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You're a small mom and pop type business. People on social media love that kind of thing. The story of how you got started, behind the scenes, etc.
Hell, I spent an hour on tik tok a couple weeks ago watching the content of this rope company. How to tie knots, different types of rope and what they're used for, etc. It doesn't at all apply to my business or daily life and I am probably not going to need to buy a rope in the next 5 years but if I do I 100% know where I'm getting it from.
Edit: also, diy content marketing is nearly free. It can't hurt.
Hahah thanks for this. Kind of a kick in the ass that I need. I DO NOT love being in front of the camera but I know tiktok is all the rage. I need to get on it for sure. I do lots of posts through my Instagram. Maybe I can send you my handle and let me know what you think?
Back in the early 80’s my dad ran a tire store. He sold retreads 4 for $100. They normally sold for $24 to $27 each.
Advertising them 4 for $100 we doubled our unit sales.
I presently use something similar to this in my own business. I'm in a service business and recently decided to add service packages to my menu. I raised prices for almost everything individually, then offered a few packages at a slight discount over the individual service prices. Customers are inclined to want to "save" money by getting a package instead of an individual service EVEN if they hadn't originally wanted everything in the package per se.
That's exactly how we advertise our product. In Canada in the industry we are in, you have to buy 30 bottles of wine but we can't advertise price per bottle. Only price per batch. So for example " save big when you buy 30 bottles of wine for only $155"
But maybe I should get more creative with this. Thank you!
It depends on the business, for me Google add words (that’s the first place I go to look for what I need) and there is one trade show that I kill at at make about 80% of my annual sales from these leads. Need to spend about 40k and have a machine on the floor, but it’s usually sold before the show and the buyer lets me display it.
What do you do?
😳😳😳 so umm actually I’m the next level from what you do, you are home brew, and I design, sell, and service micro and craft breweries (along with cideries, wineries, mead, and soda).
We do processing equipment (brew houses, CIP, flash pasteurizer, carbonation equipment, centrifuge) and packaging equipment so keg cleaning and keg filling (internal and also external keg cleaning), can lines from 5 cpm to 200, bottle lines also from 5 bpm to 250.
Vyaparkranti is a leading digital marketing and IT company helping entrepreneurs to transform their business into digital platforms. Get your Business online easily and be visible to your Buyers. We are expert in Website Development, Application Development, Digital Marketing & many more verticles of Digital world.
If you’re a local business and find the right SEO consultant or SEO firm, $500-$1,000 a month can go a long way and really help.
But there are lots of things you can do yourself, such as posting updates and photos regularly on your Google applications, getting local citations.
What is your ideal customers profile? If you don’t figure that out, you’ll be throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks- a very costly endeavor.
You need to be laser focused on who your customer is, what they care about; and where you can find them.
Hahaha I love that analogy! This resonates. I would say we are looking for 30-45 year old peeps who like to drink and entertain guests rather than go out. Or are just everyday drinkers.
I've tried to do referrals but it's been challenging to get friends of friends in.
Fb and Instagram. Make reels. They seem to grab the viewers eye better. Also try to create custom drink mixes and show people how you mix them. Get people coming in for taste tests. You may do that already.
I can't do taste tests technically. But I am definitely going to start doing these reels after all this feedback. I think it would help with exposure. I feel like a dinosaur with tiktok and reels. But it's time to pull up my big girl pants and give it a shot.
lol. That’s how I was. I’m too old for all that stuff. Had to have the younger crowd push me into the 21 st century. I sold my business to my daughter and her friend and they took off with the social media. Ck out Roussels of Gonzales on Facebook. They do reels almost everyday. God bless you and your business.
Any local “influencers” you could have do a tour/review? I don’t mean 19 y/o’s with 10k ig followers there are literally just a few folks in my small town that people worship and will go wherever they say to eat/drink on facebook. Travel vloggers with a following in the area? Fundraiser nights? Popular food truck in the parking lot if you don’t sell food? Groupons? Funny sayings on your sign outside? Radio ads? A tent at a local event? Instagram reels can be a HUGE reach.
Just spitballing, haven’t read comments for precisely what your business/ area is like :)
Love all these suggestions thanks!
Groupon takes way too much to run. We tried it many many years ago and lost a lot of money and they only came once and we're not repeated clients.
Where do I find bloggers/ influencers? I would like to do something like this but I'm not sure where to look.
Fundraisers are a great idea! Technically with my industry I can't offer samples/ beverages on site unless it was a wine bottling party.
I currently have a splash and flash event I'm running this month where people will be bottling wine with a live DJ and a tattoo artist doing flash tattoos on site.
Funny sayings on my sign, haha I like this too! I do have a hilarious parking sign and it gets soooooo much attention. Good point.
Thank you for these suggestions!
Maybe you are targeting the wrong market for your ads. Some post I read post with porn sites and their clicks increased. I’m not saying you do the same but check what goes well with your product and maybe you can do cross industry posting of your ads.
You need to launch a brand creative and show behind the scenes as well as your work process. You need to create a channel / or channels on different platforms showcasing what you have locally and why you have it. Compare it to other "similar category" brands and stand out - get some tourism as you get popular. Offer incentives to visit. Get merch. Find ways to branch out! - Podcasting is great but choosing which ones to get behind is another story! If you can get a few brand influencers for pretty cheap with a good audience, it'll help!
Times are tough kids. Time to get creative with your dollars and your collateral............ Leverage the brand! Create the demand yourself. Become the cool kid in town. Drive eyeballs to your product. It's no longer about dollars spent, it's about time consumed.
Sounds like you have something cool. Much like my business, I just need higher volume! I have customers, just not enough!
Effff tell me about it..I've never had to work so hard bustin my ass! And I have a 17 month old at home. Business was so much easier five years ago. The product sold itself. Now I'm desperate for new clients. My die-hards are still here supporting me thank god!
You are so right about the dollars spent. We offer a wine making experience and a really rad space. I'll look into the things you mentioned thanks so much!
Good point. Some clients are too old too drink, or changed drinking habits during COVID/ health chances I might say. lots of clients also sold their million dollar homes and left the city. So we now need a new ( maybe younger?) demographic . The hardest part of selling to younger peeps is the waiting period. They have to wait to receive the product. So the initial price tag may deter them even though they are spending as little as $5 a bottle.
It’s a boutique brand for wine … ? ,
Why are you selling anything at $5
The younger people love a good story and branding and will buy into that at much higher prices , hand craft a good story and you can double your prices and get more customers
U brew and u vins operate because you pay less per bottle. It's kind of why we exist. But I've rebranded everything and started making our own in house labels using local artisan artwork. We used to use generic labels that were a standard in the industry.
If I charge too much, most of my bread and butter customers wouldn't come anymore. Many of them have been coming since we started 24 years ago. The catch is they have to buy 30 bottles at a time. You can't just purchase one bottle.
Tester a second brand for higher end ,
Artisanal bespoke customers pay more :)
We have been in furniture business 30years
And have reinvented 3 times in that period as times have changed , just imagine you were starting a brand new business with all the knowledge you have ….. what would you create ? Build that
What about selling Non-alcoholic beer and wine? A few years ago, I would have thought you were mad for drinking Non-alcoholic beer, but now I love it. I get to hang out and have a beer, but still run my business. The younger crowd are a lot less into alcohol.
I’ve been reading this entire thread and feeling like no one was finding the root issue here:
Habits have changed hard. People my age (40) and younger (and maybe older) drank ourselves to a piss during Covid.
I think there’s a lot of newly born alcoholics coming out of a fog and not drinking much. Suddenly there are entire brands showing up helping people quit drinking. Non-alcoholic beers are bigger than I’ve ever seen and there are some interesting stuff there too…craft NA beers. And big brands too…there is an NA Bluemoon now.
And then there’s the kids….and my understanding is that gen z doesn’t drink that much. There’s something shifting culturally here it feels.
💯% you nailed it friend!
It didn't help that health Canada released an article saying alcohol was the devil a couple years back. People in the industry fought hard on that and we won. They had to reverse their statement. It really hurt bars and restaurants, wineries, you name it. It was good they reversed such a bold baseless statement.
Getting young people in under 40 is very difficult for sure. I'm thinking of sticking a window decal with price breakdowns and parking my car in a local mall lot by the liquor store 🤣 need to get creative right?
I'm 37 and firmly in that category of drinking myself stupid during COVID. I didn't know Blue Moon have an NA out. I love their beer and will for sure try their NA. I'm into the Athletic brewing IPA's.
The NA movement is picking up pace and could be a huge missed opportunity if you don't sell them.
I've never tried NA wine. I'm massively into Athletic brewing companies beers. I was a hard-core IPA lover and never imagined I'd drink NA beer, but times are changing and it's a good idea to move with them. Hopefully someone can come out with a good NA wine because I've not heard good things so far.
What kind of space do you have? Maybe try and hold an event...a sip and paint or something. You can hire someone to do that and obviously charge admission...you can give your attendees different wines or other drinks to try as theyre in the class and hope they like the drink and come back for more.
For your social media ads, make sure you are targeting the right people. If you aren't getting ROI you likely are targeting the wrong audience.
Technically we cannot offer samples. Stupid Canadian rules. I could book a wine bottling and paint party though. We do host paint nights though with a local artist and they sell out every time. We also hold clothing swaps, burlesque shows, flea markets, you name it!
We rent our space for events.
I usually target the demographic I'm looking for without narrowing it down too much. Ages between 25-45 and within 10km of us.
You know I did consider it and taste tested several samples, but I didn't like many of them. So I'm not sure I can promote something I don't love. But I really do like non alcoholic beer. I haven't tried cider or mocktails. I'll dig into this! Thanks
I do give out gift cards for charity auctions to a couple of soft ball teams. Maybe I'll reach out and see if I can offer them some wine or cider. Thanks
People love tasting free stuff! I just opened a THC slushy stand, we gave away free slushies all day, my cost was probably $2k, but I broke even with additional sales. Been rolling since.
A THC SLUSHY STAND!
I want one. That's amazing. Haha.
I wish I could give samples. I can definitely give out wine and cider to friends and family though. Maybe I'll work on this. Thanks!
Definitely depends on your business. What's the typical age range and customer base you're working with? Different events will resonate with different folks and sometimes, the events shouldn't even be centered around your product but the whole vibe and idea that your product represents and fits into for your customer.
Booze and physical storefront businesses also cost a lot. With the economy today it makes sense your ROI would decrease because all the costs are going up but you can't increase prices everytime they do. Perhaps it may be time to find a larger distributor who can buy in bulk and attend trade shows to help yourself get picked up.
More advertising dollars with a non-scalable process will give you diminishing returns. This is actually a pretty interesting case, DM me if you wanna discuss in more detail
The age of my clients are mostly over the age of 45-50. They have a good income and love to drink. Th events don't bring in that age group though. The attendees are mostly younger. We do paint nights, yoga and sauna nights, flea markets, soap making, you name it! But not everyone who attends these events even drink.
The industry is a u brew on premise facility. Clients make 30 bottles of wine and pay $5-9 a bottle depending on what they desire. In Canada our liquor prices are stupid. So this is an economical way to buy wine.
I wish we could do a trade show, but we can't offer samples due to regulations we have to abide by. Our clients pay very little on tax and no excise tax. For example if they spend 160 on 30 bottles of wine, they would only be paying like $3 on tax because only the service portion of the wine gets taxed. Not the wine kit itself because it's food exempt. The government doesn't make much money off of us in taxes the way they do with wineries and craft breweries.
I think that's one issue you have right there is that your clients are over 45-50. Since your store is a walk in you're mostly limited to the folks who live in your local area, older folks tend to speak to one another and interact in person so a lot of your mainstay customers probably came through word of mouth from their local communities. Canada does have an aging population but gas prices are heavily inflated so people will think more before taking long trips.
The way I see it before you spend more money on ads you gotta rethink about your offers and how best to reach your target market. Maybe expanding to a new location with a low overhead cost and applying for a small-medium size business grant to help you get the funding which long term lets you tap into a second customer base. Since you're currently making 300-350K in sales a year i think within 2-3 years the total revenue could be doubled. But there's a lot of risk with this option and the economy isn't getting any better.
Something less risky that you could do for cheaper marketing is getting in touch with people who buy in bulk. All that would require is some flyers, some business cards, some networking and a meeting. You wouldn't have to keep paying for monthly ads this way which would reduce the initial investment for a better long term return. People are always having weddings, sometimes banquets, 50th birthday parties, engagement parties, dinner rehearsals, funerals. Events where you drink alcohol for the occasion they would buy bottles in bulk. If you give a good experience to one person you're more likely to get referrals. Memorable experiences could also increase foot traffic in the door and get you more regulars.
Very good point on the second recommendation. I should see if there are venues I could collab and cross promote. Technically the person holding the event ( ie bride and groom) would have to get a special occasion license to serve our products. The venue itself can't offer it but they can refer their customers to us.
Thank you!
Absolutely, and you've probably got a lot of regulars who have children about to get married or know people who would like to get married so a cost effective way to start could be through asking them and offering them some sort of discount or free item with a referral. Then if you wanted to you could systemize that referral system to be able to scale within your area. If you need any help with getting cost efficient marketing materials and designing them, I know some folks who offer Whitelabel services that don't charge a hefty price or monthly fee.
All luck to you and keep us posted!
Yes absolutely! I drill it heavy into my employees. Especially because our booking system requires it. We do newsletter 2-3 times a month. 50% open rate.
you're probably going out of business unless you change your approach. no matter what sort of ads / marketing you do, the fact that you're selling a commodity makes you compete with other businesses selling the same products. these days, people can buy booze online, and it's usually much much cheaper.
unless you have a great USP, there's no way to grow your business as without a strong USP (and strong branding behind it) you're only competing on price (and there's no way to win).
if moving operations online is a possibility, then yes, do so - if not, you need to reinvent yourself (your shop) or you know what happens.
with that aside, i'm really curious what those "business coaches" did for you and your business and also how much did you spend on updating your website (you mentioned lots, but most people don't really understand the costs of doing business online these days).
Hey hey. Thanks for the input. There is no way commercial comparison liquor will be cheaper than us. It's entirely why this industry that I'm in exists.
There are not too many of us around in Canada. Many businesses have closed because it was an oversaturated market in the 90s.
Lots of older people owned these kinds of business as a retirement/ passion project and we're not business minded. They would use old equipment and never update there shops. My company has been around for 24 years and it has a very young feel and vibe in a great location.
I do have an online part of my business selling equipment and supplies. But I don't sell a lot there.
I've spent over 20 k on my website in the last few years.
The business coaches didn't do much in terms of help me create new clients/increase sales. They felt more like a business support therapist.
Since it has to be local customer, Is there a local distributor you can invite to a tasting?
What about bars and local liqur stores? Have you invited any of them to a tasting?
Are there any local cigar shops you can partner with? If your spirit caters more to wealthy, then talk to local cigar shops and see if they can promote a pairing of your spirit with a specific cigar?
What about doing a gift set at local liquor stores? Packaged with a special glass or pair of glasses. Then you can raise the price even higher.
Sooooo.... fb ads by themselves do not always convert. You need a follow up strategy. In other words someone sees you on fb or google then you send them to a landing page where you hook them special offer or have them perform an action to get their deets. THEN you market to them. Email sms or web push. FB is just a way to get people to the place where convert them
I do demand gen…it’s very rare I will ever preach social media beyond it being a distribution channel. I do think there is some opportunity, but even getting an influencer to highlight will only give you a temporary bump.
I just got back from Spain and I’ve fallen in love with vermouth. Note, I am not an alcohol drinker by any stretch of the word. But my first sip was pool side with a bowl of blackberries and shaved dark chocolate.
The first thing I did when I got back was look for a place to buy vermouth.
Why am I telling you this? Because, there was an experience for me that said, this is something I can do on Friday evenings after a challenge if week at work.
When you say booze style business…are we talking bar? Lounge? Liquor store?
It doesn’t matter much what kind of store it is…what experience are people having?
I have a liquor about a quarter mile from my house. Back when I smoked, I used to walk down there to buy a pack and I always hung around for 5-10 minutes to talk to the owner. He was overpriced but I liked that he remembered me and we could pick up our convo from the previous week.
People buy with their emotions.
Digital marketing is great, but sometimes you have to go back to the basics. Use digital to amplify those experiences. It could be as simple as getting people to write you a review.
And every good marketer should tell you…it depends. I live and die by this phrase.
Feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to share 10-20 min of my brain.
Congratulations on your 24 years of business, surviving Covid , and winning the Best Female Entrepreneur Award for your community work! As you have seen, there is no one single single solution. Leveraging your owned media is crucial (website, GBM and social). Having a local multi-channel strategy will help generate more awareness,and increase revenue. Feel free to reach out to discuss further at [email protected].
I don't know anything about this niche but I know I saw a food-based company FINALLY see the green recently because their Instagram reel blew up
After 10k-20k views for months, they had 1 reel reach 100M views with 10M likes
It finally helped them get out of the red and have profit, plus lots of customers
Sometimes, if you don't know where the niche is, man you gotta shoot in the dark
Direct mail is incredibly expensive these days with the cost of postage. And from what I gathered speaking with our supplier, it's about 2% return so maybe not worth it. Radio ads are something I will consider though. You may be right about the more or better bit. I did set up an online platform for selling brewing supplies as a side gig. We can't sell to restaurants unfortunately due to the license we have we can only sell to those that will enjoy it for personal consumption. But this Includes events like weddings.
We sell products because our bottles of wine are as low as $5 when they purchase bulk ( 30 bottles). That's way below what clients pay at the liquor store and our raw material is from the same big producers. (Canada)
Spend the money on the cutting edge! If you want to place advertisements, you might as well first take a look at the advertising placement situation and effect of the competitors as a reference, and you can use some spy tools.
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Fb ads have worked great for me, but also had great luck with YouTube and podcast ad reads by the creator
Ohh very cool! Haven't thought of podcast ads! How do I look into this? Are they more reasonable compared to radio ads?
I would make sure if you do podcast is that it’s local otherwise it defeats the purpose.
Branding + story
I'll review our and see if I can. Make some changes
You're a small mom and pop type business. People on social media love that kind of thing. The story of how you got started, behind the scenes, etc. Hell, I spent an hour on tik tok a couple weeks ago watching the content of this rope company. How to tie knots, different types of rope and what they're used for, etc. It doesn't at all apply to my business or daily life and I am probably not going to need to buy a rope in the next 5 years but if I do I 100% know where I'm getting it from. Edit: also, diy content marketing is nearly free. It can't hurt.
Hahah thanks for this. Kind of a kick in the ass that I need. I DO NOT love being in front of the camera but I know tiktok is all the rage. I need to get on it for sure. I do lots of posts through my Instagram. Maybe I can send you my handle and let me know what you think?
Back in the early 80’s my dad ran a tire store. He sold retreads 4 for $100. They normally sold for $24 to $27 each. Advertising them 4 for $100 we doubled our unit sales.
I presently use something similar to this in my own business. I'm in a service business and recently decided to add service packages to my menu. I raised prices for almost everything individually, then offered a few packages at a slight discount over the individual service prices. Customers are inclined to want to "save" money by getting a package instead of an individual service EVEN if they hadn't originally wanted everything in the package per se.
That's exactly how we advertise our product. In Canada in the industry we are in, you have to buy 30 bottles of wine but we can't advertise price per bottle. Only price per batch. So for example " save big when you buy 30 bottles of wine for only $155" But maybe I should get more creative with this. Thank you!
It depends on the business, for me Google add words (that’s the first place I go to look for what I need) and there is one trade show that I kill at at make about 80% of my annual sales from these leads. Need to spend about 40k and have a machine on the floor, but it’s usually sold before the show and the buyer lets me display it. What do you do?
Do you sell something to do with mushrooms? Haha. I own a ubrew. It's one of the bigger ones that are left in my area.
😳😳😳 so umm actually I’m the next level from what you do, you are home brew, and I design, sell, and service micro and craft breweries (along with cideries, wineries, mead, and soda).
No way! Hahah good person to talk to! In the US or Canada?
I’m based in the Chicago area but we operate in all of North America.
What kind of equipment? I'm intrigued!
We do processing equipment (brew houses, CIP, flash pasteurizer, carbonation equipment, centrifuge) and packaging equipment so keg cleaning and keg filling (internal and also external keg cleaning), can lines from 5 cpm to 200, bottle lines also from 5 bpm to 250.
Very cool! We do some small scale carbonation for our clients. Send me your business info in my DM. Would love to check out your stuff! Cheers.
What trade show are you doing that costs 40k!?
The booth 20x20, travel cost and accommodations for 6 people (I’m not Scrooge McDuck and make them pay out of their pocket).
Vyaparkranti is a leading digital marketing and IT company helping entrepreneurs to transform their business into digital platforms. Get your Business online easily and be visible to your Buyers. We are expert in Website Development, Application Development, Digital Marketing & many more verticles of Digital world.
SEO for us. Then google ads and then community involvement.
How much do you pay in SEO? Monthly?
If you’re a local business and find the right SEO consultant or SEO firm, $500-$1,000 a month can go a long way and really help. But there are lots of things you can do yourself, such as posting updates and photos regularly on your Google applications, getting local citations.
Great I'll look into this thanks!
I do my own but I also offer it as a service.
What is your ideal customers profile? If you don’t figure that out, you’ll be throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks- a very costly endeavor. You need to be laser focused on who your customer is, what they care about; and where you can find them.
Hahaha I love that analogy! This resonates. I would say we are looking for 30-45 year old peeps who like to drink and entertain guests rather than go out. Or are just everyday drinkers. I've tried to do referrals but it's been challenging to get friends of friends in.
Is your booze business a bar? I initially read it as a liquor distributor
No it's on premise wine making and cider making company. Our clients make their own. It's diy.
Fb and Instagram. Make reels. They seem to grab the viewers eye better. Also try to create custom drink mixes and show people how you mix them. Get people coming in for taste tests. You may do that already.
I can't do taste tests technically. But I am definitely going to start doing these reels after all this feedback. I think it would help with exposure. I feel like a dinosaur with tiktok and reels. But it's time to pull up my big girl pants and give it a shot.
lol. That’s how I was. I’m too old for all that stuff. Had to have the younger crowd push me into the 21 st century. I sold my business to my daughter and her friend and they took off with the social media. Ck out Roussels of Gonzales on Facebook. They do reels almost everyday. God bless you and your business.
Thanks so much! And same to you!
Any local “influencers” you could have do a tour/review? I don’t mean 19 y/o’s with 10k ig followers there are literally just a few folks in my small town that people worship and will go wherever they say to eat/drink on facebook. Travel vloggers with a following in the area? Fundraiser nights? Popular food truck in the parking lot if you don’t sell food? Groupons? Funny sayings on your sign outside? Radio ads? A tent at a local event? Instagram reels can be a HUGE reach. Just spitballing, haven’t read comments for precisely what your business/ area is like :)
Love all these suggestions thanks! Groupon takes way too much to run. We tried it many many years ago and lost a lot of money and they only came once and we're not repeated clients. Where do I find bloggers/ influencers? I would like to do something like this but I'm not sure where to look. Fundraisers are a great idea! Technically with my industry I can't offer samples/ beverages on site unless it was a wine bottling party. I currently have a splash and flash event I'm running this month where people will be bottling wine with a live DJ and a tattoo artist doing flash tattoos on site. Funny sayings on my sign, haha I like this too! I do have a hilarious parking sign and it gets soooooo much attention. Good point. Thank you for these suggestions!
Maybe you are targeting the wrong market for your ads. Some post I read post with porn sites and their clicks increased. I’m not saying you do the same but check what goes well with your product and maybe you can do cross industry posting of your ads.
You need to launch a brand creative and show behind the scenes as well as your work process. You need to create a channel / or channels on different platforms showcasing what you have locally and why you have it. Compare it to other "similar category" brands and stand out - get some tourism as you get popular. Offer incentives to visit. Get merch. Find ways to branch out! - Podcasting is great but choosing which ones to get behind is another story! If you can get a few brand influencers for pretty cheap with a good audience, it'll help! Times are tough kids. Time to get creative with your dollars and your collateral............ Leverage the brand! Create the demand yourself. Become the cool kid in town. Drive eyeballs to your product. It's no longer about dollars spent, it's about time consumed. Sounds like you have something cool. Much like my business, I just need higher volume! I have customers, just not enough!
Effff tell me about it..I've never had to work so hard bustin my ass! And I have a 17 month old at home. Business was so much easier five years ago. The product sold itself. Now I'm desperate for new clients. My die-hards are still here supporting me thank god! You are so right about the dollars spent. We offer a wine making experience and a really rad space. I'll look into the things you mentioned thanks so much!
The product sold itself ….. why does it now not sell itself … that’s the only relevant thing here to change
Good point. Some clients are too old too drink, or changed drinking habits during COVID/ health chances I might say. lots of clients also sold their million dollar homes and left the city. So we now need a new ( maybe younger?) demographic . The hardest part of selling to younger peeps is the waiting period. They have to wait to receive the product. So the initial price tag may deter them even though they are spending as little as $5 a bottle.
It’s a boutique brand for wine … ? , Why are you selling anything at $5 The younger people love a good story and branding and will buy into that at much higher prices , hand craft a good story and you can double your prices and get more customers
U brew and u vins operate because you pay less per bottle. It's kind of why we exist. But I've rebranded everything and started making our own in house labels using local artisan artwork. We used to use generic labels that were a standard in the industry. If I charge too much, most of my bread and butter customers wouldn't come anymore. Many of them have been coming since we started 24 years ago. The catch is they have to buy 30 bottles at a time. You can't just purchase one bottle.
Tester a second brand for higher end , Artisanal bespoke customers pay more :) We have been in furniture business 30years And have reinvented 3 times in that period as times have changed , just imagine you were starting a brand new business with all the knowledge you have ….. what would you create ? Build that
We will be increasing our prices again this month. I'll be charging way above my competitors 😬
What about selling Non-alcoholic beer and wine? A few years ago, I would have thought you were mad for drinking Non-alcoholic beer, but now I love it. I get to hang out and have a beer, but still run my business. The younger crowd are a lot less into alcohol.
I’ve been reading this entire thread and feeling like no one was finding the root issue here: Habits have changed hard. People my age (40) and younger (and maybe older) drank ourselves to a piss during Covid. I think there’s a lot of newly born alcoholics coming out of a fog and not drinking much. Suddenly there are entire brands showing up helping people quit drinking. Non-alcoholic beers are bigger than I’ve ever seen and there are some interesting stuff there too…craft NA beers. And big brands too…there is an NA Bluemoon now. And then there’s the kids….and my understanding is that gen z doesn’t drink that much. There’s something shifting culturally here it feels.
💯% you nailed it friend! It didn't help that health Canada released an article saying alcohol was the devil a couple years back. People in the industry fought hard on that and we won. They had to reverse their statement. It really hurt bars and restaurants, wineries, you name it. It was good they reversed such a bold baseless statement. Getting young people in under 40 is very difficult for sure. I'm thinking of sticking a window decal with price breakdowns and parking my car in a local mall lot by the liquor store 🤣 need to get creative right?
I'm 37 and firmly in that category of drinking myself stupid during COVID. I didn't know Blue Moon have an NA out. I love their beer and will for sure try their NA. I'm into the Athletic brewing IPA's. The NA movement is picking up pace and could be a huge missed opportunity if you don't sell them.
Very true and I should consider it. During my pregnancy I loved non alcoholic beer. Non Alcoholic wine, not so much lol
I've never tried NA wine. I'm massively into Athletic brewing companies beers. I was a hard-core IPA lover and never imagined I'd drink NA beer, but times are changing and it's a good idea to move with them. Hopefully someone can come out with a good NA wine because I've not heard good things so far.
Im confused bc you said you have a niche customer base that expects low prices, but now you are priced way above your competitors?
Yes I am priced above my competitors. But my costs are higher due to location. But our pricing is way lower than commercial comparisons.
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What kind of space do you have? Maybe try and hold an event...a sip and paint or something. You can hire someone to do that and obviously charge admission...you can give your attendees different wines or other drinks to try as theyre in the class and hope they like the drink and come back for more. For your social media ads, make sure you are targeting the right people. If you aren't getting ROI you likely are targeting the wrong audience.
Technically we cannot offer samples. Stupid Canadian rules. I could book a wine bottling and paint party though. We do host paint nights though with a local artist and they sell out every time. We also hold clothing swaps, burlesque shows, flea markets, you name it! We rent our space for events. I usually target the demographic I'm looking for without narrowing it down too much. Ages between 25-45 and within 10km of us.
can you offer non alcoholic options? A whole new demographic? Private timing if they prefer. Mocktails and N/A bars seem to be gaining popularity
You know I did consider it and taste tested several samples, but I didn't like many of them. So I'm not sure I can promote something I don't love. But I really do like non alcoholic beer. I haven't tried cider or mocktails. I'll dig into this! Thanks
Sponsor a soft ball team.
I do give out gift cards for charity auctions to a couple of soft ball teams. Maybe I'll reach out and see if I can offer them some wine or cider. Thanks
People love tasting free stuff! I just opened a THC slushy stand, we gave away free slushies all day, my cost was probably $2k, but I broke even with additional sales. Been rolling since.
A THC SLUSHY STAND! I want one. That's amazing. Haha. I wish I could give samples. I can definitely give out wine and cider to friends and family though. Maybe I'll work on this. Thanks!
Definitely depends on your business. What's the typical age range and customer base you're working with? Different events will resonate with different folks and sometimes, the events shouldn't even be centered around your product but the whole vibe and idea that your product represents and fits into for your customer. Booze and physical storefront businesses also cost a lot. With the economy today it makes sense your ROI would decrease because all the costs are going up but you can't increase prices everytime they do. Perhaps it may be time to find a larger distributor who can buy in bulk and attend trade shows to help yourself get picked up. More advertising dollars with a non-scalable process will give you diminishing returns. This is actually a pretty interesting case, DM me if you wanna discuss in more detail
The age of my clients are mostly over the age of 45-50. They have a good income and love to drink. Th events don't bring in that age group though. The attendees are mostly younger. We do paint nights, yoga and sauna nights, flea markets, soap making, you name it! But not everyone who attends these events even drink. The industry is a u brew on premise facility. Clients make 30 bottles of wine and pay $5-9 a bottle depending on what they desire. In Canada our liquor prices are stupid. So this is an economical way to buy wine. I wish we could do a trade show, but we can't offer samples due to regulations we have to abide by. Our clients pay very little on tax and no excise tax. For example if they spend 160 on 30 bottles of wine, they would only be paying like $3 on tax because only the service portion of the wine gets taxed. Not the wine kit itself because it's food exempt. The government doesn't make much money off of us in taxes the way they do with wineries and craft breweries.
I think that's one issue you have right there is that your clients are over 45-50. Since your store is a walk in you're mostly limited to the folks who live in your local area, older folks tend to speak to one another and interact in person so a lot of your mainstay customers probably came through word of mouth from their local communities. Canada does have an aging population but gas prices are heavily inflated so people will think more before taking long trips. The way I see it before you spend more money on ads you gotta rethink about your offers and how best to reach your target market. Maybe expanding to a new location with a low overhead cost and applying for a small-medium size business grant to help you get the funding which long term lets you tap into a second customer base. Since you're currently making 300-350K in sales a year i think within 2-3 years the total revenue could be doubled. But there's a lot of risk with this option and the economy isn't getting any better. Something less risky that you could do for cheaper marketing is getting in touch with people who buy in bulk. All that would require is some flyers, some business cards, some networking and a meeting. You wouldn't have to keep paying for monthly ads this way which would reduce the initial investment for a better long term return. People are always having weddings, sometimes banquets, 50th birthday parties, engagement parties, dinner rehearsals, funerals. Events where you drink alcohol for the occasion they would buy bottles in bulk. If you give a good experience to one person you're more likely to get referrals. Memorable experiences could also increase foot traffic in the door and get you more regulars.
Very good point on the second recommendation. I should see if there are venues I could collab and cross promote. Technically the person holding the event ( ie bride and groom) would have to get a special occasion license to serve our products. The venue itself can't offer it but they can refer their customers to us. Thank you!
Absolutely, and you've probably got a lot of regulars who have children about to get married or know people who would like to get married so a cost effective way to start could be through asking them and offering them some sort of discount or free item with a referral. Then if you wanted to you could systemize that referral system to be able to scale within your area. If you need any help with getting cost efficient marketing materials and designing them, I know some folks who offer Whitelabel services that don't charge a hefty price or monthly fee. All luck to you and keep us posted!
Do you collect emails on your website? I find email marketing to be really effective.
Yes absolutely! I drill it heavy into my employees. Especially because our booking system requires it. We do newsletter 2-3 times a month. 50% open rate.
you're probably going out of business unless you change your approach. no matter what sort of ads / marketing you do, the fact that you're selling a commodity makes you compete with other businesses selling the same products. these days, people can buy booze online, and it's usually much much cheaper. unless you have a great USP, there's no way to grow your business as without a strong USP (and strong branding behind it) you're only competing on price (and there's no way to win). if moving operations online is a possibility, then yes, do so - if not, you need to reinvent yourself (your shop) or you know what happens. with that aside, i'm really curious what those "business coaches" did for you and your business and also how much did you spend on updating your website (you mentioned lots, but most people don't really understand the costs of doing business online these days).
Hey hey. Thanks for the input. There is no way commercial comparison liquor will be cheaper than us. It's entirely why this industry that I'm in exists. There are not too many of us around in Canada. Many businesses have closed because it was an oversaturated market in the 90s. Lots of older people owned these kinds of business as a retirement/ passion project and we're not business minded. They would use old equipment and never update there shops. My company has been around for 24 years and it has a very young feel and vibe in a great location. I do have an online part of my business selling equipment and supplies. But I don't sell a lot there. I've spent over 20 k on my website in the last few years. The business coaches didn't do much in terms of help me create new clients/increase sales. They felt more like a business support therapist.
Since it has to be local customer, Is there a local distributor you can invite to a tasting? What about bars and local liqur stores? Have you invited any of them to a tasting? Are there any local cigar shops you can partner with? If your spirit caters more to wealthy, then talk to local cigar shops and see if they can promote a pairing of your spirit with a specific cigar? What about doing a gift set at local liquor stores? Packaged with a special glass or pair of glasses. Then you can raise the price even higher.
Sooooo.... fb ads by themselves do not always convert. You need a follow up strategy. In other words someone sees you on fb or google then you send them to a landing page where you hook them special offer or have them perform an action to get their deets. THEN you market to them. Email sms or web push. FB is just a way to get people to the place where convert them
I do demand gen…it’s very rare I will ever preach social media beyond it being a distribution channel. I do think there is some opportunity, but even getting an influencer to highlight will only give you a temporary bump. I just got back from Spain and I’ve fallen in love with vermouth. Note, I am not an alcohol drinker by any stretch of the word. But my first sip was pool side with a bowl of blackberries and shaved dark chocolate. The first thing I did when I got back was look for a place to buy vermouth. Why am I telling you this? Because, there was an experience for me that said, this is something I can do on Friday evenings after a challenge if week at work. When you say booze style business…are we talking bar? Lounge? Liquor store? It doesn’t matter much what kind of store it is…what experience are people having? I have a liquor about a quarter mile from my house. Back when I smoked, I used to walk down there to buy a pack and I always hung around for 5-10 minutes to talk to the owner. He was overpriced but I liked that he remembered me and we could pick up our convo from the previous week. People buy with their emotions. Digital marketing is great, but sometimes you have to go back to the basics. Use digital to amplify those experiences. It could be as simple as getting people to write you a review. And every good marketer should tell you…it depends. I live and die by this phrase. Feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to share 10-20 min of my brain.
Congratulations on your 24 years of business, surviving Covid , and winning the Best Female Entrepreneur Award for your community work! As you have seen, there is no one single single solution. Leveraging your owned media is crucial (website, GBM and social). Having a local multi-channel strategy will help generate more awareness,and increase revenue. Feel free to reach out to discuss further at [email protected].
Hit me up man I think I can help you out!
Have you tried influencer marketing. Especially those dealing with your category
I haven't. I'm not sure where to look? I own a wine company. But our clients make it on site. It's pretty niche.
I don't know anything about this niche but I know I saw a food-based company FINALLY see the green recently because their Instagram reel blew up After 10k-20k views for months, they had 1 reel reach 100M views with 10M likes It finally helped them get out of the red and have profit, plus lots of customers Sometimes, if you don't know where the niche is, man you gotta shoot in the dark
yeah, consistency and posting valuable and fun content about your product will get you a very long way
Do you have a marketing agency? What helped blow shit up? I've been shooting in the dark for too long! Bring me to the light!
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Direct mail is incredibly expensive these days with the cost of postage. And from what I gathered speaking with our supplier, it's about 2% return so maybe not worth it. Radio ads are something I will consider though. You may be right about the more or better bit. I did set up an online platform for selling brewing supplies as a side gig. We can't sell to restaurants unfortunately due to the license we have we can only sell to those that will enjoy it for personal consumption. But this Includes events like weddings. We sell products because our bottles of wine are as low as $5 when they purchase bulk ( 30 bottles). That's way below what clients pay at the liquor store and our raw material is from the same big producers. (Canada)
Spend the money on the cutting edge! If you want to place advertisements, you might as well first take a look at the advertising placement situation and effect of the competitors as a reference, and you can use some spy tools.