally about 35 percent of their earnings—search the hardest among groups studied. 

Unemployed workers still receiving benefits searched 14.1 hours a week on average and sent 12.6 applications monthly. By contrast, those whose benefits ran out searched 12.2 hours and sent 9.7 applications.

What Can We Do About The Labor Shortage?

BE THE CHANGE

Despite surviving the limited capacity era, employers are still struggling with lower margins and competition for good workers. Craft hosts are responding by reimagining the work environment, and focusing on wages, time off and advancement opportunities. Craft hosts are also training and educating a new generation of hospitality workers in a revitalized, employee-centric environment.

The craft hospitality industry is also doubling-down on company culture and values. It’s revamping policies and procedures to reframe the heart of its culture and to offer more value to staff. It’s staying true to its roots.

EMPOWER STAFF—AND GUESTS

As craft hospitality hosts empower staff—and manage more with less people—they’ve found that leveraging technology is a powerful tool. Imagine freeing staff to create relationships with guests by affording them the time to engage and educate; that’s at the center of a mobile point-of-service (POS) system.

Mobile POS creates efficiencies by empowering guests to create their own experiences, from opening their tabs to checking out. It cleverly markets and sells products directly to a guest’s phone, no matter where they are—or where they move to—in your establishment. A POS for craft hosts also tracks upsells to incentivize and reward staff. 

USE MOBILE POINT-OF-SERVICE TO YOUR ADVANTAGE!

Arryved created tools by and for craft hosts—like OpenTab—that blend service with technology for a world-class guest experience and an elevated staff experience. All Arryved services work seamlessly together: a mobile, fully flexible service system, a one-stop craft ecommerce solution, a fully integrated loyalty program, plus deep insights into your business data. 

These tools could not be more important right now as people reconnect. With Arryved, guests get welcomed attention from your staff, who have been freed from administrative tasks, no longer wasting time swiping credit cards and ping-ponging between static terminals, the bar, the kitchen, and tables. 

The result? Conversations between staff and guests are more personal and create a rewarding work experience that improves employee satisfaction. Couple those rewarding experiences with a strong company culture, supportive working environment, good wages plus advancement opportunities, and craft hospitality hosts will lead the way as shining examples of how to lift workers out of the labor shortage.

Learn More About Arryved

If you’re interested in learning more about Arryved and how it can work for your business, let’s talk!

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Are you a food-and-beverage worker who needs more help?

Check this State-by-state guide to resources, and those from Restaurant Opportunity Resources United.