Citizen Cider: Social Media and Event Marketing Manager

About

Citizen Cider is a Vermont based hard cider company founded in 2011. They consistently are rated number one of top hard cider brands nationally and have won multiple regional and national awards for both their cider and clean branding. They are distributed in New England, New York, New Jersey, Metro Philadelphia, North & South Carolina and Illinois.

The Ask

Citizen Cider tasked 8th Nation to develop digital and marketing campaigns. After winning numerous awards and experiencing unprecedented growth, Citizen decided to enlist 8th Nation to help grow brand awareness and loyalty via social channels and event marketing campaigns.

What 8th Nation Did

Managed social media channels and produced various marketing campaigns to keep Citizen Cider connected to its rapidly growing fanbase. Analyzed all social accounts and website analytics to see where growth was needed as well as continuing to encourage brand loyalty by further optimizing their website and creating a weekly newsletter. Some campaign examples include:

#getexcidered

The #getexcidered campaign encouraged followers of Citizen Cider’s social channels to post where and when they “get excidered”. This consisted of finding and reaching out to Citizen Ciders biggest fans on social media and arranging photo shoots that captured them enjoying their ciders at their favorite local restaurants and bars. The photos were then shared on Social Media as well as in-store.

Dirty Mayor

Developed a “Dirty Mayor” mock political campaign featuring the now popular cider’s namesake, local public radio host and celebrity, Rick Cengari aka “The Dirty Mayor” which ramped up to launching a new cider with the actual mayor of Burlington VT, Miro Wineberger.

Indigevore

Hosted an Indigevore Dinner featuring all local and pre-colonial ingredients created by a Native American chef and worked with Citizen’s brewing team to develop a special cider featuring all local apples for the occasion. 

• Develop and execute integrated and multi-channel marketing plans to grow consumer base
• Create audience generation and engagement strategies and campaigns to increase engagement key industry categories
• Translated marketing messages across social platforms
• Coordinating and revamping Citizen Cider’s brand identity and website
• Collaborate with leadership and cross-functional team members to brainstorm, plan, and develop new ideas and strategies
• Define comprehensive marketing performance framework, including creative reviews, tracking, and optimization of results
• Work with commercial, events, and editorial teams on marketing programs and tactics to increase the visibility of the Citizen Cider brand and associated opportunities
• Craft marketing collateral working closely with the art and brand teams on creative vision, strategy, and creation
• Grow relationships with industry partners to increase audience through co-marketing and cross-promotion opportunities
• Defined SEO strategy
• Launched calendar of social campaigns to promote featured events
• Developed customer personas to help guide strategy
• Implemented Google Keyword strategy
• Gathered data from Google analytics and finely tuned marketing strategies around findings
• Improved email campaigns particularly in copy and tracking
• Improved website issues including Call to Action strategy and fine-tuning registration pages
• Conducted social media best practice training with the team to ensure a consistent brand voice across all channels

The Results

Exceded marketing goals of an increased social following by 32% and increased email signups by 20% and over the previous quarter. Citizen won numerous awards during this time.