Look, I’ve spent a lot of time in breweries and wineries across South East Queensland.
Most of the time, I’m there for a cold schooner or a decent Shiraz. But because I can’t help myself, I’m usually looking at the marketing, too.
And honestly? A lot of it is rubbish.
I see owners spending thousands on professional photographers to take 'moody' shots of barrels. I see them posting three times a day on Instagram to an audience of people who already live 500km away.
It looks nice, but it doesn't pay the bills.
If you want to actually make money, you need to stop thinking like an artist and start thinking like a local business owner. You need to get bums on seats and bottles in boxes.
Here is how we actually do that for our clients without the fluff.
The 'Pretty Picture' Trap
Every brewery owner I meet is obsessed with their grid.
"Look at this shot of the sunset over the hops!" they say.
Great. It got 100 likes. How many of those people walked in on Saturday afternoon and bought a paddle? Probably zero.
Social media is a tool, not a trophy cabinet. If your posts aren't giving people a reason to drive to your cellar door right now, you’re just making art for free.
We’ve seen businesses transform just by shifting their focus from 'looking cool' to 'being useful'. Tell people about the new batch. Tell them there’s a food truck coming. Tell them you’ve got the heaters on or the misting fans running.
The Power of the Inbox
If I could give you one piece of advice today, it’s this: stop relying on Mark Zuckerberg to reach your customers.
When you post on Facebook, maybe 5% of your followers see it. When you send an email, almost everyone gets it.
We had a client—a small family winery—who was struggling with quiet Thursdays. They had a decent following on Instagram but no one was showing up. We helped them start a simple email list. No fancy templates, just plain text.
Every Tuesday, they sent an email: "Hey, we’re opening a few rare museum bottles this Thursday for tastings. Only 12 spots."
It sold out every single week.
That’s why an email list beats social media for actually filling tables. It’s direct, it’s personal, and it’s free once you’ve got the names.
Google is Your Best Salesman
Think about how people find you.
They’re sitting in their house in Coorparoo or Paddington on a Saturday morning. They say, "Let's go to a brewery today."
What do they do? They go to Google Maps and type in "brewery near me".
If you aren't in the top three results there, you don't exist.
Google doesn’t care how good your beer is. It cares that your phone number is right, your hours are updated, and—most importantly—that people say nice things about you.
"A brewery with fifty 5-star reviews will always out-earn a brewery with five 5-star reviews, even if the beer is half as good. People buy the crowd, not just the craft."
— Lisa Nguyen, Digital Strategy Consultant
If you want to win locally, you need a system to get more reviews so you stay at the top of that map. It’s the closest thing to 'set and forget' marketing there is.
Events: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Events are the lifeblood of a destination business, but most people do them wrong.
They host a 'Live Music Sunday' and wonder why they didn't make a profit after paying the band and the extra staff.
Events should be used to solve a specific problem.
Is your venue dead on Wednesday nights? That’s when you do the trivia or the run club.
Are you struggling to move a specific type of stock? That’s when you do the 'Vertical Tasting' or the 'Meet the Maker' night.
We also see a lot of venues missing out on the big money: corporate groups.
If you have a space that can hold 30 people, you should be chasing local businesses for their Friday afternoon drinks or team-building days. This is how you land corporate gigs that bring in guaranteed revenue before you even open the doors.
One big corporate booking is worth fifty random walk-ins. It’s easier to manage, the spend is higher, and they usually come back every year if you don't mess it up.
Your Website Needs to Work on Phones
I shouldn't have to say this in 2024, but here we are.
If I’m in my car and I try to look up your taproom menu or book a table, and I have to 'pinch and zoom' to see the text, I’m going somewhere else.
Your website has one job: to make it easy for people to find you and spend money with you.
It needs: 1. Your address (with a link to Google Maps) 2. Your opening hours (that actually match Google) 3. A 'Book Now' button that works 4. Your current tap list or wine list
If it does those four things quickly, it’s a good site. If it has a three-minute video intro of a grape growing, it’s a bad site. Speed is everything. People are impatient.
Dealing with the 'Third Party' Problem
You might be tempted to jump on every delivery app or booking platform under the sun to get more eyes on your business.
Be careful.
For breweries that do food, these apps can be a trap. We’ve seen plenty of restaurants losing profit because they didn't do the math on the commissions.
If you’re selling a burger for $25 but the app takes $8, and it costs you $10 to make, you’re barely keeping the lights on.
Use these platforms to get discovered, sure. But your goal should always be to turn those people into direct customers who come to your venue or buy from your own website next time.
Stop Wasting Money on 'Brand Awareness'
If an agency tells you that you need to spend $2,000 a month on 'brand awareness', walk away.
Brand awareness is for Coca-Cola. You are a local business. You need 'sales awareness'.
Every dollar you spend should have a clear path back to a sale.
If you spend $500 on Facebook ads, you should be able to see that those ads drove $2,000 in bookings or $1,500 in online wine sales. If you can't see the link, stop spending the money.
Most of the time, why your winery isn't busy has nothing to do with people not knowing you exist. It’s because you haven't given them a compelling reason to visit this weekend.
The 'Local' Advantage
You have something the big liquor chains don't: a face.
People in Brisbane love supporting local. But you have to make it easy for them.
We suggest our clients focus on their immediate 10km radius first. Don't worry about selling wine to someone in Sydney if people in the next suburb don't know you do a 'Locals Night' every Tuesday.
Get the locals in. Make them feel like part of the club. They are the ones who will keep you afloat during the winter months when the tourists disappear.
How to Get Started (Without Losing Your Mind)
You don't have to do all of this at once. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, here is the order I’d do things in:
1. Fix your Google Business Profile. Get your hours right and start asking every happy customer for a review. 2. Start an email list. Put a sign-up sheet on the bar or a QR code on the tables. Offer a 'first drink on us' or a small discount to get them to join. 3. Stop the random posting. Only post on social media if it’s an offer, an event, or something that actually helps a customer (like 'we still have tables for lunch today'). 4. Target the big spenders. Look for those corporate bookings or private event hires.
Marketing isn't magic. It’s just showing up where your customers are and giving them a reason to choose you over the pub down the road.
If you want to chat about how to get more people through your doors without wasting a fortune on 'strategy sessions' that go nowhere, give us a shout.
We’re based right here in Brisbane, and we’d much rather talk about how to get better spending customers into your venue than talk about 'synergy' and 'brand pillars'.
Drop us a line at Local Marketing Group and let’s see if we can help you sell more of the good stuff.