Hepple Gin is a premium gin created by four friends: chef Valentine Warner, countryman Walter Riddell and spirits experts, Cairbry Hill and Nick Strangeway. Their ambition was to create the perfect Martini gin by developing a unique triple distilling technique that goes further than traditional gin-making. The distillery is based on the Hepple estate on the Northumberland Moors and is rich in native botanicals including the largest juniper stands in England.
Hepple Gin has a small team and is thinly stretched and needed support with their digital marketing and communications. Working alongside their PR, Fiona Smith, I have developed and continue to implement a digital communications plan that reflects their premium position in the craft gin market. The plan pulls together all their activities including launches in new bars or retailers, events and tastings and what's going on at the distillery from harvesting botanicals to developing new cocktails - it then identifies how these are communicated through PR, social media, the blog and email newsletter.
When Hepple launched in autumn 2015 they had a website and blog; Twitter and Facebook accounts; and started to collect email addresses for a newsletter. However, as the team is so thinly stretched the blog or Journal was rarely updated, the database had under 50 subscribers and social media was erratic. By creating a plan of regular new web content which we then push out through various channels we have increased audience reach and engagement.
Hepple wasn't on Instagram which seemed a crucial way to engage with high-end restaurants and bars, as well as their customers, which are Hepple's target market. Now Hepple is really active on Instagram and we're seeing excellent engagement. On Twitter we have more than doubled the number of followers in a matter of months and are much more consistently present there.
I switched Hepple's newsletter platform from something that was rudimentary and a paid for service to Mailchimp (which is free for under 2000 subscribers). I created a branded template and now send regular monthly newsletters which push people to the website to read the full story and engage more with the brand.
We've also grown the mailing list by making it easier for people to sign up to the newsletter through the website and formed a couple of partnerships with a publisher and an event company to run competitions to reach new audiences.
On a monthly basis I provide detailed reports on web site analytics, social media and newsletter engagement.
There is still work to be done to improve the Hepple website and we will start to implement various improvements there.
