Beyond Wholesale: Three Ways to Boost Your Coffee Sales
Learn how innovative UK roasters are exploring new sales channels, from paid ads to the shop local movement, to grow their sales. Bonus: three ideas to diversify your offer and how to make your brand stand out online!
Paid ads to leverage your shop and your partners
Paid search advertising on search engines and even promoted pins on Google Maps are great options for roasters looking to stand out to new customers in their area.
As specialty coffee is a lifestyle product, roasters can also embrace targeted ads on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and TikTok. Rather than just promote your roastery, one option is to advertise about the shops where your coffees are available to purchase in person. This way, you also support the growth of your wholesale network.
Pick-up options for the ultra-locals
"We focussed our sales promotions on our local community and even added a safe box outside the roastery. People could place an order and swing by to collect it even if the roastery was closed. We’d simply email them a code for the safe box.”
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International partnerships to take you abroad
How to make your brand stand out online
The big challenge brought by e-commerce, multi-roaster retail distributors and breaching towards other countries is the extra competition. A diverse coffee portfolio with a few showstoppers is essential to attract new customers, as well as a strong brand and visual identity.
“Sourcing is a big part of our marketing. We tell all our customers [national or international] about our supply chain. We buy coffee in a way that supports producers, committing to contracts as far as 18 months in advance”, the roaster explains.
Three ideas to make your offering more diverse
"We went down this route as it was a good way to make one of our most popular coffees from Peru more accessible to a wider market", Dan explains. "It's the third year we've sourced this coffee directly from this co-operative, so it's nice to be able to increase volumes by increasing the demand for it."
The alignment between new products and business values also played a role for 80 Stone, who chose to partner with a local brewery to launch a collab coffee porter using a lot roasted by them. “This fits with our ‘buy local’ ideals as it brings together two local businesses with a product that can be on the shelves of nearby shops”, Simone explains.
This article was written by Emma Haines, the founder of UK-based Caffeina Consulting. For the last ten years, Emma has focused on specialty coffee training and how to incorporate specialty elements into commercial environments. She is a resident trainer at the London School of Coffee and part of the SCA Equity, Diversity & Inclusivity Taskforce. Access to education, especially in producing countries is a driver in her career. Emma has experience with the supply chain and a focus on sustainability and gender equity. As a coffee professional, she strives to drive change through education, whether working with a client to oversee a new café start-up or supporting producers with access to a new market.