Building online Global Presence for Heaven Sake
Heaven Sake, a premium Franco-Japanese sake brand, sought to expand its brand awareness and market presence in the UK and US. Despite its high-end positioning and beautifully designed product, Heaven Sake had limited digital visibility in key Western markets.
Challenge
Without a content marketing engine or affiliate ecosystem, the brand was missing opportunities to reach Japan-curious audiences, lifestyle tastemakers, and premium beverage consumers.
There was also no clear digital PR strategy in place to generate consistent media coverage and backlinks from credible sources.
Nakama's Summer Lofi Event at Genesis Cinema.
In addition to our online content and affiliate marketing efforts, we brought HEAVENSAKE into the spotlight through a high-impact cultural sponsorship at Japan Nakama’s Summer Lofi event at Genesis Cinema. This immersive experience invited attendees to unwind in the laid-back world of Japanese lofi music while enjoying the refined taste of Sake! Baby.
To maximise reach, we a series of compelling visually rich social media posts that highlighted the event and HEAVENSAKE’s premium offerings.
With Sake! Baby’s sponsorship, we successfully attracted hundreds of passionate Japanophiles and sake lovers, delivering tangible in-person engagement while reinforcing brand association with authentic Japanese culture and lifestyle.
Expanding the Reach: Affiliate Marketing & Digital PR
Our collaboration with Food, Japanese culture and Sake blogs in the US established a healthy Affiliate network of publishers working with HEAVEN SAKE via Sale A Sale, extending brand awareness and driving targeted traffic to HEAVENSAKE's online presence.
Solution
We delivered a comprehensive marketing strategy tailored to position Heaven Sake as the go-to luxury sake brand outside Japan:
Content Marketing:
We produced culturally relevant and visually compelling content for Japan Nakama’s platform to tell the Heaven Sake story in a way that resonated with our audience of Japanophiles and premium food & drink enthusiasts.
Affiliate Marketing Program:
We planned, built, and launched Heaven Sake’s affiliate program from the ground up — identifying, reaching out to, and managing relationships with hundreds of bloggers, content creators, and niche publishers in the food, drink, and Japanese lifestyle space.
Digital PR Campaign:
We crafted and distributed press documentation for Heaven Sake to over 300 premium media placements. This included syndication to top-tier publishers like New York Post, LadBible, and Yahoo News, enhancing brand visibility and trust.
Cultural Sponsorship Activation:
Heaven Sake was the featured drinks sponsor at Japan Nakama’s Summer Lofi event at Genesis Cinema — an immersive cultural experience celebrating Japanese lofi music. This sponsorship offered direct exposure to a curated audience of Japanophiles, reinforcing brand alignment with Japanese lifestyle and creating a memorable sensory association with the product.
Execution
To bring Heaven Sake into the consciousness of our target audiences, we:
Developed evergreen and seasonal editorial content for Japan Nakama’s site.
Developed an Affiliate Program and strategy.
Built outreach lists and directly engaged bloggers, and niche platforms aligned with Japanese culture, fine dining, and lifestyle.
Secured a significant number of high-quality backlinks pointing to Heaven Sake’s site from both PR placements and affiliate partners. These backlinks enhanced search engine rankings, improved domain authority, and reinforced consumer trust.
Created SEO-rich press materials and executed a large-scale PR push for online syndication.
Monitored and optimised affiliate performance for both traffic and conversions.
Results
The combined digital campaign and in-person activation for HEAVENSAKE delivered substantial, measurable outcomes across multiple fronts:
High-Impact Attendance: Over 300 attendees — a curated audience of Japan culture enthusiasts and premium drink seekers — engaged directly with the HEAVENSAKE brand at our Summer Lofi event at Genesis Cinema.
Increased Brand Awareness: Our Japan Nakama articles on HEAVENSAKE reached over 40,000 readers, with average engagement times exceeding 3 minutes, indicating deep interest. Social media activity surrounding the event and campaign reached tens of thousands of users, ultimately driving thousands of new followers to HEAVENSAKE’s social channels and significantly boosting brand recognition across the UK and US.
Established Authoritative Backlinks: Through our affiliate and PR outreach, we secured hundreds of backlinks from relevant blogs and websites in the food, drink, and Japanese culture space. These links drove large volumes of targeted traffic, led to measurable revenue growth, and expanded HEAVENSAKE’s brand awareness within influential niche communities.
Strengthened Lifestyle Positioning: By associating HEAVENSAKE with modern Japanese cultural experiences—online and offline—we helped cement its position as a sophisticated, internationally resonant premium sake brand.
By spearheading HEAVENSAKE's Digital PR project and through strategic link-building campaigns, we secured high -ranking backlinks with high-authority websites relevant to food, drink, and Japanese culture.
This greatly improved HEAVENSAKE's organic ranking and domain score, boosting their visibility in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and attracting a wider audience of potential customers.
An Appreciation of All Things Sake
Through a combination of event integration, captivating social media marketing, targeted email campaigns, and a multifaceted digital marketing strategy, Nakama Digital ensured HEAVENSAKE's success.
The unforgettable experience at Genesis Cinema, coupled with the ongoing brand awareness efforts, established HEAVENSAKE as a premium sake brand for discerning palates.
