Why Your Coffee Brand Needs To Be Unique
Coffee is everywhere. And in 2024, good coffee is everywhere.
From major cities to small towns, it's possible to find espresso, latte art, pour-overs, and single origins from around the world, beautifully roasted & served fresh.
So, how do you make sure your coffee brand stands out?
How do companies like Blue Bottle achieve such recognition and create so many raving fans?
How can you compete with not only the other coffee brands in your area but also national giants like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts?
Assuming that your coffee is good (and if you're reading this blog, it probably is) the most important thing you can do to stand head & shoulders above the competition is to build a unique coffee brand.
Beyond just having an eye-catching logo & cool merch, a unique, well-defined coffee brand goes a long way toward ensuring that you're insulated from the competition & are attracting your ideal customers to your shop, your website, & your shelf at the grocery store.
In this article, we'll look at 3 of the main reasons you should be building a unique brand for your coffee business:
You give customers a reason to go out of their way
You attract wholesale customers to you
You don't have to compete on price
Let's get to it.
1. You give customers a reason to go out of their way
When customers know the kind of experience they're going to have, they'll gladly travel past one or more other cafes to have the experience they're looking for.
The key is to define what it is about your business that customers will remember. Is it your extreme attention to detail? Your design & decor? The bakery attached to the cafe that smells amazing?
Knowing this is how you get customers to walk right by the competition to order coffee at your counter.
2. You attract wholesale customers to you
Instead of dialing hundreds of potential clients and trying to make sales, focus on building a great brand and giving people a uniquely enjoyable experience.
When you do this, wholesale customers start coming to you. Owners and managers who are brewing hundreds of pounds of coffee a week will seek you out.
To attract top wholesale customers, think about what they value in a coffee brand. Is it quality? Graphic design? Consistency? Price?
Convey these values in your retail brand, on your website, and in your cafes day in & day out.
3. You don't have to compete on price
Coffee is a commodity product, and most of the coffee sold every day is cheap. Getting stuck competing on price with high-volume businesses becomes a race to the bottom. And it's a race that small coffee roasters will lose.
Building a unique brand lets you compete in other areas.
Figure out your "Coffee +"
Coffee alone guarantees you'll have to compete on price.
But coffee + indigenous women's rights makes your brand appealing to a specific slice of the market.
Coffee + bicycling, or coffee + camping plugs you into communities that share a common passion.
With good coffee more available than it's ever been, the brands that are standing out and rising above the price war are those that have a strong, clearly articulated "Coffee +"
Conclusion
Making good coffee isn't enough to build a brand. The best, most memorable coffee brands aren't just focused on coffee quality; they're focused on creating a memorable experience.
Having a unique brand is so much more than a catchy logo and cool colors:
It's the ability to make your coffee stand out among the thousands of other cafes, bags of beans, and RTD options that are out there.
At Black Sheep, we unearth and amplify the distinctive essence that sets each coffee industry client apart.
Schedule your free Brand Uniqueness Audit here.
