Writing For The Beverage Industry

Pre-pandemic, craft distilleries, breweries and wineries were opening up left, right and centre. So, if you work in the beverage industry, how do you make your business stand out in a crowded market? Better yet, how do you do this on a small business budget?

Here are some ways you can set yourself up for success with your content.

Know your audience

Rather than focusing on the product, it’s important to understand the demographics of the audience you’re selling to. While there might be an abundance of breweries, wineries and distilleries across the industry, yours should speak to a unique audience.

Things to keep in mind can be:

The location of your venue – for example, if you’re in an urban location distilling whiskey, it can be great to highlight your local community or showcase local ingredients, like Starward Whisky does.
The age of your target audience – are they older and more experienced drinkers? Are you trying to introduce younger adults to your products? Or are you trying to target multiple demographics?
Your audience’s interests – do you have more traditional drinkers who might prefer to stick to classic styles such as lagers, sauvignon blanc or a basic whiskey? Or are you more interested in highlighting the more adventurous beverages like IPA varieties, natural wines, or berry flavoured gins?

Knowing your audience can help you produce content that speaks to them.

Balance expert knowledge with approachable language

If you’re trying to communicate information about a particular beverage to customers, it can be harmful to bombard them with technical jargon they may not understand.

This is where having a well-balanced tone of voice and user-friendly language can be vital. Take this example from Stone and Wood and their signature Pacific Ale.

As their beer description below shows, Stone and Wood showcases their Pacific Ale with some technical knowledge, but describe the flavour in a way everyone can understand.

This helps appeal to both craft beer lovers and those might be less familiar with beer terms.

Get smart with your content

Publishing content across various channels, whether it be socials, eDMs or blogs, can be a great way to connect with wider audiences. However, consistently creating new content can take time and money.

This is where you can get smart with your existing content, by chopping and changing it for different platforms.

Have a great ‘About us’ page and user-friendly product descriptions? Repurpose some of that content for your socials or an e-brochure. Have a few blog posts written about staff favourites and upcoming events? Put it into an eDM to send out to your subscribers.

This ensures you get the most out of your content, especially if you’re on a budget.

Bring in some external assistance to help you plan

Quite often at a winery, distillery or brewery, you may be the only one responsible for marketing and content production.

This is where bringing in someone external can help to plan your content strategy and get you going. Here at Shuttle Rocket, we’re well-suited to the task.