Solved: Marketing Focus for a Coffee Roasting Business

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your specialty coffee business. It's a common problem, having a great product but not knowing where to put your marketing budget, especially when you don't have deep pockets. The temptation is to try a bit of everything, but that's usually the fastest way to burn through cash with little to show for it.

The short answer is you need to stop thinking about channels first and start thinking about your customer and their intent. I've laid out a more detailed plan below that walks through how I'd approach this, starting with the foundational stuff before you even spend a single pound on ads.

We'll need to look at your customer's real problem...

Right, let's get one thing straight. You're not just selling coffee. And your ideal customer isn't just "someone who drinks coffee". That's how you end up with generic ads that get ignored. You have to go deeper. Forget the sterile demographic profile: "Male, 25-45, lives in a city, earns £40k+". It tells you nothing of value.

Instead, you need to become an expert in your customer's specific, urgent, and expensive nightmare. What's the 'nightmare' for a potential specialty coffee drinker? It's the daily disappointment of a bland, bitter, or burnt cup of coffee from the supermarket. It's the frustration of spending money on beans that promise the world but taste like ash. It's the feeling of a morning ritual ruined before it's even begun. It's the embarassment of serving bad coffee to guests.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. They are in a 'before' state of dissatisfaction, and your coffee is the 'after' they're looking for. Your entire marketing message needs to be built around this transformation.

Let's map this out. The journey from their problem to your solution looks something like this:

Once you've isolated this nightmare, you can find them. What podcasts do they listen to (maybe something like The Tim Ferriss Show or food-related ones)? What YouTubers do they watch (James Hoffmann is the obvious one)? What magazines or blogs do they read? This intelligence becomes the blueprint for your targeting when you eventually move to social media ads. But first, we need to focus on "The Search" phase, because that's where the money is.

I'd say you should fix your offer before spending a pound...

The number one reason advertising campaigns fail isn't the targeting or the creative; it's the offer. A weak offer to the right person will fail. A brilliant offer to the wrong person will fail. You need a brilliant offer for the right person.

Right now, your offer is probably "a bag of coffee". That's a commodity. You're competing with every other roaster online and every supermarket shelf. We need to turn your product into a solution. An offer that solves their 'nightmare' in a clear, tangible way.

Successful offers do three things:

1. They focus on a specific audience: We've covered this. You're not for everyone, you're for the person who's tired of bad coffee.
2. They solve an urgent problem: The 'nightmare' we just defined.
3. They are clear and de-risked: They make it easy and safe for the customer to buy.

So, instead of just selling bags of beans, what could your offer be?

• The "Never Drink Bad Coffee Again" Starter Kit: A curated selection of three different beans, a simple brew guide, and maybe a discount on their first subscription order. This is for the newbie who doesn't know where to start.
• The "Roaster's Choice" Subscription: Takes the decision fatigue away. They get a new, exciting coffee chosen by you, the expert, delivered every month. This solves the problem of "what do I try next?".
• A Taster Pack: A low-cost, low-commitment way for someone to try your coffee. This reduces the risk of them spending £15 on a bag they might not like.

Once you have a strong offer, your ad copy writes itself. You can use a simple but powerful framework like Before-After-Bridge. You're not selling features (single origin, washed process); you're selling the outcome.

Here’s how that looks in practice:

This kind of messaging connects on an emotional level. It agitates the pain and presents your product as the clear, obvious solution. This is what gets clicks from people who are actually likely to buy.

You probably should understand your numbers first...

Okay, this part is absolutely critical, and it's where most small e-commerce businesses fall down. They ask "What should my cost per click be?" or "How much should a new customer cost?". The real question isn't "How low can my acquisition cost go?" but "How high a customer acquisition cost (CAC) can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?"

The answer lies in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). For a business like yours, which relies on repeat purchases and subscriptions, this is the most important number you can know. It tells you what a customer is truly worth to you over time, not just on their first purchase.

Let's break down the calculation. You need three bits of info:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month? Let's say a subscription customer spends £20 a month.
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after the cost of beans, packaging, etc.? Let's say it's 60%.
• Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of subscription customers do you lose each month? Let's say it's 10%. (This is a key one to track!).

The calculation is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

So, in our example: LTV = (£20 * 0.60) / 0.10 = £12 / 0.10 = £120.

In this scenerio, each subscription customer is worth £120 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £40 (£120 / 3) to acquire a single subscription customer and still have a very profitable business. Suddenly, paying £2 for a click on Google Ads doesn't seem so scary, does it?

Use this calculator to play around with your own numbers. See how small changes in churn or margin can dramatically affect what you can afford to spend on marketing.

This is the math that unlocks intelligent growth. Without it, you're just guessing. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads.

You'll need a solid Google Ads strategy...

Right, now that we've sorted the foundations (customer problem, offer, numbers), we can talk about channels. With a limited budget, you MUST focus on capturing existing demand, not creating new demand. That means Google Ads, hands down.

People on Google are actively typing their problems into a search bar. They have high intent. They are literally telling you they want to buy something. This is where you start. Forget social media, influencers, and fancy videos for now. That comes later when you have a predictable stream of revenue.

Your Google Ads strategy should have two main parts:

1. Search Campaigns:
This is where you bid on keywords. The key is to target keywords that show commercial intent. You need to get inside your customer's head. What are they typing when they are ready to buy?

Your ad copy must then match this intent, using the Before-After-Bridge framework we talked about. If someone searches "buy specialty coffee beans online", your headline should be something like "Specialty Coffee Beans, Roasted Fresh & Delivered".

2. Shopping Campaigns (and Performance Max):
These are the product listings with images you see at the top of Google. For e-commerce, they are absolutely essential. They are highly visual and show the price upfront, which pre-qualifies clicks. This requires setting up a Google Merchant Center account and a product feed from your website (Shopify and other platforms make this fairly simple).

I would start with a Standard Shopping campaign to begin with as it gives you more control. Once you have a good amount of conversion data (say, 50+ sales), you could test a Performance Max (PMax) campaign, which automates targeting across Google's entire network (Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display). But don't start with PMax; you need to walk before you can run.

Troubleshooting your performance is key. Once ads are live, you need to watch the data like a hawk. Where are people dropping off?

• -> Low Click-Through Rate (CTR)? Your ads aren't compelling. The copy is probably bland, or your product images in Shopping aren't appealing. Go back to the 'nightmare' and make your ads speak to that pain.
• -> Lots of clicks, but few 'Add to Carts'? The problem is on your product page. Your product photos might be poor, the descriptions might be missing or unpersuasive, or your pricing is off. You need to build trust and desire on that page. Customer reviews are massive here.
• -> Lots of 'Add to Carts', but few purchases? The issue is in your checkout process. Is shipping too expensive? Do you force people to create an account? Is it complicated? Make it as frictionless as possible.

Don't just set and forget. Paid advertising is a constant process of analysing data and optimising. I've seen eCom stores typically get a conversion rate of 2-5%. Your cost per purchase could be anywhere from £10 to £75 in developed countries. But if you're optimising for sales, the real metric to watch is your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). If you're spending £1 to make £4 back, that's a 4x ROAS, and that's a machine you can start to scale.

And then you can think about social ads...

Only once you have a profitable, predictable system running on Google Ads should you even think about social media ads (like Meta - Facebook/Instagram). Why? Because on social media, you are an interruption. People aren't there to shop; they're there to look at pictures of their friends' babies and argue about politics.

This means your job is much harder. You have to create demand, not just capture it. This is where all the ideas you had initially - UGC, giveaways, well-produced videos - come into play. But they must be used within a conversion-focused framework.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: running a "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaign on Facebook is like paying them to find you the worst possible audience. You're telling the algorithm "find me the cheapest eyeballs," and it does exactly that. It finds people who never click, never engage, and certainly never buy. Their attention is cheap for a reason.

You MUST run conversion campaigns, optimised for Purchases, even from day one. You're telling the algorithm "find me people who are like the other people who have bought from me." It costs more per impression, but you're fishing in a much, much better pond.

Your audience strategy on Meta should be tiered. Here’s how I’d prioritise it:

You start with the hottest audiences first (BoFu retargeting) as they're the most likely to convert. Show them ads with testimonials or a small discount to get them over the line. Then you move up the funnel. This structured approach ensures you're spending your money in the most efficient way possible.

I've worked with many eCommerce clients, from subscription boxes where we achieved a 1000% ROAS to apparel brands hitting a 691% return. The common thread is always the same: they nail the foundations first and then use a structured, data-driven approach to advertising. For example, a campaign we ran for a cleaning products client achieved a 633% return. It's not magic; it's just a process.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, and it might seem overwhelming. The key is to do it in order. Don't jump to step 4 before you've mastered step 1. Getting expert help can often be the cheapest option in the long run, as it helps you avoid the costly mistakes many businesses make when they're starting out. An experienced hand can get you to profitability much faster.

We offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your specific situation and give you a more tailored plan. If that's something you'd be interested in, just let me know.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh