How Can Non Alcoholic Craft Beer Marketing Approach Safety?
Non alcoholic craft beer marketing has done a bang up job of promoting health and wellness. Ironically, a major barrier to its growth is in the lack of alcohol itself!
With alcohol one of nature’s preservatives, its absence encourages higher growth of harmful bacteria. A recent Cornell study found foodborne pathogens, such as e coli and salmonella, have an easier time replicating in non alcoholic beer kegs or during the manufacturing process.
When 26% of customers today are actively concerned about foodborne illness, non alcoholic beer brands – or alcohol brands looking to expand – have a golden opportunity to build trust. Since the non alcoholic beer niche is rapidly gaining steam, food safety is not an area you want to overlook in your marketing strategy.
A proactive approach to your safety measures is a must-have if you want to earn long-time customers (or keep them from jumping ship). I want the non alcoholic craft beer niche to thrive, so I’ll share some industry analysis and tips for your content marketing.
The Safety Issues Faced By Non Alcoholic Craft Beer
Whether you’re a craft brewer or work in beer packaging, you already know how alcohol makes drinks a little safer (but not pathogen-free, of course). The question lies in how you can effectively communicate the added safety measures of your non alcoholic craft beer process.
You want to be educational to your craft beer audience, but not too scary. Accurately scientific, but not too hard to understand.
Some of the most common hazards faced in canned goods are botulism, e coli, salmonella, and listeria. The good news? Your customers are not only familiar with some of these terms, at least 15% of them are actively interested in a brand’s behind-the-scenes.
They’ll definitely want to know what you’re doing to make sure their drinks are as safe as possible.
The bad news? Effective content marketing around safety is a delicate balancing act that can become too jargon-y or too nerve-wracking if you’re not careful. With non alcoholic craft beer facing potential pathogens in every stage – brewing, packaging, pouring – your content marketing should be just as diverse as your food safety measures.
5 Ways Non Alcoholic Craft Beer Marketing Can Promote Safety
When at least 70% of Internet users will ignore paid ads in favor of organic results, craft beer marketing has a prime opportunity to educate people with their favorite marketing method: organic content.
Let’s spin some ideas on approaching safety in non alcoholic craft beer marketing.
Avoid Overpromising and State the Facts
Several class action lawsuits have cropped up in the alcohol industry, such as Sunny D Vodka Seltzer falsely claiming their product has no sugar. Customers are shrewd and will happily hold your business to task if you overpromise or falsify your drinks.
Basically, don’t overpromise that your non alcoholic craft beer has absolutely no safety risk (all food and beverage items carry a safety risk). Instead, focus on all the advanced and reliable ways you mitigate that risk to keep your drinks as tasty – and safe – as possible.
Simply stating the facts may not have the punch of grander promises, but you’ll avoid a legal shitshow or ruining your customers’ trust. You can still nurture trust with your non alcoholic craft beer marketing in other ways, such as:
Insightful testimonials on why your customers made the switch to non alcoholic beer
Engaging video ads that tell emotional, funny, or touching stories
Transparent information on your organic ingredients or organic certification
2. Skip Jargon and Keep Safety Info Accessible
While e coli and salmonella are well-known foodborne illnesses, the average person isn’t going to be familiar with terms like reverse osmosis or hot fill pasteurization. Whittling this jargon down into straightforward information is how you meet customers where they are.
A smart way to do this in your non alcoholic craft beer marketing is by connecting the dots for your audience. For example, in a guide on creating clean water for brewing beer, you can try explaining reverse osmosis as the same technology that keeps their tap water drinkable. Everyday examples bridge the gap when terminology gets too scientific or confusing.
A few more down-to-earth ideas you can try for your campaign are:
Introduce a safety measure with a fun fact (like brewers originally putting extra hops into India Pale Ales not for flavor, but to slow down their spoilage on ships)
Use catchy, succinct headlines to make complex safety measures feel more casual
Get drinkers excited with innovative new technology or updates on brewing equipment
Craft beer marketing doesn’t have quite the same level of jargon overload as wine or coffee, but it’s pretty close. Better safe than sorry when customers’ good faith is on the line, right?
3. Sprinkle Safety Measures Throughout Your Content Marketing
Content marketing plays the long game, hence why it’s so dependable as a marketing tool. When a beer brand’s reputation can be tarnished overnight by just one food safety flub, it’s worth taking the time to build this sturdy foundation.
Maintaining an active blog with a regular flow of helpful guides or well-sourced studies is a reliable way to build trust here. A customer study by Conductor found 48% of customers are more likely to buy from a brand a week later after reading their educational content.
A few ideas you can try for your non alcoholic craft beer marketing calendar are:
A short blog post about a safety certificate and what that means for their purchase
A 30-second video breaking down food safety trends and how you’re addressing them
A social media post celebrating the organic packaging brand you’re using and why they’re safe for consumption
Non alcoholic beer drinkers want to know they’re not buying a brand with a high risk of getting them sick. If you’re not addressing their concerns, they’ll find a brand that does.
4. Longform Resources Are Extra Helpful for Skeptical Customers
A brisk blog post or bite-sized social media video is great for answering a quick question or encouraging dialogue. However, a longform, dedicated resource is ideal for non alcoholic beer drinkers who have way more than one question.
While shortform content reigns supreme these days, longform content is far from dead – a Backlinko study found longform content getting 77.2% more clicks on average than shortform. What does this mean for non alcoholic craft beer marketing?
A longer guide, detailed infographic, or longform explanation video dedicated to non alcoholic craft beer safety shows an incredible level of care. It’s also a reference buyers (or potential buyers) know they can turn to time and again.
This resource also saves you time in two major ways. One, it’s easy to update your hefty resource on a rolling basis as new regulations or certifications enter the fold. You can simply add new sections for recent certifications or a quick analysis on a relevant news story. No need to write a new piece of content.
Likewise, these long resources are easy to repackage and reuse. Your craft beer marketing campaign could:
Take a few compelling snippets and turn them into a slide post
Grab a key statistic and turn it into a single image post
Turn a behind-the-scenes brewing process into an informative blog post
5. Give Safety Certifications Time to Shine
Organic and sustainability certifications are popular in the alcohol niche, but safety certifications deserve just as much love, right? At least 75% of respondents to a McKinsey survey said food safety and hygiene are extremely important, so they want to know!
For example, let’s say you’re working with a sustainable packaging brand that uses dependable and compostable materials. They’ve earned the LDPE certification for using safe materials in craft beer packaging, such as can rings. Bringing this up on social media or in a list-style blog post is one way of showing off that safety to site visitors.
Another example could be your business obtaining the SQF (or Safe Quality Food) certificate. While the average customer won’t know what this acronym means, you can go out of your way to plug it in a video or a post.
A brief explanation on why these certificates matter – and the hard work you put in to obtain it – could quell concerns about your beverages’ safety.
Non Alcoholic Craft Beer Marketing Has a Well of Opportunity to Build Trust
Marketing does best with a proactive and reactive approach. Non alcoholic craft beer marketing is no different – with the niche growing at a lightning fast rate, now is the best time to think about your food safety marketing.
If a customer is worried that trying your drinks could give them a higher-than-average risk of foodborne illness, you have the chance to build trust. If a customer sees a gross news story about a beer brand with a badly behaving employee (see section 3), a proactive marketing strategy could protect the benefit of the doubt.
Non alcoholic craft beer is one of my absolute favorite drinks. I want to help make sure your products create that same joy for future drinkers.
I’m a business writer and marketing strategist in the coffee, tea, and alcohol niches. If you need some work taken off your plate as you try to clinch sales or generate leads, contact me anytime.
Photomanipulations done primarily with original photography with the exception of free stock photos of flowers from Unsplash.
