It hasn’t really been much of a secret. If you have spent any time considering to attend the Beer Bloggers Conference in Portland Oregon later this year in August most of us have found one glaring problem…it’s stupid expensive.
With round trip plane tickets ranging from $400-$600 a ticket, then the need for hotel stay, food, beer (duh) etc many of us are having a hard time pulling it off, and many just can’t pull it off. Unless, they find a way to make up this additional income soon.
I don’t really consider this post much of a “post”. At least not a traditional blog post. It will be a quick background story, a small bundle of ideas from a fellow beer blogger, and then it’s all about the discussion that follows in the comment section.
The discussion will be the most the important part of it all as it will allow us all to brainstorm, bounce idea’s of one another, and take action….all while helping one another along.
“Why” This Post Has Been Erected (dirty word)
About a week ago, the famous, talented and babe’o’licious beer blogger Carla Companion of The Beer Babe (known as @thebeerbabe on Twitter) shot me a private message on Twitter. Her concern was this, that without figuring out a way to pay for the trip to BBC11, she simply wouldn’t be able to swing it.
Being the person that she is, simply giving up wasn’t an option and she wanted to find a way to make it happen. She approached me asking me for any ideas or help I can swing her way. But she already had a slew of great idea’s at the ready. More of that later…
A Quick Story & Proof That It CAN Be Done. Courtesy of a Goat Lover
While I’m sure that many people made their beer blogging dreams come true last year in Boulder, Colorado…there was one person that stood out to me.
Her name? Goa…uh…I mean Tatiana Peavey. Why of FugglyBrew of course (known as @Goats_Udder on Twitter). She’s not only a prime example of how to make it happen, but a prime example of how many things in life should be approached. She went knocking on brewery doors, her place of work, local merchants, the Beer Bloggers Scholarship Fund etc.
Whatever it took to get here, she did, and as just about everyone knows, she made it to BBC10. Her hard work, cunning and creative nature paid off. She got the sponsorship and money that she needed to make it to BBC10. No one can resist a goat. Everyone knows that.
She’s an inspiring story. She proves it can be done, and if we’re lucky, and welcome her with open arms to this discussion, she’ll go into great detail about what she did, how she did it, and ultimately how she pulled it all off.
The First, But Not Last Set of Ideas…From Carla Herself
I’ll be quick here so we can all get to the discussion, and I can supply my idea’s in this very discussion below within the comments. So far, Carla has some solid idea’s and a good foundation for all of this. Here they are:
Idea A: Personal fundraising – i.e., please chip in $5 through paypal or what not – rewards?
Is this a good idea? Will I start sounding like an NPR pledge drive if I do this and turn people off?
What do you think about the following rewards if they do chip in:
- Special link or shout out on my blog
- Personal thank you note
- Spot on the back of a shirt that I’d wear at the conference
Idea B: Selling something – i.e., t-shirt, bottle opener, or something small that I could make some profit off of.
I already have a zazzle account and can design cool things, but what would people want? Something event specific? Something generically beer-y?
Idea C: Soliciting to breweries/companies directly
What I struggle with is – since I’m going so far from home – how can I make the case that it would be a worthwhile thing for them to do? (I.e., I could bring their beer too Portland, OR, but if they don’t distribute west of the Mississippi, what good does it do?)
What do you think about offering some kind of service in return for different levels of donation?
- Featured blog post/link/review about the brewery or their beer
- Brewery logo on the back of a shirt that I’d wear at the conference
- Offer to bring their beer to the night of many bottles?
And now PLEASE chime in within the comment section below. Let’s all bring up idea’s, stories, possibilities, and most importantly band together and all take action on them.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for your suggestions all.
I guess my most basic question – is what value can I offer in those helping to financially support my trip? What is the motivator/benefit to the *donors* and what can I do to motivate them? ANY thoughts welcome…
Welcome to my world. I’ve recently started trying to monetize Panel Discussions (my podcast on Comic Related), stopped providing ANY unpaid writing to publications I know to be in the black and am putting together a Cafe Press store to sell t-shirts, all in order to pay for airfare and the like so that I can cover more conventions (and, by doing so, get more paying work). Let me know what you come up with–I’ll buy something from you.
@Russ
That’s awesome!
I have a close internet marketing buddy of mine who’s been more than decently successful with panel discussions and creating online debates on various subjects. Usually political or tech related.
How successful have you found Podcasts in general to be for you? The general notion these days is that podcasting is more or less in it’s death throws.
Russ, thanks so much for the comment! Proof showing yet again, it can be done! I know many reading this post will appreciate it. Thank you!
Ilya
Ilya!!!! I love you!!!!! You’re the best!
Let me tell you, just because a local brewery doesn’t distribute to say Portland doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be represented. Last year one of my sponsors was Skyscraper Brewing Co. They also own their own distributorship, they are TINY yet they took a chance with me and I took their beer to the bottle share.
With that I wore their shirt which made it into many photos including a spot on a local news site, and I made a video of the bottle share that was shared by dozens of attendees after the event. All my event related posts had my sponsors tagged and linked at the bottom of the article. Upon my return I was able to report to the about the event and what people thought about their beer during the bottle share. The rewards?
They got to tell people about my trip and I was able to sell even more of their product through my job, people now have a new beer to look out for when they visit, and the people that were local that tasted the beer went seeking the beer at local restaurants (I even managed to get that brewery a contract with a local restaurant because of the exposure.) People don’t need to make a huge donation for just a little bit of exposure with a HUGE return.
Thank you Ilya!!!!
<3 Baaaa!!!
I love you too! I’m the best? So my mother was right?!?!
That’s an excellent point to make Tatiana, just because a brewery doesn’t sell their beers within the area means little to any smart business minded brewery (which I know can be rather hard to find, but still). Pitch it to them in a different way. From a business, marketing and PR perspective it’s not all about the customers that you can immediately attain in your own backyard.
They can expand their horizons, reach the eyes of more people, possibly find a new way to distribute, get some new media attention they didn’t have before that can lead to more opportunity, or hell…even reach more local eyes that are visiting these events that wouldn’t have seen them previously. I think Tatiana is spot on with this…just because they don’t ship their beer to Portland, should mean very little, and if they’re not a very business minded brewery..well then..that’s a different story.
I think Tatiana that your last paragraph here is the most telling of them all. Have the foresight to understand that it’s not just about how many people will be at the event and seeing a bottle a t-shirt. Paint a picture to a brewery about where something might lead. Make them feel that if they don’t see past the gas station next door they’re short sighted and are lacking vision for growth.
P.S. Carla, you’re a designer…you can probably develop some very nifty creatives!
And no Tatiana, THANK YOU for coming around to the post, sharing and helping everyone with your experience and insight. I think I speak for everyone when I say I REALLY truly appreciate it all!
Ilya
Great post! Tatiana I think that is awesome that your local brewery helped you out. I think it’s a big deal when Breweries try many different ways of getting their name out and sending you to the conference is definitely a great way to spread word. I lie close to Carla so I am hoping we finally meet at the conference if not at the local bar near me as she belts out her famous karaoke
.
@Brian
You know it wouldn’t hurt for you and Carla to maybe get together over a couple beers and hash some idea’s out. Perhaps together as a team , you could attract more sponsors, offers, funding etc. Thoughts?
As for breweries figuring out new ways etc…I’ve been saying it from my very postings…many craft breweries need to start behaving more like a businesses, and I think we’re starting to see that a bit more than before. Kudos to them!
Ilya
Ilya & Fellow Beer Bloggers,
I’m registered for #BBC11. I just checked air rates (~$450) and two nights at the motel (~$300). I have cleared time off from work. The prices add up quick! Hopefully things will work out, but the wife is asking when this blogging hobby will start to pay it’s way. It should be interesting to see what others have to say on the subject.
Cheers!
Dale
Dale Miskimins recently posted..American Craft Beer Week 2011
@Dale
Ah yes….the now almost famous question of “when the hell will my blogging pay off financially.”
It’s been asked so many times, and no one really has an answer or a solution. Which is a shame, because it can be done. I won’t go as far as saying it’s so easy that a Miller Light lover could do it, but it’s not “only for the select few” hard. You’ll have to work hard, and you need to be smart…and I have yet to personally meet another beer blogger that doesn’t possess those traits.
So Dale…flying is $450, and hotel is $300. That brings us to a total of $750. If you stop and really think about it, it’s not a lot of money. At all. So how would you start to approach the challenge…and not pay out of pocket?
Ilya
I have to be honest, when I found the convention was going to be in Portland, I just wrote off the idea of being able to go. The ideas about getting some type of sponsorship are all well and good (and Carla is better connected than most of us beer bloggers, so they may well work for her), but if I tried to pitch any of those ideas to any of the breweries with whom I have a relationship… well, let’s just say I’d have less of a relationship with them afterward.
@ Russ, I’d be interested to hear how CafePress goes for you; I know the margins for the seller there are not necessarily huge, but it could be a good way of raising funds.
@Tatiana, that story is inspiring and I don’t doubt that it could be worth the energy for a brewery, but, as I said above, it’s really quite dependent on having a good relationship with a forward-thinking brewery from your area, and on having a dedicated readership and personal brand that takes time to build.
The sad thing, of course, is that it’s probably those of us without that platform that would benefit the most from the conference, and that’s exactly the crowd that is the most locked out by high costs. Have to crawl before you can walk, I suppose…
Greg recently posted..Bloggus Interruptus- The Blogger Meltdown Apology
@Greg
For the sake of the naysayers I will mention that breweries that I have had a good relationship with that I asked for help with (which were also larger breweries) did turn me down. I had many people simply say “no” or “we don’t play favorites” etc etc… The ones that truly payed attention to me were the up and comers that too were looking for a way to get more involved in the craft beer community. I quite literally hit the streets, knocked, called, and tweeted my way to Colorado. When I attended in November I had a handful of readers (my parents included hahaha), 150 twitter followers (a good handful of bots), and no recognition except my little lady crush on the Beer Wench hahaha… Today I have readers in 5+ different countries, almost 800 followers (from organic growth, bots have been eliminated from my list), and my SEO knowledge and design knowledge have landed me quotes on the websites of several breweries, I have also been more involved in super localized events that I have been able to hit with other people I’ve met from the conference. This year I have no doubt that sponsorship will be easier because of the ground work I have been diligently laying for myself since last year. The point is: you have to try, you have to be denied, you have to pick yourself up and try again.
Tatiana Peavey recently posted..Carnitas Demystified – a recipe for carnitas made with beer!
@Greg
In order…
1. I don’t see how you are of any less value than another blogger. One might have more followers, been writing longer etc but gaining attention from breweries as sponsors for an event like this is more about the value that you can make them believe in. Just tossing the idea out of the window because you haven’t been in the industry as long as some other bloggers is silly in my opinion. It’s in the pitch, and what you make them believe you can do for them (of course you actually have to live up to your promises). We’re all around to help you achieve this so don’t feel that you’re at it alone.
If you just don’t feel comfortable approaching the breweries that you have some sort of relationship with, then don’t. There are MANY craft breweries across the good ole US of A. And you’re in Philly right?
2. I’m not huge on the idea of selling t-shirts to raise the money because of exactly that. The margins. Plus let’s face it, it’s not really an item that really adds value into some ones life. Could be a great icing on the cake or package type deal sort of speak though. This is just my opinion, doesn’t mean it’s not possible to raise all the needed funds and there can sure be a way to work it all in.
3. Again Greg, I’m going to have to disagree with you here just a little bit. If you take the sponsorship and brewery route, you don’t have to just go to guys you have some sort of relationship with. You just need to sell them on the vision that only you can provide. I’ve seen what you’ve done with your blog, I don’t doubt that you can deliver something great to breweries. We can put together a “portfolio” or ideas etc. Just be confident in your abilities to pull it off and go after it.
I’ll give you an example…
Back at BBC10 at the Boulder Beer Brewery (They have a great Barelywine by the way) we were sitting at a table with a guy from Mendocino Brewery. Tatiana starting telling him a story about her hops that her family grows or the like and very shortly after he gave her his business card to have her call him when she gets back into town. They never met before.
4. Yes and no. Yes you would get a great benefit from the conference I feel. But in personal opinion, meeting actual people is more important than the talks about SEO or how to make money off your blog. I thought there were way off last year and you can get far better information on that elsewhere. And again I don’t like thinking of it as locked out…though Portland is a damn expensive place to travel to during the summer months. Had it been winter it would have been considerably cheaper. Let’s work on making it happen…
Ilya
Ilya and Tatiana:
Thank you both for the responses and encouragement.
I think my comment probably came off more negatively than I meant it to. It was not that I believe that blogs like mine (which have a small but dedicated readership) are of less value than larger ones to whom I look up, or that it is impossible to convince a brewery to kick in some money for me to go across the country to meet other bloggers. It is more that I see each serious blog as a tiny business (at least I see mine that way), and so decisions have to be made a bit on a cost-benefit analysis.
The costs of BBC11 is high. Portland is far away, and it’s expensive. The $750 figure does not include registration or beer and food bought in Portland, so it’s much closer to $1,000 for most of us. Getting monetary support from breweries is definitely possible, I agree. Your anecdote with Tatiana at Boulder shows that. But, as Tatiana points out, it also requires a huge amount of time. So the question becomes where we invest time and money.
For example, I spent a great deal of time last year working on a book pitch and peddling it. Nothing came of it, but I saw the potential benefit as enormous, and so invested the time and money. The benefit of BBC11 may well be large; I agree with you Ilya that the networking is likely invaluable.
But, because of the high cost, BBC11 travel competes with GABF and a million regional events for funds and time. For me, this year, it looks like it makes more sense to invest that time and money to building the blog (which, if successful, could make the pitching to breweries more effective in future years), getting back to GABF, and doing more locally (I’m outside of Philly by an hour).
Incidentally, I did write to Allan at Zephyr about this, and he totally gets it, just as I get that it helps the conference succeed (something I very much want) if it starts in a city with 50 beer bloggers. If the eventual goal is to make beer writing a big part of my life and career (it is), and getting to the BBC is a part of that (it is), then it’s just a matter of prioritizing and allocating resources, hard work, patience, and luck.
Hope that makes sense.
Tatiana,
What do you mean by “bots”?
Dale
Dale Miskimins recently posted..American Craft Beer Week 2011
@Dale
Like the sexy ladies that ask you if you’d like pills or insurance who have 459683049 Followers
Tatiana Peavey recently posted..Carnitas Demystified – a recipe for carnitas made with beer!
Wait, I had assumed you all were Trust Fund Kids?
But seriously, I’m hoping for compensation from United Airlines for a recently cancelled flight to help with airfare.
And I claim at least part of my expenses for beer blogging under the umbrella of the limited liability company that my wife and I have set up for our freelance ventures.
I am not a “points” expert by any means, but I know some people who use credit cards judiciously enough that they can rack up points for air travel and hotel stays free or at little cost.
Just a few ideas to throw in the pot.
And Tatiana, I’m quite impressed that you were able to pick up that much support last year even though your blog isn’t one of the “blockbusters.” You must have great sales skills.
Hope to see you all at #BBC11.
Cheers!
@Gerard
Trust fund kid?!?! Seriously?!!
But really Gerard, LOVE your comment! Thank you for it. It’s a great example of how someone can possibly work around some existing problems that they face just by using the resources available to them. I’m willing to bet a lot of us can figure something out like this…at least to a degree.
And yes, Tatiana did an incredible job last year, and continues to do so. Very proud of her
Plus she has goats on her blog…I like goats.
Ilya
@Greg
That’s something I completely understand. And yes, it is more like a $1,000 for everything included in the trip. Loved reading your response, and can’t disagree with a lot of it. There is a lot of time and work that would be involved and I also much like how close the Beer Bloggers Conference is to the Great American Beer Festival.
Just know this, we’re always around and here to help…and one of these days…we need to meet over a beer!
Ilya
The minute we heard that BBC 2011 was going to be in Portland, we knew we couldn’t attend it. We had a ball at BBC 2010, but it stretched our finances more than we liked, especially since we were paying for the two of us. We had really hoped for an east coast or midwest location for this year, but alas… We’ll just have to cross our fingers for a location that’s not west of the Rockies for 2012.
Carla and Tom recently posted..You win some… supplemental
@Carla and Tom
I have to admit that the initial “oh crap” feeling about the the conference being in Portland was mutually shared. I love that side of the country, but it’s far from many and more importantly the costs soar during the nice summer months when many people tend to visit the area.
Figuring a way there for two won’t be easy, but I still think it’s possible.
Remind me again…what part of the country are you guys in?
Ilya
We’re in Cincinnati, home to the most expensive airfare in the country. Unless we win the lottery or a long forgotten rich uncle leaves us money, it doesn’t seem possible this year with the conference just over two months away.
Carla and Tom recently posted..You win some… supplemental
The “other” Portland (Maine) – though on a personal note, my Portland was the first Portland so the other Portland should really be the “other” Portland…
Anyways…
August is almost over and I do thin even the event..Where you guys able to attend? I think solicitation is the best course of action. You can offer them a internet marketing through your blogs and it can more than increase their potential profit.