Unique craft food and beverage experiences have become very trendy in recent years – most notably craft breweries and cocktail rooms. Creating an experience around consuming food or beverage isn’t new. Restaurants, soda shops, bakeries, ice cream parlors and wineries have long been ‘experience destinations’, but it is the experience that brings us together in social fun. How you package that experience is key!
Marketing for the Craft Food and Beverage Industry
A strategic framework for Breweries, Wineries, Distilleries, Coffee Houses, Bakeries, Ice Cream Parlors and other on-premise businesses.
1. Destination Tasting Room–Onsite
Brand the space & experience
The destination tasting room is the most obvious focus area, and likely the “HOME” location for a business. It is where your customers can come to see and taste your wares first-hand. It is a sensory experience, and there are dozens of unique branding opportunities within. Experience center businesses have an even greater opportunity to make their space feel custom, branded, and memorable. Some of the best-in-class brands incorporate custom art, accentuate architectural details of their space, and make sure the brand is tangible and visible in all directions.
Memorabilia/promotional merchandise extends the reach, shelf life & length of the experience with your brand. Gift cards are also common as they incentivize a return visit. Additionally, we don’t want to overlook your website. Does it embody the same sort of experience as your tasting room?
A few items to consider:
- Signage
- Menus, digital displays, and point of sale
- Drinkware, tap handles, coasters
- Shop windows
- Merchandise
- …and more. Reach out to see the full A -to- Z list
2. Packaging & Product Development
Development of a packaging program is a complex undertaking. There is a lot of strategy and market research that goes into it. Having a team that has experience not only with designing for consumer packaging goods, but also in designing for special challenges like regulated goods (alcohol), or designing for glass containered products (which can be difficult to photograph) should be considered when you are choosing a partner. >Greater Thought has the know-how to look at your entire potential market presence and guide you. Your packaging is the thing that your customers interact with most, and it is what you will likely be identified by, or remembered by.
A few items to consider:
- Brand development (logo, colors, brand personality)
- To-go containers
- Consumer packaging
- Direct printed
- Stickered
- Shrink sleeved
- Over-packs and cartons
- Shelf-presence
- …and more. Reach out to see our full list
3. In-Market Retail & Resellers
The various brand impressions and buying opportunities in the marketplace are boundless. Grocery stores, neighborhood markets, convenience stores and specialty retail like liquor stores create opportunities to reach new audiences. Your product being served up in your neighborhood bars and restaurants and advertised in their business, or on their menu also creates new discovery opportunities, as well as translates to sales. Let’s maximize these channels and get new brand relationships.
A few items to consider:
- Signage for coolers, shelving and encaps
- Posters, and vendor swag
- Tap handles, branded glassware
- White-label and private-label
- Sample kits
- …and more. Reach out to see our full list of more than 20 items
4. Outbound Marketing Campaigns
Increasing your reach, followers and repeat buyers
When considering how to grow your business, starting an active marketing campaign is the step most frequently taken. It involves setting a budget for creation and deployment of outbound marketing tools to capture and nurture leads. These tools create awareness in your market, thereby increasing your reach. You, as the business, want to increase your audience, your average ticket size, and your frequency with your customers. We help you do that by reminding them you are there and that they should patronize you.
You have boundless opportunities to reach your customers. Fun products create an experience that people are willing to pay for more than once. There is also less of an obstacle to purchase, compared to necessity purchases, because the experience is social and to your biggest fans, …they want to spread the word!
A few items to consider:
- eMail marketing and search engine marketing (SEM/PPC/CPC)
- Website development
- Display ads, billboards, banners
- Vehicle graphics
- Events and pop-up tastings
- …and more. Reach out to learn about the 30+ items on this list
5. Sales Team Support – B2B
Understand that you can’t do it all. In fact trying to DIY your marketing could take far more time than you can afford to spend.
Sales assets, distribution and relationship marketing
Ensuring that your business, and more specifically, back office, sales team and market partners have the right tools to sell is a critical part of growing and supporting your business. >Greater Thought understands these needs and will help to guide you and support you.
Continuity creates trust and trust is everything in your industry. The tighter your brand looks — the better your market appearance will be — and the more success you will have. Establish a high-trust factor by making your brand and team look established, polished and prepared.
A few items to consider:
- Sell-sheets
- Sample kits
- Media kit, brand manual, and style guides
- Trade networks
- Business cards
- Media plan and media calendar(s)
- …and more. Reach out to see the full A -to- Z list
Our Approach
The underpinnings of any great body of work starts with the right planning, insight, and ideas.
Every project and partnership with >Greater Thought is rooted in strategy. We spend the time to get to know your business, so that we are able to help you find a unique and ownable niche to differentiate your brand in. Our work will help identify the complex challenges you are facing, and form goals to build the work around.
>Closing Thoughts:
Are you ready to talk about how we can partner?
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