2021 Craft Beer Marketing Awards with Jim McCune and Jackie DiBella
Find the CBMAs online: craftbeermarketingawards.com  // Instagram: @craftbeermarketingawards

I was honored to be asked to participate in judging the 2021 CBMAs. Since the CBMA organization and awards started last year, I thought it was about time we learned more about them and spread information about the awards. Deadline for the 2021 entries is coming up on January 29th, so make sure you check out all the categories you can enter!

Talking points:

Bringing together creative and marketing folks in the industry
Raising awareness and learning about successful marketing
Recognizing branding and marketing for the beer industry
Highlighting unique categories, such as Pandemic Marketing and Human Rights.
Sustainability in the industry

Quotes:
"How are you getting people’s attention? How are you getting them to buy your beer, get them through the door, wear your merch out. This is a super hole in the industry and now we can really recognize everybody that is apart of it." - Jackie DiBella
"We wanted to make sure it was something that brewers would really want to showcase, really encapsulate the industry, how cool it is, and how much work and passion they put into everything they do from brewing the beer to packaging and labeling it." - Jim McCune
"The CBMAs is drawing together this community that’s never existed. They’re all out there in disparate worlds of “we do merch” “we do tap handles” and “we’re a social media agency” and “we’re an illustrator.”  We’re kind of pulling this together into this network…and really creating this little family." - Jim McCune
"When we went virtual…there were a bunch of breweries who were live-streaming in the brewery to their teams as we were announcing winners, which was awesome." - Jackie DiBella
"The feedback we got was all honestly great. When people had comments or ideas we had a whole document. I would say 90% of the ideas got applied to this year and people are noticing. It’s a very cool thing." - Jackie DiBella
"A big part for me is the sustainable stuff. I love to see tap handles and t-shirts that use reclaimed materials. That’s a big thing in our industry…We have met just incredible people that care about each other and the world." - Jim McCune

Using Untappd for Brewery Marketing with Jon Dispenza and Harrison Hickok
FIND UNTAPPD

website: untappd.com  //  podcast: untappd.com/podcast

Untappd reaches a huge audience, so it only makes sense that breweries look at ways to utilize this platform to increase their marketing reach. I was stoked to make a connection with Jon and Harrison who both work at Untappd and also host the Drinking Socially Untappd Podcast. I figured these guys would be able to deliver some solid insights and advice for using Untappd for your brewery.

Talking Points:

What makes a label successful
Using social media channels alongside Untappd
Data and insights pulled from Untappd reviews
Using Untappd events for new beer releases
QR codes for touchless menu links
Effective ways for using digital beer menus

Quotes:
"Then there’s this classic approach where it’s centered around the label…have a very uniform label, maybe the color is different for each beer… maybe I haven’t had the IPA that is yellow from this brewery, I see it pop up off the shelf  and I want to check it out." - HARRISON
"You’re going to have a profile…doesn’t matter if you’re on an island by Greece or in Detroit, someone is going to check in your beer…Just control that because it is an extension of your brand and if you do nothing more put a label on there, use it as a way to interact with people." - JON
"There’s a space you can enter, on Untappd, where you can learn about your customers, about how the perceive your beer, about where they drink it “this is the best pool beer I’ve ever had” “this is my go-to beer for the summer” all of these anecdotes you can pull from it."   - HARRISON
"You’re hitting maybe a larger audience…on Facebook with cool information on Untappd. At the same time making people that follow you on Untappd and Facebook feel like feel like they’re part of a bigger experience and now not every checkin is a checkin in a vacuum…Wherever beer fans, make sure they see you made a new beer" - JON
"…a lot of times it is new breweries just opening that are spending time pulling honeycombs out of beehives and writing beer names on that…and then by beer 50 they’re like ‘holy cow’ there are no more honeycombs…The business side of it kicks in and my taproom manager is already doing 20 things let’s not make harvesting bees be one of them, let’s set up a digital board" - HARRISON
"With beer releases, make it an event in Untappd. An event in Untappd is unique in that everyone can see them… People are going to see those pop up in their phone. Those events are linkable, right now if you have an online store or you require people to reserve a spot…You can link inside an Untappd event to whatever space they need to go to make that order. Someone is now a click away on their phone from supporting you." - HARRISON

Austin Beerworks with Helms Workshop
Find Austin Beerworks
Website: austinbeerworks.com / Instagram: @AustinBeerworks  / Facebook: @AustinBeerworks / Twitter: @AustinBeerworks
Find Helms Workshop
Website: helmsworkshop.com /  Instagram: @helms_workshop / Facebook: @HelmsWorkshop / Twitter: @HelmsWorkshop

Austin Beerworks co-founder Michael Graham along with Helms Workshop founder Christian Helms join to discuss branding for Austin Beerworks.

Talking Points:

Development of branding and brand identity, beyond just a cool logo
Development of core and seasonal cans
Connecting your branding to the beer you make
Breaking out of the typical look in beer branding and being different.
Creation of premium bottle labels and how they're integrated into the core Austin Beerworks brand.

 

Co-Branding and Collaborations with Jordan Hoffart and Fish Scales
Find Jordan Hoffart and Black Plague Brewing
Website: blackplaguebrewing.com  // Instagram: @blackplaguebrewing
Find Fish Scales and Atlantucky Brewing
Website: atlantucky.com  // Instagram: @atlantucky

The idea of collaborations between breweries has proven to be a successful way to promote brands and your beer. I wanted to take a look at some ways that other industries, brands, and celebrities are collaborating in the beer industry to reach new customers. Jordan Hoffart is a professional skater that co-founded Black Plague Brewing. Hoffart and Black Plague created a collab. beer with Tony Hawk, cleverly named Tony Hawps - Birdhouse IPA.  Fish Scales comes from the music world and the successful group Nappy Roots. Fish Scales, being a brewer himself, has collaborated with a number of breweries and has come up with some great ways to promote those beers and brands.

New Label Initiatives - Craft Label Co and All Together
I have two related announcements that I wanted to bring to your attention. Both of these are efforts to help our community during the COVID-19 chaos.

The first is an initiative that I have been working on for the last month. I have been working with breweries and label printers to assist getting beer into packaging. A number of breweries have never packaged and need label FAST and AFFORDABLE.

I created Craft Label Co. to be a pre-designed craft beverage label shop. You can browse through a variety of label designs and choose the label that best fits you. From that point, you can totally customize your chosen label by selecting colors, your logo, beer name, style, and get a print-ready label generated.

Each label only costs $90!

And since this is a brand new launch, I am also offering 30% off entire orders through April. Use code: LABELS30

With this discount, you can get a lineup of 6 customized labels created for $378

If you know of anyone that could find this useful, I hope you can let them know.

Check it out at: craftlabelco.com
All Together
Our friends Craftpeak brought this to my attention. This initiative has been embraced by over 500 breweries worldwide. They are providing the branding, recipe, and label templates to release one large community beer effort. They want to help raise awareness to support small breweries, but also raise money for hospitality! REALLY cool stuff. Check it out here: alltogether.beer

Working with Marketing In-House or External with Holly Amlin aka PDXBeerGirl
Find PDXBeerGirl:
Web: pdxbeergirl.com // Instagram: @pdxbeergirl Facebook: @pdxbeergirl

 

In the past, we've discussed some ways to navigate working with internal and external teams. Both have unique advantages and disadvantages along with best scenario matches depending on your brewery size. Here's a few points we touch on in this episode:

Hiring within...is that the best way?
Should  your front of house run marketing?
Best fit for your brewery, solo freelancer or agency
Finding help that knows the beer industry
COVID-19 - what is successful marketing and social right now

PDXBeerGirl is helmed by Holly Amlin, local beer writer, marketer, and social media influencer. Her aim is to make beer more accessible to the everyday craft beer drinker, especially women.

Holly has lived in Oregon the majority of her life, but decided to put down roots in Portland five years ago for a job doing web design and branding. She is now one of those nerds who documents her beer adventures, rides her bike when it’s sunny, cheers loud for the Timbers, cries about the last season of Game of Thrones, and explores new places as often as possible.

PDXBeerGirl came to life after a summer road trip to California in 2016, stopping and talking with breweries along the way. The journey made her realize just how welcoming the local beer industry was, which inspired the decision to start writing about her experiences. Holly has since covered all things beer: Brewery reviews, openings, new beers, events, and more. In addition, she has contributed to the Oregon Beer Growler, Inc.com, and been featured in Men’s Health, “30 Female Beer Lovers You Must Follow on Instagram”.

Solo episode here covering a recent article published on Craft Brew Creative. We'll break down these branding ideas: Good First Impressions, Branding Creates Trust and Reaffirms Credibility, Branding Generates New Customers, Attitude Strength, Loyal Customers, Easy Introduction of New Products, and Improve Employee Pride and Satisfaction.

For this episode, we're taking a look at the 2019 BC Craft Brewers Guild Keynote presentation done by Bryan Roth titled: What Narratives and Numbers Can Tell Us, and What You Can Do About Them. The guild has the presentation video posted on YouTube, definitely give it a watch! Of course, Bryan brings his strong game of charts and data, but he does so in a way that tells a story and specifically focuses on how the customer is the hero in these journeys. Since Bryan is great with crafting and uncovering stories, I wanted to pick his brain a bit on how breweries should tell better stories and how their customer fits into those stories.

Jessica Ferrell comes from a deep background in restaurant and brewery experience. Along with just starting her own consulting business, Jessica teaches Pub & Tasting Room Management through the Business of Craft Brewing certificate program at Portland State University. In this episode, Jessica gives us really solid foundations to delivering a great customer experience through easy to understand formulas. It was great to see the alignment between branding concepts and how these can be implemented in your taproom or brewery experience.

Along with doing your own brewery events, I think utilizing a membership club is one of the best ways to market and brand your brewery. Whether you go more towards something like a mug club, or more towards the style of a wine club, you have an opportunity to connect more deeply with your core brand fanatics (or create them!) pFriem Family Brewers is a great case for building a wine club style membership. They have just launched this club and have been strategically organizing it to make sure they can run the club well. So far, they started the club with an invitation only process and are now starting to roll it out more to public. Join in with Michelle Humphrey of pFriem as we discuss the branding benefits that come from running a membership.

Over the years working with breweries of different sizes, saving money on the cost of labels has always been important. Through all of this experience, both in the printing and design of labels, I have been able to better understand ways to save money on labels and in many ways create better branding at the same time (!!) I hope you find these tips useful in saving money, and how you can approach creating your labels.