Launched a national spirits brand

Introducing a $100MM distillery#

Bently Heritage is a national estate distillery with a $100M buildout. I helped build it from the ground up: first the business plan, then the brand guidelines, and finally the content strategy behind its re-branded website.

The business plan#

I was instrumental in researching, evaluating, and formulating a comprehensive business plan for the Bently Heritage brand. We worked with a marketing firm to bolster research and gain access to reports, while also conducting our own discovery in tandem with industry subject matter experts.

Researching larger-sized competitors was mission-critical, and I was entrusted to research this. We needed to understand the estate distilling landscape: who owns their own farms within the market segment, and can produce sizable amounts of spirits? My research produced info on almost 3,000 distilleries nationwide and gave our team an invaluable understanding of competitors. I distilled the data into a small informational report for the executive team.

The plan encapsulated strategic direction, market analysis, operational structure, a marketing plan, and financial projections, and it was the pivotal tool for executive team approval. I assisted with the SWOT analysis and facilitated the meetings where we established a cohesive brand identity. The final guidebook was produced in close collaboration with the COO and marketing director, typeset by the designer, and used through the distillery’s lifecycle.

The brand guidelines#

In cooperation with senior leadership, design, and marketing teams, I was instrumental in creating the brand guidelines for Bently Heritage. We met with stakeholders to generate business concepts based on word banks, personas, and positioning, and the final guide was approved after careful consumer research, competitive analysis, and iterative refinement based on team feedback.

The book covered the brand’s history, DNA, copywriting style, communication pillars, logo and its usage, typography, color palette, photography style, and product showcase. Over the next five years it was the resource for all brand-related decision-making, and it helped the team succeed on projects from a virtual tour to product photography and art direction.

The content strategy#

Leading a cross-functional team, I acquired buy-in and helped leaders articulate their needs. We created a data-driven content strategy for Bently Heritage that focused on finding and serving user intent.

Quantitative and qualitative audits#

I conducted quantitative audits using automated SEO tools like Screaming Frog and paired them with analytics to identify areas for improvement. To help the leadership team make informed decisions, I provided training and context for key analytics terms such as sessions, views per session, bounce rate, and duration. I presented the audit with games, such as having stakeholders guess how many pages the site had (as is typical, it had many more than anyone thought). The audit also surfaced mechanical issues, such as old pages to remove and broken redirects, which showed the team results early.

Domain experts then audited the pages they cared most about, scoring them on usability, knowledge level, findability, actionability, target audience, business value, key message, brand appropriateness, and tone. I synthesized their responses to find which areas of the site needed updating first.

User testing#

I established user testing with a third-party agency to build an evidence-based understanding of how the brand was viewed. Testing uncovered UX issues like hard-to-find contact forms, and a significant flaw in the online shopping experience that trapped users in a section of the site and was leading to abandoned carts. Fixing it was a simple task that led to improved sales.

Keyword research#

To learn more about user intent, I led the team in extensive keyword research on long-tail keywords, segmented by theme. Within each theme we analyzed:

1. Search competition and index
2. Top-of-page bid high and low ranges
3. Searches by month

What it produced#

Our combined efforts produced a product road map, user testing protocols, an engagement plan, a refreshed marketing strategy, and a re-branded website that achieved our KPI targets: social media engagement, search conversions, lower bounce rate, longer session durations, and web form conversions.