Come one, microroasters and roaster-cafes, come all: now is the best time to improve your coffee marketing strategy. Your buyers have the pick of the litter, after all, and every little effort goes a long way in pushing back against the trust issues littering the coffee industry.
There are more than a few transparency problems in coffee, from inaccurate green packaging to frustrated farmers. Roasters have their work cut out for them managing single-source coffee, keeping up with certifications and appealing to their own unique slice of the market. That’s all well before we get into good, old-fashioned public relations. Customers want to know the bag of Arabica coffee they’re getting comes from somewhere they can see. Somewhere they can practically touch, albeit through the polished image of a persistent vlog and blog campaign.
When you don’t line up actions with words? It will plant a seed that will grow out of your control.
Content marketing is how you cultivate an ongoing image among all who look your way. Email marketing, in particular, is one of the most affordable and effective methods of building trust — it boasts an average of $38 for every $1 spent and is used by over 90% of B2B marketers today. Email is a constant reminder that your roasting technique isn’t like anyone else’s. It’s more one-on-one than social media, while not as noisy as banners or autoplay videos. The email newsletter reaches through the gleaming business veneer to engage prospects — and repeat buyers — on a personal level.
Here I’ll be taking a look at email marketing strategies that are designed to weave through the trust and transparency issues plaguing the coffee industry, as well as a few ideas you can try out immediately. With a few tweaks to your content marketing strategy you can create more consistent feedback with your prospects, retain long-term interest and figure out what’s working behind-the-scenes. Keywords will be bolded to keep things simple (the foundation of a strong newsletter, by the by).
Let’s get started.
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