Want to grow your direct-to-consumer drinks business? Read our five-part route-map for drinks marketing success
1. Build a one-to-one relationship
If you’re marketing in a restricted industry (such as alcohol) you’ll have unique challenges. Limited by laws and regulations, it can feel like you have one hand tied behind your back.
With so many roadblocks to negotiate, pivoting away from social channels and Google towards one-on-one engagement such as email marketing can free you from exclusions and help you to target an already invested customer base.
2. Be the star of your own story
With the drinks industry at a crossroads of oversupply and increasing competition, it’s essential to stand out from the crowd.
Focus on your vision, mission and values – these will be key drinks marketing methods to differentiate you from the competition. This requires more than “We make great gin/wine/beer!”; to be successful you have to dig a little deeper and connect with your audience through your values or origin story.
An origin story is crucial when it comes to resonating with customers. If doing this kind of work brings you out in a cold sweat, remember not to let “perfect” be the enemy of the “good” – just put your content out there. And remember, the more relatable the content is, the easier it is for your customers to emotionally connect with you and your product.
3. Lean in to lifestyle
Get into the mindset of the people who drink your product and then recreate that lifestyle through content. Content is too often focused on the product rather than the lifestyle it exists within. High-quality awareness content isn’t just about “here’s a bottle of X”. In fact, the worst performing content is often bottle photography as it’s hard to emotionally connect with an object. The most effective imagery includes people.
Brands report success from partnerships with chefs and food bloggers who create recipes which use, or are paired with, drinks. Lifestyle content allows customers to see themselves in the aspirational posts and coaches them on how to best use the product. This is especially crucial for the drinks industry where access to new or different products can be intimidating.
4. Harnessing user-generated content and reviews
People frequently post content in the form of reviews. This feedback is essential for growth, but also makes great ad content.
If you’re in an industry with scoring, point allocation or any common language used among consumers, use it to your advantage. Advertise your rankings or scores, especially if given by known reviewers. Find those five-star reviews and share them (giving credit to the source, of course). This is pre-made high-quality copy – what’s not to love?
5. Subscription sips
Wine clubs were one of the first subscription models and have proved to be a great way to maximize lifetime customer value.
A high customer acquisition cost to acquire a subscription is often worth it in the long run. Once secured, customers don’t usually fall off until the 11-month mark. So if you can earn their loyalty over the one-year hump, you’re likely to obtain a long term subscriber.
Out-of-the-box software that integrates with your existing e-commerce shop means you can get a subscription product up and running within weeks, which will open up a high-value market creating regular and predictable revenue.
If you’d like tailored drinks marketing ideas or want to find out how we can help you, download a Pinch of Salt below or contact us here.
