Light Beer Archives - MicroBrewr

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Alex Standiford in Akron, Ohio started Fill Your Taproom to help breweries attract more customers. He does that through website development, social media management, branding, and email marketing.

“It’s not about trying to get people to buy your stuff. It’s about building the relationship and then providing the information that empowers them to make a decision.” [Tweet This]

Email isn’t dead and it’s not just for online digital businesses; email is important for “brick-and-mortar” real world business, too. In fact, email is an ever more important part of your overall marketing plan.

Ninety percent of email gets delivered to an inbox whereas just 2 percent of your Facebook fans will see your post in their news feed.

“You don’t have to think about email as generating sales directly,” says Alex. “If you think of marketing as getting someone to know, like, and trust you, and then making sure you’re top of mind whenever [that person] goes into a grocery store, you’re doing fine. That’s really most of the goal.”

Your brewery can use email to:

Build relationships and learn more about your customers.
Educate your customers and empower them to make a decision.
Fill your taproom by offering special deals or promoting events and beer releases.

“Especially if you already have a decent sized following online,” Alex advises, “it would be wise to start trying to migrate these people into your email list.”

Focus less on where you get people to sign up to your email list, and more on what you do to get people to sign up. Offer them a reason to give you their email address, which many people keep very private. “People don’t give away their email address for no reason anymore,” says Alex.

Alex advises you start growing your email list 8-12 months before opening your brewery. You can use the Facebook call-to-action button or a simple website that says “coming soon.” Then offer something that’s worth the exchange of their email.

A couple ideas are:

A PDF to teach customers about tasting beer
The promise of VIP access to events

Book recommendation:

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.

Check out the entire list of recommended books, click here.

An upcoming beer style:

Gose and lighter beers

Other resources:

Easy Beer Lister WP plugin.
Easy Age Verifier WP plugin.
Brew IO free WP theme for breweries.
5 reasons every brewery needs and email list by Alex Standiford, MicroBrewr, August 1, 2016.
51 things your brewery can do with email by Alex Standiford, MicroBrewr, August 17, 2016.
How to build a healthy email list for your craft brewery by Alex Standiford, MicroBrewr, September 2, 2016.
Rhinegeist Brewery, Cincinnati, Ohio.
MailChimp free email service provider.
Nosferatu® Imperial Red Ale by Great Lakes Brewing Co., Cleveland, Ohio.

You can reach Alex Standiford and Fill Your Taproom at:

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Cathy Smith and her husband opened Philipsburg Brewing Company in Philipsburg, Montana. They found a cool, old building, built in 1888, spent a few years fixing it up, and hired Mike Elliott to be their pro-brewer.

In August 2012, Philipsburg Brewing opened to a crowd of about 100 people—and that’s in a town with a population of about 850!

None of them had ever owned a brewery before, but they’re business is doing fantastic. They say that their biggest mistake was not being ambitious enough. They currently are operating a 10-BBL system, and are planning to expand to larger facility with a 50-BBL system within a year!

Cathy tells us why they walk customers to the door. Mike tells us about his invention for the bar.

They are both great speakers and this interview has tons of fantastic advice, such as:

Hire great people
Put customers first
Give quality in every area
Reach out to other breweries

“The brewery business is an amazing business,” says Cathy. “We’re not all competition, we’re all in it together.”

“People will let you pick their brains to a surprising extent,” adds Mike.

You won’t guess their answer to the question, Cans or bottles? They have some great thoughts on the dilemma.