You would think that a cold beer or cup of strong coffee would sell itself. Though, that isn’t the case.
The beverage industry is a very competitive industry and you’ll need to know how to mix up your messaging to reach the right target audience. Just like some drinks are best served neat, in some cases the neatest marketing campaigns are served straight up on a social media channel. In other cases, the recipe to success calls for more ingredients and you’ll need to combine social media with paid search and add a dash of search engine optimization, for instance.
To help you strike the right notes, here are 17 of the best beverage marketing agencies to add to your mix. Most can also help with food marketing, while others also extend their expertise to other industries like retail and lifestyle products.
Top 17 Beverage Marketing Agencies:
1. HireInfluence
Beverage brands that want to leverage influencer marketing specifically can check out Hireinfluence. Launched in 2011, they’re an award-winning influencer marketing agency that have a few offices in the United States.
Included in their list of clients are food and beverage names such as Diet Coke, Community Coffee, and Oreo. They’ve, for example, partnered with McDonoald’s and Oreo to milk the moment and create a stir about their Oreo Shamrock McFlurry that was available for only a limited time.
For Community Coffee, they were tasked with a similar challenge. They helped them to drive traffic to their booth at the National Restaurant Association Show and to generate exposure for their new drink.
In both these cases, the results were hundreds of thousands of engagements and millions of impressions. What makes these results even more impressive is that they needed only a handful of influencers.
Key services include:
- Influencer marketing
- Paid media management
- Campaign management
- Strategy development
HireInfluence
Influencer Marketing Agency of the Year 2022 + 2023. HireInfluence is an award-winning agency, serving the world’s most established brands since 2011. We have been exceeding expectations for content agendas for over a decade - managing successful c...
1 - 10
Houston, Los Angeles, New York
Best for:
Large Companies
HireInfluence
Influencer Marketing Agency of the Year 2022 + 2023. HireInfluence is an award-winning agency, serving the world’s most established brands since 2011. We have been exceeding expectations for content agendas for over a decade - managing successful c...
Are you an Influencer looking for an agency? Discover your options with influencer talent agencies.
2. BLVR
For help with branding, there’s BLVR — an independent, creative consultancy. Using their unique approach, they create belief-led brands.
They describe their approach as “inside-out”. They start by identifying the belief that’s found at the core of your business and use it to narrate an authentic purpose. This approach also includes describing the world you’ll create for your customers (aka your vision) and how you let your belief come to life.
They, for example, helped Organic Health (OH) to change the narrative around quality to help them grow their presence in a competitive market. To do this, BLVR focused on brand positioning, brand identity, packaging, and website design.
Key services include:
- Brand strategy
- Logo design
- Website UX/UI design
- Packaging
- Brand guidelines
3. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is one of the leading digital marketing agencies based in the USA. They make their presence felt through their number of offices, industries that they serve, and marketing services that they offer. Their team understands that online marketing is the top strategy for food and beverage businesses to grow.
From website design to pay-per-click campaigns, they offer an impressive suite of data-driven services. Other reasons that make them a great agency for beverage marketing are their years of experience (they’ve been doing this since the early 2000s), innovative solutions, and client-centric culture.
Transparency and punctuality are two of their key values. They’re experienced at working within a specified timeline and will keep you up to speed with comprehensive, monthly reports. In addition to reporting, they also include an online client portal where you can find campaign data.
Key services include:
- Web design and development
- Social media marketing
- Online reputation management
- Email marketing
- Video production
- Content writing
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
Thrive is an online marketing agency with a passion to use the power of the Internet to grow your business. Thrive was founded on the conviction that businesses can successfully outshine their competitors with a strong website and an effective onl...
10 - 50
Arlington, Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Minneapolis, Orlando, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, San Antonio,
Best for:
Enterprises, Large and Small brands
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
Thrive is an online marketing agency with a passion to use the power of the Internet to grow your business. Thrive was founded on the conviction that businesses can successfully outshine their competitors with a strong website and an effective onl...
4. The Food Group
The Food Group was founded in the latter part of the 1960s, making them one of the oldest beverage marketing agencies around. From culinary consulting to content development, as they’re a premier, full-service marketing agency they can help with all the key aspects involved in marketing food and beverage items.
They’ve helped brands like S&D Coffee & Tea to reposition their brand as beverage innovators. For this campaign specifically, they used a variety of channels, including social media, to share insight-driven content such white papers and proprietary surveys. This helped them to reach a much wider group.
Key services include:
- Shopper marketing
- Culinary consulting
- Product development
- Events and experiences
- Email marketing
- Paid media
- Public relations (PR)
- Marketing automation
- Photography and video
5. Union
Based in North Carolina, Union is a creative and performance marketing agency. Founded in 2002, they have over two decades of experience working with a number of industries. They were recently acquired by Valtech, a global agency that focuses on business transformation, to join them in delivering innovative, end-to-end customer experiences for enterprise clients in North America.
Aside from beverage marketing, they’ve also created and managed multi-channel marketing campaigns for businesses in the travel, health, and the lifestyle industries. As for their work for beverage brands specifically, they’ve, for instance, helped Southern Tier, a brewery based in NYC, to target craft beer consumers. The goal was to create a summer campaign so that they could make the most of the vacation vibe. To do this, they used ad flights to support their digital assets as well as display and social channels.
Whether you want to forecast demand for a new product or want to change the perception of current products, their team can help. They can reach existing customers via multiple ways and attract new customers by guiding them through the customer journey.
Key services include:
- Brand strategy
- Paid media
- SEO
- Content marketing
- UI/UX design
- Web and mobile development
6. Straight North
Regular readers of yours truly are most likely already familiar with Straight North. Rated as one of the top US-based digital marketing agencies, they’re a full-service internet marketing agency that works with a broad range of B2B and B2C organizations. That said, they focus on serving small and midsize businesses and prefer to work with smaller brands.
Using data-driven marketing strategies, their team of in-house, full-time marketers can help beverage brands target specific market segments. More specifically, they can help you to identify which combination of strategies you should use.
For social proof of their work, you can refer to their online reviews. On Clutch alone, they’ve received over 100 reviews. Clients have praised them for their customer support, responsiveness, and overall communication.
Key services include:
- SEO
- Paid advertising
- Web design and development
- Creative services
7. Active Ingredients
If you’re searching for a boutique marketing agency, you can check out Active Ingredients. They focus solely on food, beverage and tech brands.
Their team of experienced strategists, designers, storytellers, and technologists help their clients to connect with their target audience in a meaningful way. Beautiful design and authentic storytelling are at the core of their strategies.
One way that they do that is by designing immersive web experiences. They also create the content to go with that. Whether you need help with copywriting or visual pieces like video or photos, they can create various types of content that will leave customers craving for more.
Aside from your website, they can also help you to leverage other owned channels like email and your social media channels. If you’re still new to these platforms, they will also help you get set up and integrated.
From dairy products to wine, they’ve worked with alcoholic as well as nonalcoholic products. For example, when Crystal Creamery wanted to reach a younger audience, they emphasized their sustainable practices and cleaner ingredients and combined thoughtful design with storytelling to create a retro-modern visual story. The result — visit duration increased by nearly 50%.
Key services include:
- Brand strategy
- UX design
- SEO
- Content marketing
- Email workflows and automation
8. Conklin Media
Conklin Media has been recognized for their SEO, web design, and digital marketing services by popular review sites like DesignRush and Clutch. To back up this recognition, they’ve also received dozens of reviews on Google alone.
They like to describe themselves as more than just a digital marketing agency. Instead, they label themselves as a “business growth firm”. Their focus — making businesses more profitable.
To do this, they link your most profitable product with your best audience. They’ll also work with you to identify which marketing services you need instead of insisting that you use all the services available.
Their digital marketing services for beverage brands include: paid ads, TikTok ads, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, design, development, and marketing consulting. For example, when Eli Mason, old-fashioned cocktail mixers and syrups, needed help to drive sales consistently, Conklin Media suggested a combination of paid Facebook and Instagram ads. They also restarted weekly email campaigns. The result — monthly sales increased to more than $45,000 while their email list grew to over 10,000 active subscribers.
Key services include:
- Consulting
- SEO
- Paid traffic
- Design
- Video
- Facebook marketing
- Email marketing
9. Crafted
In addition to sports marketing, Crafted can also help to market another one man’s favorites — food and beverages. From their offices in New York City and Miami, their award-winning creative studio offers a broad range of services that zoom in on advocacy, audience engagement, and conversions.
From search engine marketing (SEM) to social media marketing, they can help you to leverage both paid search and paid social. And, to ensure that these efforts pay off, they’ll ensure that all new leads are directed to a high-quality, responsive website like they’ve done for Don Julio. With the help of clever website design and development, Crafted’s team ensured that the website experience was as rich as their Tequila.
Key services include:
- Branding
- Cross-channel content marketing
- UX/UI design
- Marketing strategy
- SEO
- Lead generation
- Social marketing
- Website development
- App development
10. Foodie Tribe
Beverages and other fast-moving consumer goods and influencer marketing pair perfectly like gin and tonic water. For beverage businesses that want to leverage this delightful duo, there’s Foodie Tribe. Their group of foodies/marketers describes themselves as “one part influencer agency, one part creative agency”.
Founded only in 2016, they’re one of the newer marketing agencies on the beverage block. That said, they’ve already worked with global brands like McDonald’s. As for beverages, they’ve worked with dairy products and alcoholic beverages to mention only two examples.
They combine influencer marketing with social media management to help their clients reach diverse audiences. For example, when Florida Milk wanted to show that dairy products can be a hero ingredient, Foodie Tribe leveraged the superpowers of four influencers and Instagram Reels. Over the span of six months, they created nearly half a million engagements and more than 6.5 million impressions.
However, they can also help with other related services like creating a Squarespace website. In addition to website design, they can also create various other assets like packaging design, brand photos, or simply lend some art direction.
Key services include:
- Influencer marketing
- Digital marketing strategy
- Content creation
- Social media management
- Community engagement
- Branding
- PR
11. Jellybean
Jellybean is an award-winning, integrated food and drink marketing agency that’s based in the United Kingdom. For the past 30+ years, they’ve offered a wide range of services to beverage brands like Sly Dog Spiced Rum and Actiph Water.
Included in their long list of services are influencer marketing, shopper marketing, PR, social media and various other creative services like packaging solutions. For example, when Sly Dog Rum wanted to enter the market, Jellybean created content to be shared on social media as well as their website. With the help of high-end videography and photography, they ensured that Sly Dog went from underdog to new dog with a loud bark.
In addition to hands-on marketing services, they also offer consulting. Beverage brands can either organize a one-off workshop or let Jellybean become an extension of your marketing team more permanently.
Key services include:
- Consultancy
- Digital marketing
- Traditional print media
- PR
- Brand development
- Packaging
- Video marketing
- SEO
- Social media
- Influencer marketing
- Event marketing
12. Brightly Creative
Brightly Creative is a craft marketing agency that works exclusively with food and beverage companies. They have five main focus areas: branding, creative, content, marketing, and outreach.
Headquartered in Denver, they’ve been in business for just over five years, making them one of the newer marketing agencies in this niche. During this time they’ve worked on some sweet campaigns. They’ve, for example, helped the National Honey Board™ with photoshoots. The high-res photos were used for various channels including web, display, and social media. With the help of these images, they could create quite the spread.
Key services include:
- Business logos
- Branding guidelines
- Website development
- Ad campaigns
- Content marketing
- PR
- In-person events
13. Marriner Marketing Communications
Marriner Marketing Communications is one of the older beverage marketing companies on this list and was established over three decades ago. They’re a full-service ad agency that creates and implements marketing strategies for major companies like Segafredo, Evian, and Nestlé.
Their multidisciplinary teams that can help with various phases involved in advertising a beverage including strategic planning and brand development. Whatever they’re tasked to do, they’ll ensure that your unique branding will clearly shine through and can also help you to create key branding elements, such as a logo, if you still need those.
Then, to help spread brand awareness, their team will use a selection of strategies and platforms. From print to social media, their expertise stretches far.
For example, when Evian wanted help with a new campaign in North America, they turned to Marriner. Using key insights, they could tweak their creatives so that it appealed to various markets.
Key services include:
- Market research
- Strategic planning
- Interactive campaigns
- Content strategy and development
- Event marketing
- Brand development
- SEM
14. Elevation Marketing
Elevation Marketing is a B2B marketing agency that works with various industries, one of which is food and beverages. From rebrands to MarTech stack optimizations to account-based marketing, they can help with various goals.
When it comes to marketing beverages, they consider modern consumers’ practical as well as emotional needs. This way, they help their clients to outsmart their competition without necessarily spending more. What makes them such a great choice is that they have extensive insight into consumer demands through loads of research.
Key services include:
- Market research
- Branding
- Lead generation
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Website design
- App development
15. Marlo Marketing
From their offices in Boston and New York City, Marlo Marketing helps consumer packaged goods (CPG) and brands in the hospitality industry with brand strategy and creative services. From startups to Fortune 500 clients, they work with brands of all sizes.
They can also do a lot. Whether you have a brand new product ready to be launched or you want to keep an established brand relevant, they can help. The work that they’ve done for a make-your-own beer brewery is an example that they can do wonders with cans. They helped this Boston-based brewery to design new beer can labels and packaging to improve the perception of their products’ quality.
Key services include:
- PR
- Brand identity
- Website design
- Logo design
- Packaging
16. Power Brands
If you have Coca-Cola in your client list, you’re the real deal when it comes to beverage marketing. This is the case with Power Brands.
They’re the leading beverage consulting agency in America. They boast a team of award-winning beverage industry experts that can help you with everything from recipe development to packaging and marketing testing.
Their cross-functional specialists can also help with online marketing and will help you to get the basics in order like a website. Aside from your website, they also recommend that you set up an Amazon store with which they’ll help too. Then, to help you help you reach an even wider audience, their in-house social media experts and designers will create social media pages for your brand and see to it that amazing content gets shared here.
Aside from Coca-Cola, they also boast household names like Pepsi, Heineken, and Illy as clients. They’ve been praised for their entrepreneurial approach, knowledge about product launches, and innovative thinking.
Key services include:
- Consulting
- Packaging design
- Online marketing
- Market testing
- PPC
17. NewPoint Marketing
NewPoint Marketing is an official member of the Forbes Agency Council, an invite-only community for senior-level agency execs. They prefer to keep their philosophy simple like any good beverage should be. They choose to focus on marketing to support sales and, in doing so, grow market share. As such, they’re a great choice for growth-minded brands.
Their goal is to move your brand up the food chain. They, for example, helped Fountain Square Brewery to do just that by helping them get their key elements – product name, tagline, packaging, and copy – right.
As they’re a full-service marketing agency, they offer a long list of services. Their services can be grouped into six core areas namely: branding, advertising services, social media and digital marketing, B2B marketing, promotions, and shopper marketing.
Key services include:
- In-store advertising and demos
- Social media contests
- Event marketing
- Email marketing
- Social content calendar planning
- Content creation
- Website design
- Paid social
Wrapping Things Up
For most, the day starts and ends with some type of beverage. And, if tea isn’t exactly your cup of tea, you’re spoilt with choice. From flat whites to functional beverages containing spices, superfruits, or even CBD, the beverage industry has been revolutionized during recent years.
Just take gin, for instance. What used to be a drink reserved for older generations now has a huge (much younger) market.
That said, with all this choice comes stiff competition. The answer, though, isn’t to pour yourself a stiff drink, but rather to partner with a marketing agency that specializes in beverage products. Anyone of the 14 agencies discussed above can let the results pour in, but you can always look for a marketing agency with a reputation, proven results, and a broader operational focus.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you design a great website for a beverage company?
To design an effective website for your beverage brand, here are key best practices to try and incorporate:
- The design should be clean and the navigation intuitive by including elements like a search bar
- There should be enough high-quality photos (ideally, videos too)
- Calls to actions must be clear and found throughout your website
- Social proof, like product reviews and ratings, should be added
- A dedicated sale section can be a nice addition
- Search engine optimization (SEO) must be a priority
- Links to your social media pages must be included
How do you write effective product descriptions for beverage products?
Here are key rules to follow when writing descriptions for beverage products:
Decide on a format and use this format consistently
Let your description tell a story
Make the advantages that your beverage can offer one of the focus points
Rather use sensory words than generic words and superlatives
Incorporate social proof where possible
Optimize your product descriptions for search engines by including relevant keywords
What tools do you need for product photography?
Aside from your camera, you’ll also need the following equipment for taking photos of your products:
A tripod
A table
Lighting equipment
A white backdrop
Image editing software
Is selling beverages a good product idea?
There are several types of beverages that are popular eCommerce product ideas. Quality tea and craft drinks in particular are currently trending. If you like the idea of selling high-quality tea, focus on the health and wellness advantages it can offer. As for craft drinks, you can explore the idea of selling artisanal beer, gin, or whiskey.
How can beverage brands use social media for marketing?
Posting recipes and preparation videos on social media are one of the best ideas for marketing beverages. Then, to ensure your recipes and videos reach a wider audience, ensure to use the right hashtags. While product launches take more research and time, creating events or a limited offer is much easier and easy to share on social media.
