How To Shorten The Buying Cycle For Alcohol Free Drinks
The demand for alcohol free drinks continues to grow and more and more people have changed their drinking habits, their relationship with alcohol and are looking for alternatives to alcoholic drinks.
There’s a growing amount of drinks and brands to choose from and there’s a lot of noise coming from the alcohol free space.
There’s plenty of statistics floating around too.
Here’s a few statistics from KAM LOW & NO 2024: Drinking Differently, a report into how Brits are evolving their relationship with alcohol:
- 2.6m fewer UK adults are drinking weekly in 2024 v 2021
- 1 in 3 adult pub/restaurant visits do not involve any alcohol consumption
- 31% of customers have left a venue early and/or disappointed because of poor low & no options
- 40% will research low & no options ahead of time if they're visiting a pub, bar or restaurant and not drinking alcohol
The NonToxicated community of over 20k consumers, is made up of different types of drinkers from the completely sober to mindful drinkers and every other ‘label’ in between. We believe that many of our community fall into the sober curious category, and we know from our Facebook Group that these types of ‘flexi-drinkers’ are looking to find alcohol free drinks to help them on their journey.
So What's The Problem?
From a brand point of view, despite the growing popularity of alcohol free drinks, the buying cycle for these drinks can often be longer and more complicated than for their alcoholic counterparts.
Since we set up NonToxicated 4 years ago, we’ve seen many brands come and go and we know that some of those brands, despite having fantastic drinks and oodles of passion, have faced many challenges, particularly around their marketing efforts.
Working with small budgets and limited marketing knowledge and/or resource can take it’s toll on these small businesses who lack nothing when it comes to passion and vision for their drinks.
One of the biggest issues is the fact that the buying cycle can be longer from alcohol free drinks than their alcoholic counterparts.
In this blog post, we will explore some of the reasons why this is the case.
Reasons The Buying Cycle Can Be Longer For Alcohol Free Drinks
1. Lack of Brand Awareness
2. Need to Know, Like & Trust
3. Concerns About Taste
4. Size of Bottles
5. Cost
6. Availability
1. Lack Of Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is a big deal for all products and services, but it’s particularly important for alcohol free brands. As alcohol free drinks are quite a new, but growing trend, brands need to work hard to stand out in quite a crowded marketplace.
Strong brand awareness can help to drive sales and customer loyalty. When people are familiar with a brand and have positive associations with it, they are more likely to become loyal customers. This can lead to repeat business and increased sales over time.
By building strong brand awareness, brands can create differentiation and position themselves as a real contender in the alcohol free drinks space, which can help to attract new customers who are looking for alcohol alternatives.
2. Need To Know, Like & Trust
As we all know, consumers need to get to know, like and trust a brand before they make a purchase. Many alcohol free brands are unknown/not well known and consumers can be hesitant to try new drinks. Because of this, alcohol free brands/manufacturers need to work hard on their brand awareness, as we mention in point number 1. Strong brand awareness can support these marketing efforts by increasing the reach and impact of marketing campaigns. If people are already familiar with the brand, they are more likely to pay attention to marketing messages and be receptive to the brand's messaging. Having a marketing plan to reach new customers and understand your target audience, will help to build a relationship with potential customers so that they can get to know like and trust your brand.
3. Size Of Bottles
There have been many conversations in the NonToxicated Community about the size of alcohol free drinks bottles/cans etc. It’s a big factor when alcohol free drinks consumers are making a purchase. Feedback has told us that when thinking of trying a new drink, from a brand they’ve never tried before, if the brand offers a smaller bottle or tasting pack, consumers are more likely to purchase this brand over a competitor that is only offering full size product. This is something you might want to consider whether you are a new brand or if you aren’t converting website visitors into customers.
4. Cost
One of the major issues for alcohol free brands is that consumers don’t understand why, when their product doesn’t have any alcohol in it, the cost can be similar to alcoholic drinks. Of course, we know that the processes of producing alcohol free drinks are complex and often even more complex than their alcoholic counterparts. From a consumer perspective, they can be reluctant to purchase an alcohol free drink that is priced similar to alcoholic drinks as they deem it undrinkable if they don’t like it and that’s why having a smaller bottle or tasting pack can shorten the buying cycle.
5. Availability
Now this IS a major frustration for alcohol free drinks consumers. Even though there is a growing number of alcohol free drinks stocked in the major supermarkets, there’s hundreds of alcohol free brands that aren’t stocked and consumers don’t even know that these brands exist! This was one of the reasons that we set up the NonToxicated App and the NonToxicated Alcohol Free Drinks Directory. We wanted to create a central place for alcohol free drinks consumers to find all the wonderful drinks that are available, from alcohol free beers, spirits, wines and ciders to things like Kombucha, CBD and functional drinks.
6. Concerns About Taste
Taste is a huge factor when it comes to alcohol free drinks. Historically, there has been much negative talk about the taste of alcohol free drinks, but as the sector has grown, the quality and taste of alcohol free drinks has massively improved, but there does remain some scepticism.
In the NonToxicated community we encourage constructive feedback. Often consumers expectations when trying a new alcohol free drink can be frustrating as they are comparing it against an alcoholic drink. Alcohol free drinks can differ in how they are served compared to alcohol free drinks. For example most alcohol free spirits are not designed to be consumed neat, but consumers don’t understand this. There still needs to be more education around the taste of alcohol free drinks, but as we’ve spoken about in point 4 having a smaller size or tasting product can help shorten the buying cycle.
Summary
By understanding and considering the points above for your alcohol free drinks brand, it could help you to shorten the buying cycle for your alcohol free and grown up soft drinks.
NonToxicated have a ready made audience of over 20k WORLDWIDE alcohol free and grown up soft drinks consumers and we can help you to build a two-way relationship to increase brand awareness and shorten the buying cycle.
Let NonToxicated Help You To Shorten The Buying Cycle With Our Ready-Made Audience Of Alcohol Free Drinks Consumers
NonToxicated is a community made up of over 20k organically grown, alcohol free drinks consumers predominantly based in the UK & US but also Australia, Canada and Europe.
We have many ways for alcohol free brands to interact with these active and engaged consumers.
More information can be found here or email Leanne to have a chat about how we could help you to reach more alcohol free drinks consumers.