52 Don DiBrita Offline Internet Marketing Craft Beer Geek
Don DiBrita Offline Internet Marketing Craft Beer Geek
Don DiBrita and I met on Blab. It was fun getting to know Don DiBrita – Offline Internet Marketing Craft Beer Geek. Don is the founder of Offline Internet Marketing where he helps local small business owners that are struggling to engage their audience by offering community building strategies to grow their busienss. He also founded BeerDogging.com which is one of the largest beer clubs in the United States. He works with breweries and industry folks on all kinds of different projects to help market the craft beer industry. Currently, he is working with “Beer for Dummies” author Marty Nachel on the casting process for his reality web series the “#1 Beer Fan”.
The conversation quickly dove into Don’s experience for his marketing success. He has a corporate background in training and an MBA in human resource training and he has a lot of experience in sales and marketing. When he started the beer club, he found the marketing element to help other businesses, it was a logical progression that worked out well. He started helping breweries, bars and retail shops with the various aspects of local marketing.
He really dove into his consultancy by helping create unique messages for each of his clients without sounding like a vaccuum cleaner salesman. Don realized a big shift happening in this industry. He found that most of the small business owners had a “Tell Don’t Sell” attitude. He found most owners went on to their social media accounts and weren’t engaging properly. It’s like a little mouse standing on the street corner, very quietly, saying “hey, buy my stuff”.
Many people teaching online marketing strategies are using one workflow that incorporates seo, keyword searches, sales funnels and tripwires. The small business owners didn’t really understand this process. He found that many of the business owners really enjoyed the face to face approach, knew they had to generate an online presence to stay competitive, but they just didn’t enjoy that aspect of the business. This is why many of these businesses are wary of online marketers.
Offline Internet Marketing
During the interview, I asked Don if he could explain what “Offline Internet Marketing” actually meant. Don is pretty witty and came back with a quick joke about wishing his wife was on the line because she is has a masters degree in literature and always correcting Don when he mentions his company. Don goes on to explain the reason he chose this name was that to him, it sounded like a play on words. He goes on to say that there is a lot of online marketing happening right now, but the offline aspect to business outlines the principals that many of the small businesses he works with have done well for years.
Many of these small businesses were transitioning over to the internet trying to figure out how to market their products and services. They were getting in touch with the big marketing gurus. While many of the people are good, and even those that are, may not be teaching the best strategies for that particular small business.
The offline program is a great solution for local business markets, but Don can help these offline relationship and marketing tactics with any small business across the globe. He helps these local small business owners by sharing what he did by going into his local market and interacting. Don likes to use his personal experience when talking with new prospects.
When Don first started, he didn’t know anyone and no one really knew him. He started out by attending live events. He talked to others about how passionate he was about the topic. He started leveraging these relationships to build his business. He started writing a few blogs and grew from there.
The Craft Beer Geek
Beer Dogging is one of the largest beer clubs in the United States. They currently have over 10,000 members. They do a variety of things from education to offering deals at different bars, breweries and restaraunts. They host beer events and festivals. They produce them, market them and basically do anything to drive people to beer. It sounds funny, but when someone creates a membership organization, they really have to enjoy the niche because the membership sites are time consuming to manage and if you aren’t passionate about the topic, it really won’t be successful.
Don met Marty Nachel, author of “Beer for Dummies”, through the Beer Dogging community and he approached Don about a concern he had. Marty said that there are so many events happening between the breweries and home brewers, but there isn’t anything to celebrate the beer fans. Don and Marty put their heads together and came up with the “#1 Beer Fan” competition.
This competition is going to be a web-based reality show that will be filmed in Chicago. The process for beer fans to enter the contest is easy. They just have to visit the website, 1BeerFan.com, submit their information there and people will eventually submit a video and they’ll be voted on. There will be a variety of stages where contestants will be tested on their knowledge of craft beer and their beer “Geekdom” or “Fandom”. The finalist will receive a trip out to Chicago where they will get to compete in the reality web-series. The finals will actually be in front of a live audience.
Anytime you have a project like this, where you know it’s your first time doing this, you just have to be comfortable with chaos and flying by the seat of your pants. – Don DiBrita
If you want to learn more about or connect with Don DiBrita – Offline Internet Marketing Craft Beer Geek, check out his links below and remember he welcomes all questions, comments and inquiries! Don’t forget to mention you heard about Don on Stop Riding the Pine:-)
Don DiBrita Website
Beer Dogging Website
#1 Beer Fan Website
Offline Marketing Podcast with Don DiBrita
Connect with Don DiBrita on LinkedIn
Don DiBrita on Facebook
Don DiBrita on Twitter
Don DiBrita on Blab
Special Mentions:
(iTunes Shout Out) SubscribeMe.fm
Alexis Ayala, host of the Friends and Family podcast provided the killer intro for this episode.
Here are the highlights of my conversation with Don DiBrita – Offline Internet Marketing Craft Beer Geek if you are in a hurry:
- Who is Don DiBrita? (2:55 Mark)
- What is Offline Internet Marketin? (8:40 Mark)
- Don shares his strategy on great ways to find his target market/ideal client? (15:32 Mark)
- What is the #1 Beer Fan and what is Beer Dogging? (20:43 Mark)
- Don DiBrita’s break away moment. (25:28 Mark)
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Meet Jaime Jay – a man who wears many hats, and wears them all admirably. He's a master connector, an entrepreneur extraordinaire, and a published author who knows how to get things done.
Before he found his way to the business world, Jaime served his country as a brave paratrooper in the U.S. Army. But that's just the beginning of his many accomplishments.
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