You're welcome. When the guy's rolling in it, he can kick a few bucks my way
Your thread got me thinking today and I thought of a few more things that may be of interest. Generally companies that sell alcohol are prohibited from using advertising that is too flashy. Cartoon characters and the like... This is because it tends to attract children. One advantage of making kegs.com a separate entity is that he could go just about as far as he wanted over that line without damaging his sales business and credibility. Not actually selling alcohol means he can target a demographic of more susceptible teens that budweiser couldn't ever touch. Its a matter of personal taste there, as he may not be willing to go that far. I know as a teen I would have been all over a website that teaches you how to make beer. (I even bought one of those wine making kits from the back of a magazine.) Probably not the best idea though, since he's trying to sell brewery equiptment that teenagers probably wouldn't buy. Still teens are killer for getting the word out about a brand. (heard of viral marketing?) Its a little long term, but five years later they will be his demographic and already intimately familiar with his brand.
Another promotion possibility is for kegs.com to host some kind of brewery competition. Put together a prize from funds coming from his newly found affiliates and give it away to the best microbrew. He could even give away a homepage link on the new site to the brewery who wins "best beer" and charge a small reg fee to enter the competition. (Promotion that pays for itself...) Once it is established, I bet some of the smaller shops would kill for a chance to have their logo show up on kegs.com as "beer of the year." The winner would definately use that in his own advertising, and that would be free promotion for kegs.com. It all seems like one big party on the front, and he's silently making these small brew shops aware of his other business as an equiptment supplier behind the scenes.
As for affiliates, I was thinking about yeast and grain suppliers first, but after I thought about it for a while, beer businesses would be his best bet for conversions. I'm sure more than one frat boy has wandered into kegs.com because he's been tasked with supplying the keg for the next party. It wouldn't hurt to do a bit of research on referrer logs and polling his visitors to see what they really wanted before choosing a final development plan. Sometimes you think people want one thing, but you have no idea what they really were looking for.
