BMTC19: Value in Partnerships

Marketing II: Value in Partnerships – Audra Gaiziunas, Brewed for Her Ledger: This session is for both brewery tour operators and brewery marketers/taproom managers. Audra, with her extensive experience as a brewery consultant and past work with Dogfish Head and Mother Earth Brewing, will discuss how these two industries can create a powerful partnership. Specifically, tour operators will learn how to pitch breweries, and breweries will learn how to track and measure business growth as a result from brewery tours.

Transcript

1. Value in Partnerships: Breweries and Tour Operators Presented by: Audra Gaiziunas Owner - Brewed For Her Ledger, LLC CEO - Bhramari Brewing Company March 27, 2019
2. Our Collective Role: Customer Experience • To expand the reach of our local companies to visitors from other communities so they can serve as our spokespeople in new markets. • Differentiation is our key to success. • We exist in the experience economy; orchestrate memorable events for customers so that the memory itself becomes the product. • Charge for the value of the transformation an experience offers. • Customer service versus customer experience; shift from customer focused to customer centric
3. Customer Experience: The Differentiator • A journey over time. • A collective of the brand touchpoints the customer interacts with. • The environments the customer experiences, including digital. • Implies customer involvement at various levels: rational, emotional, sensorial, physical, spiritual. • Involves every aspect of a company’s offering: quality of customer care, advertising, packaging, flavors, interaction. • Can modify touchpoints to suit consumers to enhance their experience; proven to increase brand loyalty and brand recognition. • Experience must match or exceed expectations.
4. Tour Operators: Feel the Force • Customer experiences variety of beers while exploring a region’s history and culture • Liability: no driving • Behind the scenes opportunities • Meet other beer tourists • Connect beer tourists to other locally crafted goods, boutique hotels, restaurants • Gives time back to head brewer taken away by retelling history of beer making, cultural and natural history • Offers a sense of place • Creates direct relationship in a place where customers buy • Creates indirect relationship through recommendations and others repping the brand/company • One less marketing employee to hire.
5. In the Operators’ Own Words • “I believe that a professional tour operator can function as a mini-marketing department for brewery partners. A good tour operator should know the history of the breweries they visit, should be able to describe each brewery's beers to customers in a way that makes them seem enticing and should make the tour's participants feel excited to be there.” • “In a tourist town, my tours are walking showcases of our local beer scene. I bring in people from out of town, talk up the breweries we visit and sample out their beers. The goal is that those visitors want to come back to the brewery for another pint while they're in town, or take home a six pack, or at the very least go home and tell their friends about the great breweries they visited on my tour. That being said, the wrong tour partner can have the opposite effect. Keeping an eye and ear on tours visiting your brewery is a good idea. Misinformation or inappropriate tour guides can leave a different impression.” • “I make sure that all of my guides know the background stories of each of the breweries we visit, where customers can find their beers after the tour (distribution, etc) and how to talk up the flavors and aromas in each. By requiring every one of my guides be a Certified Cicerone, I feel confident that they can talk about beer in an approachable and informative way. I am also careful to monitor my guests' consumption on my tours. I want everyone to have a good time and feel that they got their money's worth, but I spent too many years in the bar business to let someone get trashed on my watch. I would never want to seem like a possible liability to my brewery partners. I've heard horror stories of tours pulling up, dumping dozens of drunk people at the brewery, and allowing them to yell and vomit on the floor before picking them up and taking them to the next one. That sort of partnership isn't benefiting the brewery. Those patrons will barely remember where they were, and could put the brewery in jeopardy for over- service. Even though they came with me, legally the brewery is serving them. I have to respect that, and I have definitely cut my customers off before. Also, I work extra hard to make sure that FOH staff is happy to see one of my tours come through. This means being considerate of the bartender's time, cleaning up after ourselves before we leave and tipping well. I understand that my business wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the breweries who allow me to bring in groups. Those relationships are absolutely essential and first priority.”
6. Numbers Tell a Story • Surveyed 150 self-proclaimed beer tourists • 28% have gone on an organized brewery tour (versus by themselves) • 79% have returned to a brewery based on a positive brewery tour experience • Measuring impact • Marketing employee: $40,000 • $50/tour of 4 breweries ($12.50 each) • $5 per person goes to brewery to pay for beer, time • 40 people/week = $200 x 52 weeks = $10,400 • 80 people/week, $10/head for 3 tapas/4 5oz samples, 8 months/year and 35 people/week, 4 months/year= $31,200 + $4,550=$35,750 • Brewery paid 0….still 2080 people direct contact
7. Tracking Growth at the Brewery • Token given at end of tour valid at participating breweries • Collected in box by register and counted monthly (weekly in summer) • Separate line item (revenue and COGS) on the income statement • POS level: revenue for pint, token accepted as form of payment (like a gift certificate) • Pull report of guests paying with token to analyze additional beers purchased: averages 1.2 additional; for one brewery that equated to $8,676 at year 1, $11,417 at year 2. • Taproom maintains gross margin 85%; distro 65%
8. Partnership Best Practices • Meet annually to review agreement to ensure fairness, equity, brainstorm ways to enhance experience authentically • Meet with Chamber, restaurant association, EDC for possible cost sharing • Government grants, co-op marketing dollars, sponsor printing of maps or co-branded swag tied to the city • Startup • Cover costs of beer, swag, promo • Established • Include costs as part of marketing budget • Offer experience through tour customer can’t get elsewhere to elevate, surprise
9. Pursuit of the Customer Experience (CX) • American Express (2016): 60% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience • Investing in CX leads to 70% revenue increase within 36 months; loyalty is the goal • Reachability, service convenience, purchase convenience, personalization, simplicity, channel flexibility
10. Transforming to Customer Centric vs. Customer Focused • Think like your customer. • Deal with needs rather than wants. • Provide solutions, not just beer and customer service. • Focus on customer lifetime value.
11. Customer Experience Roadmap • Create a clear customer service vision. • Understand who your customers are. • Create an emotional connection with your customers, and you will outperform others by up to 85% in sales growth. • Capture customer feedback in real time. • Use a quality framework for developing your team. • Act upon regular employee feedback. • Measure the ROI from delivering superior customer experiences.