Alcohol Marketing Strategies: A Guide to Promotions with Alcohol Marketing Examples

What are some relevant alcohol marketing strategies for 2023?

Alcohol marketing is the advertising and promotion of your company’s brand/portfolio with the goal of building awareness and increasing sales. With the shifts in drinking trends and habits across alcohol markets, including new generations coming into the market, post-pandemic shifts in drinking behavior, the rise of alcohol delivery, RTD market growth, specific spirits consumption trend shifts, and compliance considerations there’s a lot to consider for your alcohol marketing strategy. 

 Some key alcohol marketing strategies for 2023 and beyond can include: 

• Appeal To Gen Z’s Appetite for Authenticity & Responsibility 
• Create a Halo Effect From On-Premise Activations 
• Surprise & Delight to Encourage Social Media Shareability 
• Enable Virtual Experimentation 
• Promote Digital Initiatives via Packaging Innovations 
• Offer Cost-Conscious Consumers a Reason to Indulge
  

To get details about recent trends and the marketing strategies listed above (with alcohol marketing examples), see our 2023 Alcohol Industry Trends & Marketing Strategies Report

Click here to skip to the alcohol marketing examples.

What are alcohol promotions? 

Alcohol promotions are specific tactics that fit within an overall marketing strategy and are the building blocks that can help your company or brand build longer-term customer loyalty. Promotions come in the form of one-off or a series of campaigns that can include: 

• Sweepstakes  
• Instant-win  
• Gift with Purchase (GWP) 
• Text to Win 

You can start by running these one-off promotions and graduate to a continuity program that focuses on increasing purchase frequency and as well as customer lifetime value (CLTV). This can lead to a full customer loyalty program that focuses on ongoing engagement, deeper connections, the opportunity to build up to bigger rewards, and stronger loyalty with your brand. If you already have a continuity or loyalty program in place, promotions are a great way to keep up the engagement and bring back former members. 

What are the key phases of an alcohol promotion? 

It might seem like a complex process, but with careful planning and attention to the required details, you can ensure that your sweepstakes campaigns meet the necessary regulations. Use this checklist to avoid missing anything before releasing your sweepstakes to the public.

To help you with your alcohol marketing promotions checklist, here are the key phases of any campaign. 

• Alcohol promotion marketing strategy & goals 
• Validating legal and compliance: Are you complying with US national and state alcohol marketing laws (see our Sweepstakes Rules and Laws page for details on this)  
• Building the promotion components: 
  • What qualifying actions the consumer can take
  • Omnichannel activation (text, email, web, social, app) 
  • Age and state gating 
  • Promotion type (gift with purchase, Sweepstake, Rebate, Gamification, etc.) 
  • Purchase validation (e.g. receipt submission and validation) or non-purchase validation (image, social post, hashtag, etc.), register to enter 
  • Reward procurement and fulfillment (physical, digital, experiential, loyalty points)
    
• Amplifying your campaign 
• Measuring the results and adjusting current as well as future campaigns

What kind of data and insights can I get via promotions?

Promotions not only drive awareness, discovery, trials, and sales. They also allow your company to collect valuable data and to increase your marketable database. What can you learn from your promotions? 

With receipt validation (for purchase-related promotions), there’s a ton of insight you can get from your customer base. With basket analysis via scanned receipts, you can get insights on: 

• Average spend 
• Total basket spend 
• Location data 
• Preferred retailers 
• Time of day and day of week 
• Brand & category level shopping data 
• Competitors
• Retailer breakdown 
• Complementary products bought together 
  

 First & Zero-Party Data: You can collect more first and zero-party data to better understand your customers and to build up your CRM data (giving you a larger marketable database). The types of first or zero-party data can include contact information, location, household size, flavor or brand preferences, activity preferences (music, sports, recreational activities), purchase frequency and more. 

Should you use alcohol promotion companies? 

It’s best not to go it alone when it comes to alcohol promotions. Working with an alcohol marketing company or a company that has deep experience running various types of promotions, specifically in the alcohol marketing area will save your company time and risk and will usually lead to better results. 

What are some alcohol marketing and promotion laws in the US? 

With alcohol promotions, it’s important to follow the laws closely. Some key legal considerations include the following: 

Best alcohol marketing examples? 

Some great alcohol marketing examples include the following: 

Register to Enter Sweepstakes Program (Photo Upload Contest) (Jim Beam)

Jim Beam their customers and boosted engagement via a fun photo upload contest, managed by Snipp. Consumers would scan a QR code to visit an age-gated website. There they would register and upload a photo of their backyard. Rewards included a VIP Distillery Trip (with behind the scenes tour), backyard games tournament, exclusive tastings, catered meals and other bespoke experiences. Learn more about it here.

Digital Rebates with Contests and Promotions (Radeberger)

Radeberger launched a digital rebate solution that was flexible to be used across brands, retailers, location and season. Working with Snipp, Radeberger can run any number of contests and promotions programs, including digital rebates, GWP, sweeps, pin-on pack, sweeps, instant wins, punchcard, text-based programs, etc. and collect data on which types of activations are working the best. In addition, they are able to build up their CRM data (first and zero party data) and can run programs with purchase validation (e.g. receipt processing) or non-purchase validation.  Learn more about it here.

Omnichannel Sweepstakes Promotion to Drive Sales and a Seamless CX (Goose Island)

The craft beer manufacturer Goose Island (AB Inbev) wanted to become more consumer-centric and to offer their consumers an omnichannel, more cohesive shopper experience by seamlessly unlocking consumers' transactional and behavioral data from their offline and online network in the UK. The solution included the option for customers to purchase at retail and upload an image of their receipt or to upload an image of Goose Island pints. Entries would qualify them for a sweepstake for various rewards. Learn more about the program here.

Alcohol marketing helps grow your brand’s reach 

There are a lot of changes in the alcohol industry and in the marketing landscape, but one that doesn’t change is that customers want great quality products, they want to be entertained and engaged and they love to participate in fun or interesting promotions. Contact Snipp if you want to learn how we help brands grow awareness, drive trials and increase sales via alcohol promotions.