Storytime

business

By James Furbush

Storytime

How to build a content marketing program

Recently, I delivered a presentation on building a content marketing program from scratch at Lord Hobo Brewing. I had minimal resources and practically no budget. My presentation leaned to the practical side. Essentially, I walked through why content is an important aspect of marketing, especially in today's ever-noisy environment.

But content is only one puzzle piece. It shouldn't be your only marketing strategy, but it is important. So, how do you get started when you don't know where or how to begin? There are five steps to consider: discovery, ramp up, distribution, ideation (or brainstorming) and measurement.

Let's take a look at each:

Discovery

I had a lot of great ideas when I started at Lord Hobo Brewing. I sat down with the sales team. I talked with our distribution partners. I visited our retail partners.

Ultimately, a few threads began to emerge from those conversations: a lack of communication with distribution partners and retailers, a need to show our best accounts more love, need for database and CRM system for tracking and nurturing our customers or prospects.

Overall, we needed to sell more beer and our sales teams didn't feel like they were getting enough marketing support.

Early on, I implemented a monthly handwritten note campaign. Every month, the LHBCo sales team provided five key accounts for a semi-personalized thank you note from our CEO, targeting 50-60 key account per month.

We treated it like a direct mail campaign. Each note contained a CTA to email the CEO if the account needed anything from us. Sometimes we asked for direct feedback on our beer. We set up a dummy email account for our CEO with replies that came into my inbox. We had a 10-12 percent response rate.

14 CRAFT BRAND AND MARKETING NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 CBAM-MAG.COM