5 Ways to Sell Your Beer Online

So, you have a website for your brewery. You’ve set up an e-commerce store. Now how do you get people to visit your website and make a purchase so they can taste the fruits of your labour? There are a bunch of things you can do to increase traffic to your site that will help with online sales of your craft beer. 

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - i.e. making your site more appealing to search engines (Google) - may seem like a daunting task. But worry not, there are a few things you can do to quickly improve your search ranking, like including important keywords in your website content and the alt text of your photos. Even though it may take some work, improving your SEO is a guaranteed way to increase traffic to your online store. 

2. Google Ads

To take your search engine marketing to the next level, you can purchase ads through Google to make your website appear as a first result when customers search for certain keywords, such as “ontario craft brewery”. Where SEO is a long-term solution, Google Ads are a short-term way to increase traffic to your online store by reaching new customers. They can be effective at getting the word out about new product launches or seasonal promotions. 

3. Social Media

It’s a good idea to use your social media channels to regularly drive traffic to your website and to remind your followers that they can purchase your beer online. Social media ad campaigns and boosted posts are crucial to success on social platforms. Facebook and Instagram have tons of demographic and psychographic targeting options to make sure your ad reaches the right audience (beer lovers!). You can include a direct link to your online store in these ads, so customers can purchase your beer right away.  

4. Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing involves collaborations with “influencers” on social media, a.k.a. people who have built a strong following of people that trust their recommendations. They can direct their followers to your website to purchase your beer. You can also use personalized tracking codes to measure how many sales you make from each influencer. Incorporating influencers into your marketing plan is very popular right now. Click here to check out our full blog post on craft beer and influencer marketing - a pitcher perfect combination! 

5. Email Marketing

Email Marketing is an effective way to directly reach your target audience and convert them to paying customers. Marketing emails should offer your customer something of value, be visually appealing, and have clear links to your online store. You can also send follow-up emails to customers who have abandoned their cart or looked at a specific product on your website without purchasing, to try and recapture the sale. Strong marketing emails lead to customers clicking through to your website, which means more sales for you. 

Note: I wrote this post for Craft Funnels, a division of Open Door Media, while I was an intern there. See the original post here.