Beer With A Conscience: The Saint Arnold’s E-Zine

Are you the type who likes to sit down with a beer, go on a pub crawl or maybe even do some good in the world?

If so, you’re probably receiving the newsletter addressed to Saint Arnold’s Army. That’s a battalion of loyal fans of Saint Arnold Brewing Co., a microbrewery in Houston, Texas. The firm send its first e-newsletter in 1995. But at that time, it had a very different goal in mind: To back away from snail mail. “We would plan for a special event and we would have to type up a post card, get it printed, get some addresses, print mailing labels, put the labels on the postcards, stamp all the postcards and then send them out,” says CEO Brock Wagner. “It was a pain in the butt.”

Not only was the process expensive, it stopped the brewery from wanting to promote anything, he adds.

Wagner admits he didn’t have a very firm vision for the newsletter “ten years and a lot of beers ago.” At that point, the brewery had 200 people on its readership list but it now has 21,000 international readers. The monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) text e-zine is handled by list manager Dada Mail.

Readership is concentrated in Houston, but people all over the world have signed up after going on the weekly brewery tour. “A lot of people visit the brewery and sign up, then go back to wherever they’re from,” Wagner says. “They stay on the list and send me e-mails saying, ‘Oh this is great – keep sending them to me even though I don’t live there love getting it.’”

One reason they want to get it is that it keeps them connected to the company, Wagner says. Another is that he tries to infuse the content with personality and make it easy to read. But it’s not only about fun.

Sure, you’ll find blurbs on medals that the brewery has won for its products, and sign-up notices for brewery teams. There’s promotion information on new ales and company events such as an Oktoberfest party or pub crawl.

But readers will also be prompted to recycle their six-pack carriers for Saint Arnold products and attend fundraisers for the Red Cross. And Wagner also uses the newsletter as a political action tool.

For example, he urged readers to oppose an attempt in Texas to “raise taxes in Texas and reduce property taxes. One way to fund it was to increase tax on beer.”

Wagner sent information to his readers with links to find their elected officials so readers could write and oppose the tax. It drew a 5% response rate, Wagner guesses.

He’s not sure why the tax wasn’t raised in the end, but calls from 1,000 constituents didn’t hurt the cause.

Another event was for Hurricane Katrina victims. One hundred percent of the door and all profits from t-shirts went to the cause. Beer, as usual, was free. The final take? $8,000. And a call for volunteers at the Astrodome yielded quite a few extra hands.

“A lot of people wanted to volunteer, they just didn’t know how to do it,” says Wagner.

He adds that one of the advantages of e-mail newsletters is immediacy.

“If I decide that this Friday I want to do something, I can do it and get in touch with people,” he says. “That’s very important because if you are scheduling something for a month later, the generosity that they feel today dwindles quickly. Now that I’ve understand the process I’ll be more effective next year.”

But does all this do-goodery do much for Wagner’s bottom line?

“Without a question,” he says. “Sales are up and we grew 21 points more than the market segment. It’s hard to put a finger on anything else. Our tour and our newsletter are our two most effective marketing tools.”

Wagner estimates that the e-newsletter is responsible for increasing revenue by $150,000 in 2004–about half the firm’s revenue growth for the year.

But he doesn’t overlook the newsletter’s power to create customer loyalty by forming a stronger bond. “Something our newsletter has done is focus our drinker to make them a more loyal Saint Arnold customer. They feel more of a connection they feel like it’s their company and more likely to go out there and proselytize. We end up with our customers being our own best advertiser,” he says.

Wagner has other political action dreams on the horizon. Currently, Texas law prohibits him from selling to customers. Saint Arnold Brewery can only sell to distributors, restaurants and bars.

“I’d like to change that,” he says. Chances are his battalion would like to change that too.