Did you know that spirits are outselling beer for the first time ever? They’re almost neck and neck. And you can capitalize on this statistic!
Times are changing. But more importantly, consumer preferences are changing. Customers love stories — they want to feel connected to the companies they spend money with. They also want convenience and prefer drinking at home. So now is the time to embrace ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails and luxury spirits in your liquor store.
But how do you get the word out that you’re aligned with customer preferences? How can you entice local customers to spend time in your store and boost sales? By implementing effective advertising ideas.
This quick guide to liquor store advertising ideas will help you attract more customers and boost profits in your store. We’ll also show you how a liquor store point of sale (POS) system can effectively manage and track each idea.
Try These Liquor Store Advertising Ideas To Boost Sales
Running a liquor store can be a challenge, right?
Between shifting consumer preferences, complex regulations on advertising, and stiff competition, it’s an uphill battle to attract customers to your store and drive sales. But with an advertising plan, you can overcome these hurdles!
Customers want, and have, more options than ever when stocking their home bars. From craft beers and spirits to celebrity-backed brands, you can’t afford to miss out on opportunities to bring customers into your store. But how easy is it to advertise your products?
You have to look out for state and local laws. Depending on your location, there will be restrictions on how you can advertise your store. Certain words and imagery are prohibited, and alcohol promotions must tread carefully.
Related Read: 4 Alcohol Marketing Guidelines You Need To Be Aware Of
Once you align with rules and regulations, you then need the right tools to effectively implement advertising ideas. That’s where an industry-specific POS system comes into play. The data insights you get from your POS system are invaluable. From tracking sales metrics to purchase histories and loyalty program integrations, POS tools help keep current customers happy, engage new customers, and drive profits for your liquor store.
1. Reward Customers With Loyalty Programs
Who doesn’t love discounts, gifts, store credit, and VIP perks?
With a loyalty program, you incentivize customers to keep shopping in your store. And you can create loyalty programs that cater to various customers. For example, regular wine drinkers might enjoy benefits like
- 15 percent off all wines
- Free tastings of new arrivals
- Free enrollment in wine classes and events
They would receive these benefits once they hit a certain spending threshold. Gamifying the experience by allowing customers to earn points towards rewards each time they make a purchase gives them an extra nudge to choose your store over competitors.
2. Host In-Store Tastings for Local Customers
In-store tastings are a fun and engaging way to attract local customers and current customers alike. You can host tasting events for various products like wine, beer, spirits, and mixed drinks.
People can discover new flavors in a social setting — making your store a community hub.
Potential customers will also spend more time in your store. They can get to know you better and spend more time exploring your shelves.
Tastings aren’t the only events you could host. What about a regular Thursday night book club with a different wine or spirit each week? Or a cocktail-making class? Try to tap into your local community to see what works best.
Related Read: How To Market a Liquor Store: 7 Creative Promotion Ideas
3. Use Email Marketing To Drive Sales
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to advertise deals, promote new products, and provide relevant updates to existing or potential customers.
Email is more affordable than print advertising. It allows you to send customized offers based on demographics and past purchases — hopefully driving higher open rates and clicks. You can also drive sales when you announce promotions, new arrivals, or limited quantities. Here are some quick ideas for emails:
- Spotlight new arrivals like limited edition bourbons
- Last call emails for sales or expiring members-only coupons
- Launching a new event with a discount
- Abandoned cart reminders for customers who left items unpurchased online
- Birthday offers to add a personal touch
- Cocktail recipes and instructions, including bundles
As you can see, there are various ways to use email to drive customer engagement and sales. Do what works for your store!
4. Sponsor Local Events To Foster Community
If you want to increase brand awareness and visibility, sponsoring local events like summer concerts, food festivals, sporting events, and fundraisers is the way to go! You can contribute funding for the chance to advertise your store and get your brand in front of large crowds. At the same time, you can establish goodwill in your community.
What types of events draw large crowds?
- Beer, wine, and food festivals — you could help sponsor or have a booth.
- Concerts — provide beer and wine for the VIP section.
- Local sporting events — sponsor a league team.
- Charity galas — donate wine and spirits for the silent auction.
The idea is to have a presence at these events. When people recall the event, they’ll remember your store.
Related Read: [GUIDE] Standing Out Against Other Local Liquor Stores
5. Create In-Store Displays That Catch the Eye
Your store layout is important. A crucial part of your layout is the signage you use to direct customers to specific sections and products. Strategically placed signage and displays highlighting specific products grab customer attention and spur impulse purchases.
For example, you could have a seasonal display — perhaps a local craft beer promotion leading up to summer. Or a holiday-themed display like margaritas for Cinco de Mayo or Irish whiskey for St. Patrick's Day.
You could also showcase new releases and use signage to direct customers to relevant displays. There are various options depending on the size and layout of your store, and your clientele.
Don’t forget to encourage impulse purchases. You can place mixers, cocktail cherries, limes, and any other ingredients near the checkout to encourage last-minute purchases.
6. Embrace Seasonality With Themed Promotions
Holiday and seasonal promotions are a fun way to engage customers and drive sales. Your best bet is to create a calendar that highlights every possible holiday and choose the ones that make sense for your customer base and store. You could advertise products and promotions like:
- Sparkling wine discounts around New Year's Eve
- Rosé and Sangria specials for summer parties
- Outdoor entertaining bundles (wine, beer, spirits, accessories) for July 4th
- Irish whiskey tastings leading up to St. Patrick's Day
- Feature bourbons and whiskey for Father's Day gifts
- Spooky cocktails and accessories for Halloween parties
Tailored promotions create excitement and give customers a reason to stock up for relevant moments. Tapping into cultural trends gives your promotions stopping power that drives foot traffic.
Related Read: Managing Seasonal Inventory for Your Liquor Store: 6 Steps to Success
7. Expand Your Reach by Selling Online
There’s a rising consumer demand for e-commerce and delivery services.
Creating online sales channels is imperative for forward-thinking liquor store owners, and allowing customers to browse inventory, place orders, and arrange delivery or convenient curbside pickup expands your reach beyond just neighborhood regulars.
To advertise your e-commerce liquor store, you can use in-store signage, send emails with online discounts and promotions, and use social media channels to direct users to your store. Be sure to sync online and in-store pricing, inventory counts, and order history.
Using Your POS System To Implement Liquor Store Advertising
A robust POS system is the best tool for implementing advertising strategies like the ones above. The best liquor store POS software:
- Has loyalty programs baked into the software, making it easy to track customer purchases and manage rewards. You’ll have details like enrollment date, membership level, points earned, and redeemable rewards. Special loyalty pricing and discounts can be automatically applied at checkout based on the customer's status.
- Help determine how successful your events are. You can run reports showing which products sold well after being showcased at a tasting.
- Easily collects customer email addresses and relevant data like purchase history right at checkout to build targeted mailing lists. You can hyper-personalize content based on previous purchases and preferences. Sales reports allow you to see which email campaigns drove increases in specific product purchases.
- Quantifies the impact of event sponsorships. By reviewing sales trends before and after a sponsored event, you can see spikes in purchases of the products featured.
- Helps inform what products you choose to feature in displays. Reviewing sales reports makes it easy to identify top-selling wines, highest-velocity beer SKUs, and breakout spirits to design displays around proven winners. POS data ensures you pick products customers already love to convert that in-store traffic into sales.
- Helps execute and assess seasonal promotions. You can schedule upcoming promotions, manage discounts, and track results, giving you actionable data to double down on what works.
- Makes selling online seamless. Inventory and product information flows directly from your POS to your e-commerce storefront. Customers can easily view real-time availability, pricing, descriptions, and images of products. POS integration also allows you to accept returns and process exchanges for online purchases in-store, and track online sales alongside in-store revenue in unified reporting.
Which of These Liquor Store Advertising Ideas Can You Try Today?
If you have the staff, the budget, and the time, you can start using these liquor store advertising ideas today. Or, you could just start with one! Try the idea that’s easiest to implement and most logical for your business. Once they begin driving results, you can expand on them, or try another idea.
No matter your approach, an advanced POS system should be the backbone of your strategies. With so much data available, you can double down on what works and pivot when an idea doesn’t bear fruit.
Bottle POS is a liquor store POS system that helps execute all the ideas above. Not only that; our industry-specific software helps manage your liquor store with ease. Features include:
- Age verification
- Real-time sales insights
- Employee management
- Flexible payment processing
And BottleZoo, our free e-commerce webstore.
Want to see our POS system in action? Schedule a demo with our liquor store experts today!
