Given the lack of revenue coming in from things like private events, large taproom events, and such, Topa Topa has been forced to get creative to engage with its customers.
“For us, long term, nothing will ever replace the experience folks get when they visit one of our taprooms and engage with our staff,” said co-founder Jack Dyer.
The California-based brewery has a network of five taprooms and Dyer said they always rely on face-to-face interactions to help build and reinforce the brewery’s brand message, even during the pandemic.
That means a different look for Topa Topa right now and Dyer said they have discussed new ways to make those connections.
“We’ve never been a big believer in email lists,” he said. “It just seems to become SPAM.”
Instead, Topa Topa tries to use its newsletter as more of a “deeper dive” into the brand, company, and the people behind the scenes rather than as a hook to sell something.
“We tend to entice folks to buy or visit periodically on social media, but avoid always throwing hooks out there, as that can get spammy and feel inauthentic,” Dyer explained. “We tend to lean towards a jab, jab, jab, hook strategy on social.”
A newer form of communication to current fans is ramping up now as Dyer said they have started to discuss a text campaigns.
“I think it could be intriguing, especially for direct to consumer shipping and/or new merchandise,” he said.
Although upended for a time, Topa Topa found a way to flourish and still needed to hire. There were some furloughs due to the taprooms switching to to-go only for a while and payroll dropped around 35% during that time, but a need for new employees has materialized, which has made things challenging.
“We found ways to engage new team members virtually and get them trained up on our beers and brands quickly,” Dyer said. “On the operations side, we quickly shifted most of our volume into cans, since draft is either completely gone or a shadow of its former self.
”Cans were the call and this caused some changes to our production planning, scheduling, procurement.”
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