Forget pubs and pints, people have been staying at home this year when it comes to consuming alcohol!

According to recent trends, home consuming has been on the rise, especially when pubs are closing and Coronavirus is on the rise.

In fact, this trend has been growing for years.

It’s now more important than ever for online alcohol brands to adapt their marketing to fit around this movement.

In this short guide, we’ll show you how to target the trend in your online marketing and SEO to attract this new “stay-at-home drinker”.

 

Pouring Out the Guides

The easiest way you could target this trend is through guides and content.

After all, content marketing is one of the best ways to boost your organic visibility, target untapped keywords, and improve the content depth of the categories you care about.

Now…

You could go as far creating specific products aimed at the stay-at-home movement. The only problem here is time (as well as cost depending on the leverage you have behind the company).

For this reason, focusing on adding quality, targeted content is the most efficient way alcohol brands can jump into this rising market.

Let’s start by exploring how you’ll craft this content in the first place.

 

Discovering the Hidden Topics

Discovering the topics that line this industry should be your first step.

Of course, this is where some people fall flat on their faces. What on earth do you start writing about?

Here are a few ways to kickstart the process…

 

Competitive Analysis

The first thing you need to be looking at is the competition.

Have they jumped on the trend? Do they have existing content that talks about home consumption? These questions need to be answered first.

From a quick browse of some of the largest competitors in the alcohol space, the home consumption guides are looking a little scarce.  To be honest, the blogs on some of the biggest sites aren’t looking too great anyway. But that’s an article for another time…

Nonetheless, it is still important to see whether your competitors are harbouring any hidden content you could steal and improve on. It’s an easy move to make.

 

The Lack of Competitive Content is a Good Thing

We’ve not seen a lot of competitors on generic terms like “how to make a long island ice tea”. The common results include publications and sites related to making drinks.

Why is this a good thing?

It means no one in the alcohol brand space is actually succeeding in the home consumption and home brewing market.

In this respect, if you were to put a lot of focus and time into creating a fantastic piece of content surrounding a home consumption topic, you could be the first brand to appear on the first page.

Being the first starter is always a good strategy.

The only real brand I’ve seen doing home-related content well is Beer Hawk.  They actually rank pretty well for home brewing terms…

 

Publications

Now, this is where things start to get interesting.

There are way more publications that write about home consumption-type topics and some of them do very well.  More importantly, they are sites we can steal from and repurpose content.

Publications like Art of Manliness are excellent examples of sites that produce great content on this subject.  Check out this home bar guide:

This is exactly the type of content we want to be identifying.

This post has over 60 RDs and ranks for over 900 keywords.

If you had a similar post performing the same on your site, how would that impact your authority?

As well as topics related to home bars, there are also meal pairings pieces that do very well.

Check out this one from Taste of Home:

 

If anyone is trying to spruce up their mealtimes or is trying to impress a significant other/guests, this guide could be a lifesaver.  The guide also has 26 RDs. Not bad at all.

As you can see, looking at publications and identifying how they’re using home consumption topics to attract an audience can be a fruitful strategy.

From the topics you find, you can splinter them out and create even more topics from them. Particularly with meal pairing.

Something like meal pairing could also be used to sell products. Shoppable content could be added easily to this kind of content.

 

Direct from the Keywords

Another quick way to get great content ideas for home consumption content is through keyword analysis. As this is a growing trend and one that spiked in lockdown, there should be a few keywords available.

On home bars, there are a ton of keywords and questions you could write content for.

For example, one of the first questions that arises from the keyword ‘home bar’ is “how to build a home bar on a budget”.

This question receives 100 searches a month and is probably being searched by your dream customers. As Ahrefs (the keyword research tool we use) underpredicts keyword volume, so you can expect to get more from this keyword when you finally rank for it.

Other questions include “how to build a home bar easy” and “what every home bar needs”.

The last one, specifically, has potential to start including shoppable products. This is where this kind of content can start to get lucrative, helping your site profit.

 

Spicing Up Your Content

Once you have the ideas and have written the content, there are a number of ways you boost it so it’s as effective as can be.

This includes adding shoppable products, effective internal linking, and other cool stuff you can do to make your content go that much further.

By using a few of the techniques below, you can boost profits and generate leads with ease.

 

Shoppable Content

You may have noticed we mentioned shoppable content a fair bit in the above content. It is something we advocate heavily and it’s an effective way to push people from passive viewer to active buyer.

Placing options for readers to purchase the products you mention in your content is a good way to guide intention. Especially if you’ve referred to the product as tangible to the solution to a problem.

Shoppable content can be added through physical product images and links on the side bar or in the content, or it can be included through well-placed internal links.

Here’s an example taken from our own client Schoffel:

 

Content Upgrades

It may be the case you’ll be looking to generate leads as a result of this home consumption content. In this case, opting for a lead generating feature in your content could be a good path to take.

Content upgrades are one of those features. They can be used as a means to both generate leads and build rapport with your audience by offering a free piece of value.

This could be in the form of a free PDF, cheat sheet, or even a free product (like a cocktail shaker, for example).

An interesting one that gained a lot of tracking in the online marketing space recently was challenges. How could you use challenges to build rapport with your readers and generate leads?

Maybe have a home brewing challenge? Or a cocktail making challenge? You could even get your audience to send in their best attempt at making a cocktail via video.

Be creative and look outside of your industry to see what could work with the home consumption market. They’ll be an idea that works for you and your brand.

 

Internal Linking for Big Results

We’ve written a big guide on internal linking already.

But as a quick note, internal linking is an incredible way to boost the impact your content. In particular, it’s a great way to transfer internal page rank to your priority pages.

When you’re writing your content, make sure you’re adding strong contextual links to the main categories on your site. This will help them rank in a number of ways:

  • It’ll pass relevant link juice
  • It’ll add depth to the category and provide more context on how Google should perceive the site

Make sure the keyword you want to rank for the category for is in the anchor text and place the link higher on the page, giving it more weight.

Don’t go overboard though. Poking too many internal links in your content can have a negative effect. Optimise them for priority pages.

 

That’s All Folks

If you’re an alcohol brand looking to jump on the home consumption trend, this guide should point you in the right direction.

It could be way to boost sales and offer value to an audience that is currently being deprived of pubs and clubs given the current economic climate.

If you want us to manufacture a similar campaign for you or you fancy a quick chinwag about this trend, give us a call on 0800 122 3530.