Between holiday shopping, entertaining, gifting, events and increased consumer interest in spirits, “OND” presents plenty of opportunities to put your brand in front of consumers.

But a strong season doesn’t happen by accident. Before October gets away, take time to decide what you want this season to accomplish, where you want consumers to encounter your brand, and what you need to have ready.

Here are practical ways to build your OND game plan.

1. Decide What You Want to Accomplish

Before ordering merchandise, creating social posts or planning holiday promotions, identify your objectives.

Are you trying to:

• Drive tasting room traffic?
• Increase retail sales?
• Move a particular bottle or product?
• Introduce a new release?
• Build brand awareness?
• Generate holiday gift sales?
• Encourage repeat purchases?
• Get consumers to sign up for your email list?
• Increase cocktail or recipe engagement?
• Build relationships with retailers, restaurants or other accounts?

The more specific the objective, the easier it becomes to determine what promotional activities actually make sense.

A promotional-products resource, “Strategy for Selecting Promotional Products to Maximize ROI & Create Positive Customer Experience” from Pica Marketing recommends starting with the goal before choosing the product. Its list of promotional objectives includes brand awareness, staying top of mind, sales, referrals and events, among others.

OND action: Write down your three most important goals for October through December. Use those goals to evaluate every promotion you consider.

2. Identify the Products You Want to Push

You don’t need to promote your entire portfolio equally during OND.

Choose the products that make the most sense for the season. That might mean a new release, a gift-friendly bottle, a cocktail-focused spirit, a limited edition or a product with strong margins.

Then build your messaging around those products.

OND action: Consider creating a simple internal list:

Product → Target customer → Reason to buy → Where to buy → Promotional message

That gives everyone on your team a common playbook when consumers start asking about holiday gifts and seasonal purchases.

3. Prepare Your Team for the Questions Consumers Will Ask

OND can bring new and occasional customers through your tasting room, website and retail accounts.

OND action: Make sure everyone who represents your brand can quickly answer questions such as:

• What makes this spirit different?
• What should I use it for?
• What’s a good bottle for someone who likes ___?
• What makes this a good gift?
• Where else can I buy it?
• What should I make with it?
• What is your most popular product?
• What should someone try if they’re new to your brand?

A few minutes of preparation can make these conversations much more useful.

4. Make It Easy for People to Buy

Once you’ve gotten someone’s attention, remove as much friction as possible.

Remember, your website is often the beginning of the customer experience and should serve as the central hub for your brand. Want to brush up on your online presence? Check out the ACSA webinar “Using Your Online Presence to Build Your Brand”.

OND action: Website check.

• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Are products clearly described?
• Are gift options easy to find?
• Are your tasting-room hours current?
• Are shipping and pickup policies easy to understand?
• Are retail locations easy to find?
• Are your social profiles directing people somewhere useful?
• Are your holiday deadlines clearly communicated?

Also check every link, QR code and landing page you plan to use in your OND promotions. A great campaign with a broken link is still a broken campaign.

5. Build a Holiday Promotion Calendar Now

Don’t decide what to post or promote as it comes up every week. 

OND action: Map out the major moments in advance. Your calendar might include:

October

• Fall and Halloween content
• New releases
• Cocktail content
• Early holiday gift messaging
• Retailer outreach

November

• Thanksgiving entertaining
• Holiday shopping
• Gift sets
• Black Friday/Cyber Monday, if appropriate
• Email campaigns

December

• Last-minute gifts
• Holiday entertaining
• Cocktail recipes
• Shipping/pickup deadlines
• New Year’s Eve
• Year-end appreciation

You don’t have to create dozens of campaigns. The goal is simply to know what you’re trying to accomplish each week so OND doesn’t become a scramble.

6. Make Your Retail Presence Work Harder

During OND, a consumer may encounter your brand somewhere very different from your distillery. 

They may see your bottle on a crowded retail shelf, at a bar, in a restaurant or at a holiday event.

That means your physical presentation matters.

ACSA’s webinar “Bringing the Distillery Experience Beyond the Distillery: How Creative Displays Can Help Distilleries Stand Out, Tell Their Story, and Sell More Spirits” focuses specifically on this challenge. The webinar explores how physical displays can help bring a distillery’s story into that retail decision.

Displays can include elements such as barrelheads, display barrels, barrel ends and cocktail barrels.

OND action: Walk into the stores where your spirits are sold and look at your products from the consumer’s perspective. Can someone quickly understand who you are, what makes the product distinctive and why they should pick it up?

7. Think Beyond the Bottle When It Comes to Gifting

Holiday shoppers are looking for gifts, but a bottle does not have to stand alone.

OND action: Consider whether you can create a giftable experience around your spirits. That could include:

• Gift packaging
• Cocktail ingredients
• Recipe cards
• Branded merchandise
• Tasting flight/educational experiences
• Gift certificates
• Distillery tours
• Bundled products

Think about how you can turn your bottles into experiences. 

For example, if you’re offering tasting experiences, don’t just line up your products and pour. Build a flight around a theme and connect each pour back to your brand’s story. For more ideas, read “Pour the Why, Not Just the What: Tasting Flights That Fly” (Heather Wibbels, the Cocktail Contessa). 

8. Decide How You Will Measure the Season

You don’t need a complicated analytics system. 

OND action: Choose a handful of numbers that correspond to the goals you established at the beginning. For example:

Goal: Tasting room traffic
Track visits, tours or event attendance.

Goal: Direct sales
Track online orders or specific product sales.

Goal: Email growth
Track new subscribers.

Goal: Retail support
Track participating accounts or sales where that information is available.

Goal: Brand awareness
Track metrics such as website traffic, social engagement or QR-code scans.

At the end of December, look at what happened and, more importantly, identify what you would repeat next year.

Be Ready Before the Rush

For a small craft spirits producer, approach the holiday season with a few clear objectives, choose the products and audiences that matter most, and make every consumer touchpoint work harder.

Start with the goal. Then determine the promotion, display, content or experience that can help you get there.

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Your OND Checklist

Before Halloween arrives, make sure you can answer “yes” to these questions:

☐ Do we know our top three OND objectives?

☐ Have we identified the products we want to emphasize?

☐ Do we have an OND promotion/content calendar?

☐ Have we reviewed our retail presentation?

☐ Have we considered holiday gifting opportunities?

☐ Have we selected promotional products based on a specific objective?

☐ Do we have at least one memorable physical brand experience planned?

☐ Is our team prepared for common customer questions?

☐ Are our purchasing, shipping, pickup and retail-location details easy to find?

☐ Do we know what we will measure?

Tags: Member Resource