Marketing Report Automated Home Brewing Machine and Supplies Executive Summary My goal with this product is to obtain at least $500K in sales per year within 2 years of today. The major market is home brewers who want a self-contained solution that removes the barriers associated with producing many small high- quality batches simultaneously. The major competitors are current automated brewing products, manual brewing products, in-home bar setups, craft beer keg purchases, and other craft beer purchases.
The PEST analysis shows some potential political/legal barriers associated with alcohol regulation, some economic barriers, nd some minor social and technological barriers. For the marketing strategy, I want to primarily pursue distributors. Customer Analysis Home brewers tend to be middle class and up in terms of disposable income, but I am aiming for the top-end of that segment. My goal is to make a brewing platform that will be simple enough to appeal to the craft beer enthusiast, while maintaining the customizability demanded by advanced home brewers.
The advanced brewers will be our early adopters and the core source of feedback on the technical operation of the system, and the early majority will be casual brewers, who can be the main ource of feedback on improving the mass appeal of this system. All target consumers have a relatively large amount of disposable capital, and may be retired or close to retirement (retired engineers like to brew). Competitor Analysis There are several automated home brewing systems: BeerMachine ($135): The BeerMachine is going after the Easy-Bake Oven segment of the brewing market – Same complexity of the system, and same quality of the resulting product.
My target customers want a system that can many varieties of high-quality beer from high-quality ingredients, and do so with an intuitive set of ontrols. I will work hard to make sure that my product will not be misconstrued as competing with the BeerMachine. MoreBeer Brew Sculpture ($1 500 to $3100): The Brew Sculptures were part of the inspiration for my product. In the software world, they are the Linux to my Mac OS. The Brew Sculptures are solidly built, and they brew the absolute highest quality beer.
However, the target customer of MoreBeer Brew Sculptures is those who are already intimately familiar with the brewing process and are not opposed to delving deep into the inner-workings of their recipe and process. MoreBeer wanted to build a system that will lure home brewers away from their manual brewing equipment, while my goal is to lure casual beer enthusiasts into the world of home brewing. In-Home Draft Beer Equipment (Kegerators) : The casual beer enthusiast might plan on entertaining with their own beer draft system (aka. Kegerator).
They can choose a DIY conversion kit for $199 to convert an old minifridge into a Kegerator, or they might be on the market to buy a Political and Legal Environment: Because we are not producing beer, there is a great deal less regulation than one might expect for a brewing company. Home brewers are prohibited from selling their beer, but in most states they can brew up to 100 gallons per year. Alabama appears to be the only state with a law against the home production of alcoholic beverages that does not include an exemption for brewing of beer.
There are no significant barriers in the patent space that would restrict this product. Economic Environment: As a luxury product, the economic environment will play a large factor, although it is difficult to predict this impact and there is little we can do to prevent it affecting sales. Social and Cultural Environment: Home brewing s a classic American hobby, although there are some stigma associated with it due to ignorance on the topic. My parents tried to prevent me from home brewing, although they could not decide if it was because I would become an alcoholic, get a yeast infection, or go blind.
The truth is that homebrewed beer will not make a person go blind – that comes from improperly distilled hard liquor. Hard liquor brewers use a similar brewing method, but with different strains of yeast that will produce more methanol, and, if improperly distilled, that methanol can get highly concentrated in he end product and end up damaging your optic nerves. Commercial brewing operations that do not perform distillation do not perform any process to prevent the production of methanol because it is not a significant issue for them.
Any infectious bacteria or yeast in the beer may cause diarrhea or food poisoning. However, if an infection occurs during the brewing process, the beer taste will be sorely affected. A home brewer’s rule of thumb is if it tastes like beer, it’s safe to drink because then the intended yeast strain must have dominated and generated enough alcohol to revent infection from other organisms. Technological Environment: As stated in the Legal section, there are no significant barriers due to patents.
Also, the Brew Sculptures are a good example of the quality of system I hope to produce, so they demonstrate a good starting point for the inner-workings of the system. From there, most of the technology added will be focused on making the system as easy to use as possible. Market Segmentation: I would like ??”20% of the eventual market to be composed of experienced brewers who want to upgrade their operation, and 80% to be new ustomers who want great beer but maybe discarded home brewing because it was not simple enough to accomplish.
Marketing Strategies: I want to start by marketing to the highest-income experienced home brewers, then quickly expand out to mass consumers. I want my product to eventually fit into the kegerator market, being marketed alongside home draft beer equipment as a replacement for store-bought beer kegs. I would approach Kegworks as a retailer, as well as look for distributors that would sell to brick-and-mortar retailers of home draft beer equipment.
