+ Sun King

Sun King Brewing Company was founded in 2009 with a humble goal: to bring Fresh Local Beer to the city of Indianapolis. Thanks to the support of thirsty Hoosiers throughout the years, Sun King has grown to the second-largest brewery in Indiana and has become an integral member of communities across the entire state.

Solution

Despite having a large and dedicated audience buying their beer at liquor stores and bars, Sun King found it difficult to activate their customers to visit their tasting room or purchase tickets to their annual events. They employed an email newsletter to little success; emails were sent out at an inconsistent rate of roughly one per month, and segmentation was underutilized. The emails that did reach Sun King’s audience featured unclear and plentiful calls to action. Information about new beer releases, events at the downtown tasting room, tap takeovers across town and shoutouts to community partners all received equal focus, and viewers were unlikely to read all of the pertinent copy.

Outcome

Partnering with MKR allowed Sun King the capacity to reapproach their email strategy. MKR began by putting the outdated email template to rest and creating a new template from scratch. This simplified the amount of information conveyed in each message, providing a single, clear call to action. Once each piece of content received its own time in the spotlight, MKR supplied analytics to help segment Sun King’s audience. We were able to take full advantage of segmentation and smart sending to vastly increase the amount of viewers who see the brewery’s marketing. Ongoing strategic support around content and scheduling remains vital to activating Sun King’s audience, which has recently grown due to launch in Chicago and Louisville.

78%

10.5%

156%

increase in video views

lift in ad recall

increase in impressions YoY

+ Email