The best, most cost-effective marketing you will ever do to grow long-term, quality customers.
Proven results.
Guaranteed Customers.
Amazing partners.
Your Cost = $0.00
“Craft Notes brings in mostly new customers that have never been here, they come in larger groups, and we’ll see them again 3-4 times this year…”
Kelsey B. Utepils Brewing
Taproom ManagerAbout us & who we are
Passionate supporters of local businesses. We envision a strong, local economy built on quality, creativity, and authenticity.
Whether you’re trying to build recognition, fill your seats, sample new customers, or support on/off premise, our customized platform is guaranteed to bring you new customers and help turn them into loyal fans.
Created by industry veterans with over 15 years experience 🏆 (Click to expand and meet our leadership team)
Nick Kosevich
Bittercube & Consulting, Drinks Apothecary, Heirloom Vodka, Bombay Sapphire
Keith Williams
Artist, Videographer, Colle-McVoy, Martin Williams
Matthew Dowgwillo
Thrifty Hipster, Live Locally, and Craft Notes.
Together, we’ve worked with 1000’s of local restaurants and drink brands, we decided to hone our focus with Craft Notes because it’s a program designed like no other. It’s not just a drink passport, but an entire, customized model to help local industry brands and businesses succeed in a rapidly changing and competitive drinks business.
Charlie-Award Winner Nick Kosevich has helped launch top restaurants and bars around the world and is the founder of Bittercube along with partner Ira Koplowitz (Violet Hour). Together they’ve launched successful bar programs and been on the forefront of mixology in America and even the world. Nick was first a “partner” to Craft Notes and is now helping us continue to improve our program.
Live Locally has over 15 years of experience in the restaurant and beer industry, we’ve learned how to promote local business. In 2003, we created the world’s first happy hour search engine, Thrifty Hipster, a hyper-targeted ad-based model competing with local dailys at the time. We evolved as local bars needed support launching websites and managing data. Live Locally SaaS was born, and we were paid to present at the NBWA. Our SaaS eventually sold to beer distributors, but our focus and passion has always been toward supporting local business.
For Craft Notes to be what we wanted to to be, each of the below points had to be more cost-effective than all other options.
(AkA. “The best marketing you will ever do” : )
#1: Give our all to supporting only a handful of the best, most essential, hard-working makers, chefs, and producers of local culture. — with an emphasis on supporting those doing good.
Whereas, Long-Term growth and success for these businesses is a function of:
= Direct Sales + New Customers + Quality of Product + Customer Devotion
#2: Tell their story, help them define their brand, and build loyal fans. Free advertising is actually an immersive story…
#3: The “Best” way to do this was through targeting GOOD consumers and a community of craft lovers. We want our user base to be 90%+ people most likely to become craft fans and loyal consumers of the places they discover in our program.
#4: Results must be provable, based on actual customers in your doors. GARUNTEED customers. Real, tangible, local people fill your seats.
#5: That the “cost” of getting that customer must be low and require $0 initial investment, such that immediate sales and long term fans were providing benefit to our partners. And that we MUST track minimum ROI with all “unknowns” being only to our partners’ benefit.
Build your brand, guaranteed customers, direct sales, and on/off-premise support 💞
Our model is specifically designed to be the best, and focuses on 4 Main industry goals.
- PROVEN CUSTOMERS IN YOUR DOORS (vs. Spending $$ on Ads): Fill your seats when your doors are open and staff are idle.
- BUILD YOUR BRAND. Before they even come, targeted consumers engage with your personal story.
- SAMPLE NEW CUSTOMERS. Stop wasting time and money on sampling events. Reach them best when they visit you.
- ON/OFF PREMISE SALES. We support your growth efforts through promotions and partnerships.
4 years, 100% happy partners. Join our ranks of the exceptional
When you join Craft Notes, you are featured next to a list of only the most exceptional local craftsmen in America.
Here is just a short list of the many great partners we work with (100 maximum per community allowed into program)
- Breweries
- Both Old School… Summit, Surly Brewing, Bent Paddle, Dangerous Man, Castle Danger, Schells Brewing, Town Hall Brewing…
- Industry leaders… MN Craft Brewers Guild
- And New School… Lupulin Brewing, Fairstate Coop, Fulton Brewing, Bauhaus, Pryes, Bang Brewing, Burning Brothers…
- Distilleries & Mixology
- Tattersall Distilling, Norseman, Du Nord, Loon Liquors, Lawless Distilling, Panther, J Carver…
- Bittercube Bitters, Martina, Can Can Wonderland…
- Charities
- Friends of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
- Humane Society
- 1% for the Planet
- Terra Pass (carbon offset)
Program Summary: The value of a “Regular”
🎯 TARGETED: we seek out the best customers for you.
💸 SALES FIRST: Pure profit, No up-front costs.
We not only guarantee new customers, but are laser focused at turning them into long-term fans – and opportunity for so much more…
1 Program, 2 Platforms. Customized to work together to bring in new faces and turn them into long-term fans and regulars.
Passport & Guidebook
❤️ Charitable Giving
🎨 Hand-made, unique, highest-quality
🦄 Limited run, uniquely curated
Custom Mobile App
📱 Elegant Native apps
📈 Informative Stats, Emails, SM followers
💸 Rules that encourage diving deeper into your brand, and keep coming back
1. Build-up your brand as “essential to local culture.” 🏆
We write a focused story about what makes you unique/great and why people should want/support that 📚
more about quqlaity, story, etc We support your personal brand story (with art and focus) and highlight your products/talent as “key” to local culture
“People seem to have a lot of fun with it… most are new customers that have never been here, and Craft Notes does a good job telling our story and making our brand look good.”
Maggie P. Dangerous man brewing
Taproom Manager2. We target that message to interested, local consumers most likely to become long-term, loyal regulars 🎯💸
Events. Ads. Local Retailers.
We hand-pick events that are most likely to have your best customers and get our products in front of GOOD consumers.
The ones that appreciate quality.
The ones that want to support local.
And the ones that are willing to pay a little more for that.
3. We make sure those targeted consumers LEARN about you. 💡
At a recent NBWA conference, each talk seemed to conclude with “we have to engage people in our story…”
Whether that was a brewery that used new experimental ingredients, or a distillery with a family recipe, or a restaurant with a travelled and trained chef, or (my fav) the way you work with other local businesses to support your community…
Stories resonate with people. They connect you. They make people want to support what you do.
You focus on making something great and making sure people get the best experience when they come in. We’ll help you focus and tell that story and help people identify you for what/who you are best.
4. People visit you during open hours and SUPPORT YOU with a purchase. 🤗
(I like this best: Only after someone Learns about you, decides to come in, and then spends money, you reward them with a drink on the house.)
You are using excess inventory during “sunk” open times to incentivize people to come in and spend money.
How much is a regular worth to you? How about a tourist?
In 5 years of business we’ve been able to track real sales data from multiple partners — we know we make you $Thousands/year. But we also want you to test us.
Direct Profit (worksheet) – view real partner sales data and add your own to estimate immediate profits to be had.
While our program is mostly focused on “Regulars” (or at least making that an eventuality) it was important to us to make something that complemented you in your efforts.
The hardest thing for any local business is driving a new customer in your doors….
We want you to focus on making something great and making sure people get the best experience when they come in.
Craft Notes gets new people in your doors.
AT A PROFIT every-single-time.
With NO up front costs.
“Craft Notes has been excellent at driving direct sales. Our drinks average $9, and we usually make around $50 for each group we see… and occasionally more if they purchase our bottles to take home.”
Kyle K.
Copperwing Distilling5. Our Platforms are customized to create a cycle to convert them into loyal fans 📚 🔁 📱
Each platform (book/app) is designed to target and appeal to good customers. Allowing us to put your marketing on auto-pilot. We’ll repeat the cycle as necessary, until they are loyal followers and customers of your business.
🔁 🔁 🔁
- We bring them back in your doors at the right time ->
- We give them more content and reasons to love you ->
- We turn them into Social Media followers ->
- We incentivize them to engage more ->
- We support on/off premise for more points of contact ->
🔁 🔁 🔁
“People seem to have a lot of fun with it… most are new customers that have never been here, and Craft Notes does a good job telling our story and making our brand look good.”
Maggie P. Dangerous man brewing
Taproom ManagerHave questions or concerns? (or jump to “the catch“)
Why do I recommend Craft Notes to any business?
Rather than spending 100’s of hours and $1,000’s in marketing, Craft Notes delivers good customers in your doors and turns them into regulars.
ZERO investment required. No Risk. No Catch.
We want to see local culture grow and strengthen our communities. That is why we accept only the highest quality, most authentic locally-owned businesses…
Matt Dowgwillo, Craft NoTes Founder
Craft Notes helps breweries, distilleries, chefs, and other local businesses important to local culture succeed. We want to see you perfecting your products and building our community.
We know you don’t have time or money to waste on marketing. And we especially mean expensive ads that do little to boost your immediate bottom line.
COMPLETELY FREE.
Craft Notes will elevate your brand, tell your story, print it, target story distribution, and help you meaningfully and personably reach thousand of new awesome people that enjoy quality products, are willing to pay extra for them, and WANT to support local businesses and thir community.
And yes, we do all of this completely free.
So what’s the Catch?
We only accept the best, locally-owned businesses. Your story is grouped with other great local businesses to make a fun little passport book designed by local artists; AKA. our “product”.
We sell our passports/app to cover the costs of writing, art, and print/development (we make money).
You reward them for checking you out and spending money to support your business with a complimentary drink. (You are using excess inventory during “sunk” open times to incentivize people to come in and spend money.)
So you are “paying” for a guaranteed customer only AFTER YOU’VE PROFITED.
They’ve:
1) Learned about you
2) Come in your doors
3) Purchase something from you (and you’ve already made profit)
4) THEN you buy them a drink to say, “thanks”
We get new customers in their doors every single day to not just sample, but to spend money and support great local businesses like yours.
We then follow-up, getting them to return, buy on/off premise, and become true loyal fans.
We do this for free and without requiring more than 10 minutes of effort from our partners. We even provide staff training, events, and other branding/assets to help our partners achieve even greater revenues.
In the short term, you should expect a few extra tables every single day, new social followers/emails, and immediate sales. In the long term, expect to see many of these people back as you continue to grow your business.
But overall, the profits you can make with our program are staggering.
Check out the FAQ if you’re looking for Demographic information or want help estimating ROI
Minnesota’s Official Craft Beer Passport.
In 2020, we were proud to partner with the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild to create our first, All-Beer passport program branding the brewing industry as one of the safest industries during the pandemic. This book provided revenue to struggling breweries during the year and helped shore up needed revenue for the guild. See the work.
I want Craft Notes to feature me on their app/passport books to tell my story and drive customers!
I love the idea, but I need to talk to someone about this to make sure it’s going to work good for me
