As we toured breweries from coast to coast we noticed a common trend among breweries that were thriving…
The common pattern?
They hosted events…
Events like trivia night, live music, yoga at the brewery, and others…
… but what makes events successful?
I hear Matt ask this question to brewery owners when talking about brewery growth strategies and marketing ideas…
What’s the difference between a brewery and a bar?
It’s community…
… and how do breweries create community?
Events!
One of my favorite breweries I came across thanks to Hop Passport was Lilly Pad Hopyard Brewery in Tennessee…
What’s unique about this brewery is the location… it’s remote yet people drive from a distance to visit… that’s the power of building community…
This was one of my favorite stories on the What’s a Brewin Podcast…
… but anyway…
Here’s a starter list of brewery event ideas to help you brainstorm…
- Trivia
- Bingo
- Running group
- Beer release
- Karaoke
- Art show
- Live music
- Open mic night
- Clean up the neighborhood night
- Holiday events
- Sports games
- Beer tasting & pairing events
- Special parties (birthdays, weddings, etc.)
- Company’s social events
- Book Club
- Theme nights
- Local charity fundraiser
- Comedy nights
- Paint night
- Beer education class
- Brewery tours
- Social club for dogs
The goal is not to attempt to do all types of events…
You need to choose your top 1-3 that will actually build community for your brewery…
Once you choose your top three, then it’s time to get to work…
Coming up with your brewery event ideas is the easy part…
The challenge is how do you promote the event?
It used to be that posting the event on Facebook would get you traffic, but nowadays it rarely reaches the intended target audience unless they already follow you which defeats the purpose of using their event calendar to find new clients…
Worse, the social media algorithm suppresses your content so only 5-10% of your current followers will see your posts unless you pay to advertise and boost your posts & brewery events…
When talking to brewery owners about how they promote events they would say things like:
Facebook knows that we’re a business so they purposely suppress our posts to force us to spend money and boost our events
Your content may get more views on other social media apps like TikTok, but they may not be for your target audience… many may not even be old enough to go to a brewery!
A better way to find community is to tap into existing communities… another way to reach existing craft beer loving communities is to promote your events using the Hop Passport event calendar which reaches over 20,000+ craft beer & travel lovers from around the country… visit this website to learn more about how the Hop Passport can help grow your brewery…
Hosting events should be in every brewery’s marketing plan…
You can also use digital marketing to promote events…
Is using digital marketing for breweries worth it?
We’ll be diving into that topic on an upcoming blog post…
Stay tuned…
Cheers!
