With off-prem being an area of focus for 2 Towns Ciderhouse well before the dramatic shifts in the cider industry due to the current pandemic, Scott Bugni says that the Oregon-based cidery has not switched too much in terms of marketing.
“[We are] just shifting some of our focus to double down on those off-prem strategies which became a higher priority due to shutdowns in on-prem,” he said. ”We worked hard to maintain or evolve existing product releases and programs rather than placing everything on pause and waiting for things to go back to normal.”
As 2 Towns got used to a new strategy with a local delivery program, it slowly expanded territory coverage for that program further out across the state as a way to expand its ’home base.’
”In a more general sense, we have always worked to connect with our fans outside our ’home base’ by treating them as a distinctly different audience than our home base fans and prioritizing messaging that is relevant to them while doing our best to target the ’home base’ message to that crowd,” Bungi, the cidery’s Marketing Director said. ”It takes some extra effort to segment those audiences and develop unique messaging for them, but it really is essential to building those relationships in a meaningful way.”
Pennsylvania had closed its state liquor stores for the whole of the pandemic thus far, so what off-premises accounts Ploughman Cider has worked with have been getting great pull through, noted Ben Wenk.
“As Pennsylvanians can’t access wine through conventional means, we are finding cider to be a great alternative offered in distributors and six-pack shops while state stores are closed,” he said.
Stowe Cider set up and started rolling with an online platform that has allowed the Vermont cidery to ship cider directly to consumers in states it had not yet distributed to before.
Digital Marketing Coordinator Madison Hayes points out it allowed consumers in 38 states to have the ability to try limited-release ciders which, traditionally, have been taproom only products.
Photo courtesy Stowe Cider Instagram
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