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The Great Revenue River Brew Tour- New Belgium Brewing

 

Recently I began a new string of blogs focusing on the Colorado brew scene and how specific breweries are utilizing new and unique marketing techniques to help them fight against the beer giants! 

For those of you who are unaware of the micro-brew scene here in Colorado, I’ll fill you in before diving into this week’s company.  According to The Beer Drinker’s Guide to Colorado, there are nearly 170 brewing operations in Colorado, with new ventures opening almost weekly!  This massive jump in breweries has come about due to the changing consumer sentiment that we deserve more options when it comes to the beer we drink!  While this movement is extraordinary and one that I have totally gotten behind, these fledgling companies face major challenges when it comes to marketing their brews.  The sad truth is that breweries like Budweiser and Coors spend more money on their Denver marketing efforts than most of the state’s microbreweries make in a year combined!  So how do they compete?  In a word: Creativity.  These wily entrepreneurs are finding newer, bolder and cheaper ways of effectively reaching their target market and getting their brand out there!  What’s more, many of these are inbound marketing tactics!

So without any further ado, let’s take a look at this week’s company and see what they’re doing to stand out in the market place!Denver Marketing, Revenue River

New Belgium Brewing- The Stats:

Location: Fort Collins, Colorado

Brewing Since: 1991

Author’s Favorite Brew: You can’t go wrong with a Fat Tire!

Nestled in the same town as Budweiser’s enormous brewery, New Belgium has been fighting the good fight for over 20 years!  These brewers have not only garnered national attention for their fantastic beers, but also for their inspiring company culture and innovative sustainability efforts.  So how have they spread the word about their company and what it stands for?  Instead of spending millions of dollars on television campaigns, New Belgium takes a more grass roots approach when it comes to Denver marketing by blogging about their products and values, utilizing YouTube series as their nation-wide commercials and by employing calls to action and landing pages for specific processes their customers go through while on their website.

 

  • Blogging- A pillar in any inbound marketing campaign is blogging.  Used to get information out to prospective customers and clients, this process can be slightly boring and fruitless if done incorrectly.  New Belgium’s technique comes at you in a very different and fun way, with energetic and informative blog posts coming at your weekly!  Mix in major topics such as information and reminders about new beers coming on tap, the latest happenings at the brewery or just interesting facts about the industry, add massive amounts of humor and passion and voila!  You have yourself a blog that your target audience can’t get enough of!  The best part is that not only does the blog drive more traffic to the company’s website and connect with customers on a more personal level, but it also acts as a launch pad for New Belgium’s hilarious and informative YouTube series!
  • YouTube- Let’s face it, most of us kill time at some point during the week watching videos on YouTube.  These guys know that, so the next time you’re there, check out the New Belgium Brewing Films, they’re a blast!  Although these videos are professionally done, New Belgium’s choice to air them on YouTube instead of television must have saved them massive amounts of money while allowing them to be viewed multiple times whenever, by whoever!  Especially for fans across the country who don’t have the opportunity to come in and see the facility for themselves, these videos provide them a nice insight into what the company culture is like while also teaching them a little more about their beer!
  • CTA’s And Landing Pages- if you live in Colorado, you probably know that it is not an easy task getting a tour of the New Belgium facility.  So to help make it a little easier, New Belgium created a page on their website dedicated to collecting information from their fans in order to find open dates and times that work best for you to come see the digs!  These images on the home page of the website prompting customers to “Visit Us” are what we in the industry call CTA’s (Calls to Action).  When clicked on, the link takes you to a new page (a landing page) that collects necessary information before providing the customer with whatever offer they want to receive (in this case, it’s a tour of the facility).  In inbound marketing, these tools are used to collect email adresses and other customer and client information in order to create mailing lists.  While is it unclear if New Belgium is using the collected information for this purpose, it is still a unique and innovative process for a brewery!

New Belgium Brewing is one of the state’s most recognizable brewing operations thanks in part to its amazing beers and outstanding environmental stewardship but also to its unique and innovative marketing ideas!  So the next time you’re enjoying a Fat Tire, a Ranger or any other of their great beverages, think about all the fun and resourceful techniques they’ve used to get their brand out there today!  Be sure to check out their Facebook and Twitter pages and spread the word!