Welcome to part 2 of ‘Thinking Like a Growth Team’. Today I’m getting specific and delving into some specific examples of how sales & marketing can work closely together to achieve better results.
ICYMI, you can read part one here.
If you find this helpful, please do forward it on to a friend or colleague who could benefit.
A growth team that works together, stays together!
Ok, so to get a bit more tangible and a bit less Harvard Business School, here’s 3 specific examples of where marketing and sales working together can improve your overall sales game.
Example 1: Awareness Building Through Content ✍️
What the marketing desk looks like at one of Hackney’s many breweries
You may remember I said in part one of this post that a sale starts much earlier than the sales call. What I meant by that is that sales is a long game, and it starts with generating awareness of who you are.
Why is this so important?
Because making a sale is infinitely easier if your target customer has heard of you before you go in.
Awareness building is typically done by the marketing side of the growth team although sales should have input, as illustrated below.
1.1 Blogs - a classic but drastically underused form of marketing in the beer world.
What marketing should be doing:
For every 2 consumer facing posts you put out, write something aimed at the trade.
Make it useful, and something that a bar manager will actually want to read.
And don’t forget, trade peeps are busy - so keep it short, sweet and simple.
Here’s a few examples:
- ‘How to incorporate beer into your menu planning’
- ‘Make sure your staff know these 3 go-to phrases to describe an IPA’
- ‘Why it’s important to serve in the right glass’
What sales should be doing:
Think about your customers - what are their pain points and where are they lacking knowledge? This is where you’ll find the topics that will resonate.
Feed these topics into marketing and provide them with useful information from your observations ‘on the coal face’.
Distribute this content. You now have something genuinely useful to share with existing and prospective customers that will (a) build trust and credibility, and (b) bring prospective customers into the top of the funnel.
Share it appropriately. Don’t try and shoehorn a sale into your email. Give without asking ⬇️
Hey John,
We’ve just published this blog: ‘How to incorporate beer into your menu’ - thought it might be of interest for you as I think you’re revamping your menu soon?
The Espresso Stout souffle is the winner for me! 👌
All the best,
James
1.2 Trade focused podcasts - good for that bar manager who spends their whole Monday cleaning lines with their headphones in.
What marketing should be doing:
You’re in charge of production but before you make this face 😱 , remember that whilst producing a podcast is not for everyone, they’re equally not that difficult to make in this day and age.
A couple of topics to consider could be:
An interview series with your best trade customers, asking them how craft beer (and your brand in particular) is helping grow their business. This is good because not only are you putting out good content but your best customers feel very loved for being asked to appear so it helps cement that relationship.
Short episodes in which you explain different beer styles - could be the head brewer talking or being interviewed. The point is you’re providing useful content to an audience (the trade) that still requires a lot of education on different beers.
What sales should be doing:
Speaking to their customers to find out what sort of content they would find useful and interesting.
Convincing their customers to appear on the podcast.
Spreading the word about the podcast to their customers and networks.
☝️ This could be you and your favourite customer recording a podcast!
Example 2: Giving your samples some WOW factor 🤩
Giving prospective customers a chance to try the product is essential to securing new listings.
But buyers receive LOTS of samples every week.
I only operate a small store but if I wanted to, I could probably remain in a permanent state of mild inebriation just from the samples I receive.
Imagine how many samples you’re receiving if you’re the Tesco buyer!
So it’s more important than ever that your ‘sample package’ stands out from the crowd.
Is your unboxing experience memorable?
Is the package as a whole remarkable (literally, something that someone would remark about)?
Working together, marketing and sales (our formidable growth team) are much better equipped to create wow factor than sales ever could on their own.
Why? Because generally speaking, marketing is going to have a creative element within it that can make the magic happen (sorry sales).
What marketing should be doing:
Focusing on making the experience of receiving samples from your brewery unlike any other:
Produce a great, well branded sample box.
Design a specific postcard sized insert to be included with the samples. Ideally, it should have a space for a handwritten note, because the personal touches go a LONG way.
Think about any other little niceties that could be included in the box, that are on brand. These don’t need to be big or expensive. It could be some merch, something related to the beer or just be a bag of Haribo!
It’s the small bits of details that will make you stand out from the standard practice of just sending some cans in a boring box.
What sales should be doing:
Making the initial approach to whoever you’re sending the samples to - don’t try to oversell in that email or call - just tell them you’d like to send them some samples, and ask for the address. This is very hard for a buyer to say no to.
Package up the samples box nicely - pay attention to detail, don’t let marketing’s good work go to waste.
Write the note, ideally adding some personalisation & personality to it (there’s a whole post coming down the line about this topic).
Address it to a specific person, and don’t make it generic.
Make sure it gets sent out & delivered properly.
Follow up with the lead a few days post delivery to see how the samples went down.
Don’t just send and forget, because chances are the buyer isn’t going to chase you!
Here’s a good example of sample outreach by Belleville Brewing Co. They recently released a Nutella inspired beer, conveniently just in time for #worldnutelladay (yes, it’s a thing!). Rather than just send out a couple of cans without context, they pushed the boat out and included:
A handwritten note to each recipient
The beer itself (plus a couple more of their range)
A specially commissioned cookie (from Deviant Cookies) that they had made with Nutella
A specially designed flyer to accompany the beer
Fair to say, this package got attention! So much so that the recipient in question posted this video on Instagram.
Whilst you can’t produce bespoke cookies for every sample package, you should be thinking creatively to make sure you stand out!
Example 3: Social Media FTW 🙌
Let’s face it, most bar managers double up as the social media manager so it can be a good channel to catch them on.
But remember, no one likes being hassled whilst they’re busy doom scrolling! So don’t go in all salesy. It’s social media. Be social!
What marketing should be doing:
Posting interesting stuff that will appeal to consumers and trade (because bar managers are people too!).
Using social channels as outreach channels for target venues. Keep it natural. Keep it non-salesy. And try to be helpful. It means when the sales person goes in, they’re not going in cold.
A few examples:
Tag the venue in a post about your ‘favourite places for X’
DM them to let them know you had a great team night out there
DM them to make a helpful suggestion that could improve their business (e.g. “I noticed you didn’t have any craft non-alcoholic beers in the fridge. Here’s a couple of tasty ones I’ve tried, might be worth checking them out.”)
Tag them in any posts that you feel will be useful to people in the trade.
DON’T just DM venues asking them to stock your beer. It’s a real turn off.
What Sales should be doing:
Drawing up a list of target venues with whom they want to start building an online relationship.
Providing the names of managers for these venues so marketing can be more personalised with their approaches.
There’s tons more examples I could give of sales & marketing working closely together but I’m sure some of you have work to do! Hopefully you found the above useful, and it’s got your brain racing with all the ways your newly formed growth team is going to ACE your sales strategy!
As ever, I appreciate you taking the time to read and if you did enjoy it, it would be fab if you could pass it on to one other person. I’m keen to build a great community of beer sales & marketing folk so the more the merrier.
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