This month, as part of my studies with Praxis, the entrepreneurship program I started in July, I’ll be focusing on crafting a marketing campaign for a local business to implement.
Obviously, the first step was to find local businesses that could benefit from my services. Starting in the middle of last week, I began investigating the marketing techniques of three local beer companies: The Monk’s Cellar, DarkHeart Brewing, and Infusion Taproom.
First, I looked at their websites to see how they were laid out and to identify any ways that I could improve the layout or the logic of information placement. From there, I observed their social media activity: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I noted how active they were on each and how effective their activity was in conveying the information they wanted to share. Lastly, I investigated their email marketing setup, if one was in place.
Before I look at the companies in a focused way, I’m going to cover a couple of aspects of the first step in the marketing funnel: Awareness. Then make a brief note about email marketing, which is a part of the next phase in the funnel. Finally, I will look at each of these companies, in turn, to analyze how their public outreach stands up.
Social Media
First things first, word of mouth is the way most people hear about new restaurants and breweries, so social media is one of the best ways to make your name visible. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve visited the website for my favorite restaurants and breweries. The majority of my online interaction with them has been through social media: Facebook announcements and events, Twitter updates, posts by friends about their outings, etc.
Taking into account the sheer number of people who are active users of the platform and how much time the average person spends using it per day, Facebook is an incredibly important medium for your public engagement. However, one must consider expanding into different platforms when Facebook’s algorithm does not work in your favor. I’ve lost count of the number of times that Facebook showed a post in my timeline about an event that took place three days previously.
With that in mind, it’s a good idea to diversify your social media engagement to more than just Facebook. Twitter and Instagram are standard additions to the Zuckerberg giant but in the brewing world, another app, called Untappd, is growing in popularity because it lets users rate beers and keep track of ones they’ve already tried.
Websites
Never underestimate the effect of a well-designed website!
One of the best things that websites can be used for is a one-stop location for all the information that your customers could want: location, offers, upcoming events, items for sale, and contact information. When you wrap that up in a pleasant to view package, it can be a phenomenal first (or second) impression.
Whenever I want to find information quickly, I go to a restaurant’s website to find out the info I need. If that information isn’t easily available, their phone number is normally listed on the sidebar or in the header so that I can call someone in real-time and get the answers I need. You also have more control over what the customer sees on your own website than Facebook. After the initial visit to your Facebook page to hit that like button, you aren’t going to get many return visits to your page because people will rely on any information showing up in their feed.
Email Marketing
How many times have you clicked on a website and within three scrolls of the mouse wheel, you had a message taking up the screen asking you to sign up for their email list for updates? If you’re like me, that’s an easy way to make you dislike them and reconsider returning to the website. But email lists are important avenues of communication! How do you get people to sign up for them, avoiding the Scylla of annoying and the Charybdis of unseen?
The sign of good email marketing is a repertoire of content that can be sent to prospects and customers for a variety of purposes: notifications for deals, announcing events, giving updates on product availability, to name a few. Good copy is vital here because you have about 5 seconds to grab someone’s attention from a subject line and the first sentence of your email that shows in the preview.
The Monk’s Cellar
Social Media
It feels slightly unfair to put this one on the list with the other two companies because they’ve already established themselves quite successfully and are doing all the things I look for in a social media outreach campaign. However, I still want to analyze it and show why it works for them.
First of all, they don’t spam every platform with the same information. Their Instagram and Facebook have more posts than their Twitter does, but the information being put out on their Twitter is very particular: it’s time-sensitive information. Those same posts are put on Facebook and Instagram, but the additional posts to those two venues are broader announcements: new beers on tap, a contest put on by multiple breweries working together, and posts that are generally more artistic in nature. They fit with the purpose of the platform: Facebook has new information and announcements, Instagram has some of the same info and announcements but the focus is more on the aesthetics of new items being offered, and Twitter offers information that needs to be seen soon before its relevance fades.
Website
Monk’s Cellar’s website has a phenomenal aesthetic to it. All the basic information is located in the footer: location, hours of operation, and even a small note about the limited food menu which comes into effect an hour before closing.
What I love most about it is that none of the pages feel overly busy. They’ve given enough space for the additional info to have some breathing room; for instance, the beer list is on a different page than the info about the brewery. The food menu is given in expandable sections so that even a minimal amount of scrolling is avoided. Even the New & Events page that announces upcoming events (typically the day of the event) is limited to two posts in short form before it gives you the option to view older posts.
Email Marketing
This is the only aspect of Monk’s Cellar’s marketing that I think isn’t being utilized to its fullest. It could very well be a choice on their part, but given that the option to join their email list is still listed on their contact page, it does seem more likely that it’s being neglected.
After signing myself up for their list earlier this week, the only emails I’ve received from them have been the email requesting I confirm my subscription and the one letting me know I was successfully subscribed. Now, I am not one to suggest that a business should smother their target audience in emails, but it seems a waste to not have the dull, paperwork emails followed up with an enthusiastic “Welcome to the Monk’s Cellar email community!” message, especially since community is such a central aspect to the brand.
One thing at which an email marketing campaign can excel is to give the people who are not yet die-hard fans extra incentive to bring their business to you. Deals, offers, and early notices of special items don’t have to be extravagant to pique interest and drive sales up: “Thanks for coming to visit us, please enjoy $3.00 off your appetizer during your next visit.”
DarkHeart Brewing
Social Media
This Sacramento brewing company is just getting off the ground but the first thing I noticed about them was that their only social media presence was Facebook. They’re relatively active on that platform, with roughly four posts per month on average, mostly giving updates on the progress on construction of their location though there have also been updates regarding charities and public events they took part in.
While Facebook can be a large and effective venue to attract new customers, venues like Twitter and Instagram are important venues for continued customer interaction, which is just as vital. DarkHeart Brewing has neither a Twitter nor an Instagram. So the very first thing I would do is initiate them into those platforms. Getting your name out there on more platforms is something that certainly can’t hurt! Secondly, I would up their involvement on social media by at least 50%
I’d also encourage them to leverage the use of social media for the customer’s benefit, for instance: offering discounts on beer for the first 30 people to tweet about a new beer release, offering a free drink to anyone who reviews three beers on Untappd, and other such offers that promote social media engagement. This can be a powerful tool to not only gain favor with your customers but to spread the net wider and bring in new customers.
Website
Primarily, the website seems barebones. This is understandable, given that they aren’t open for business at the present, but some improvements can certainly be made that would get people excited if they stumbled across the website.
First, the home page is too busy. A message at the top says “Coming to Sacramento soon!” immediately leading to their embedded Facebook page and followed up by several pictures posted in a grid. The About page is likewise too busy. Their pitch is given on this page as a short, three-sentence plug right above a bullet point list of the types of beers they offer and another embedded link to their Facebook page. Second, they’ve included a Contact Us page with a contact form. In and of itself, this isn’t bad; but they’ve already displayed their phone number and email address on the floating sidebar on every page. It’s a little bit redundant to have both.
Improvements: So, first we have the busy-ness of the Home and About pages. The first step is to clean them up. Instead of having an embedded Facebook page feed, I would include social media links in the sidebar for people to follow if they were so inclined. Since they aren’t open yet, I would keep the “Coming to Sacramento soon!” message up. The pictures on this page should be limited to two or three pictures: a shot of one of their brews with their logo coaster and a picture of their booth at a local event for starters.
Now the About page. The pitch should be at the top of the page with a more lengthy description of their philosophy below. The embedded Facebook feed should be removed and the list of offerings moved to its own page, either with descriptions and details of the drinks or with pictures of them.
As for the contact us page. I would streamline it so that the contact information on the sidebar is limited to the phone number and the social media links, leaving the contact form free for email correspondence.
Infusion Taproom
Social Media
Infusion is different than the other two businesses on the list in that they do not brew their own beers but only serve other companies’ offerings at their location. Nonetheless, they actually have a very active social media outreach, with the exception of their Twitter which has been inactive since December of 2016.
The first step is to bring their engagement on Twitter back. To start with, linking to their Instagram updates via Twitter would be useful, but slowly building up the content posted natively to Twitter itself.
Their Facebook and Instagram outreach is really thorough. They have a consistent pattern of posts updating on events, offers, and new products that keeps you in the loop with what’s going on at their location. Their brand is very focused on community, and they’ve done an excellent job representing that outlook through their engagement with their customers online.
Website
Infusion’s website is pretty good! There’s honestly not a whole lot I could or would suggest they change on a conceptual level, only things that could use some tweaking to be made optimal.
Their home page is a bit confusingly laid out, which can be fixed relatively easily. Instead of having a vertical list of all currently available taps listed on the homepage, which leads to a long stretch of empty space, I would change it so that the list of all currently available brews is on its own page and the home page would have a blurb in the sidebar reading, “For a list of all currently available brews, please click here” that would lead to the dedicated Offerings page. What I enjoy about this list is that it’s run through an app called Taphunter, which I was unaware of until I was investigating their site. Excellent use of technology!
After the long stretch of empty space, if you’ve happened to scroll so far, you’re met with their embedded Twitter feed. This is another item I would relegate to the sidebar, either as a miniature version of the feed or as a simple link to the Twitter feed to save space. Since they haven’t been using their Twitter as much recently, it currently just takes up more space on the home page for no reason, so bringing their Twitter interaction up to speed is even more of a priority.
Their website currently includes a completely blank, dedicated calendar page. This would either be eliminated entirely or filled out with upcoming event information. They also have a dedicated gallery page, but all the pictures in that gallery are also on the home page. This page appears to be extraneous, so I would remove this as well if we could not add more pictures to show the community they are intent on cultivating.
Conclusion
So, the first step of the process is complete: I’ve stretched my marketing muscles and done some analysis and suggestions. The next step is to bring these observations to the businesses and offer to help improve their performance in this area while also researching and investigating the best ways to garner responses on different social media venues, researching Facebook ads, and learning the ins and outs of email marketing services.
I’m excited to learn more and create an excellent campaign that will garner growth, increase interaction with current customers, and bring new and dedicated customers to the business.