What are the best liquor store promotion ideas? As a liquor store business owner or manager, you know how difficult it can be to promote your business. To make matters more complicated, there are several restrictions involving the liquor industry.
While 2-for-1 promotions sound great, the reality is that it may not be legal to offer discounts as a promotion. Your success relies on drumming up powerful and enticing promotions to get customers through the door.
Liquor store promotions can be a great way to show your customers that you appreciate them and want them to continue to return to your store. Not only are promotions a great way to get customers to return, but they’re also a great way to make a fantastic first impression on new customers.
This article will take you through five of the most enticing promotions your liquor store can (and should) pursue.
The 6 Best Liquor Store Promotion Ideas
Some of the best liquor store promotional ideas can get your customers into the store and more likely to spend money in your store. One great example you and your business can look to is Trader Joe’s. Their grocery stores are known nationwide for their sampling program.
They allow customers to sample beer, wine, and other spirits in-store and offer money-back guarantees. These promotions make customers happy, keep them coming back time and time again, and encourage them to try something new. Your customers will be more willing to buy something out of the ordinary, which is the perfect reason to try out some of these promotions.
1. Cocktail Samples
Though it might seem counterintuitive, giving out free samples can raise your sales figures by as much as 15 percent. When your customer can taste what you’re selling them, they’re more likely to buy something new.
This can get a bit complicated since every state has its own regulations regarding the legality of sampling alcoholic beverages. It’s worth going through the red tape, though, since there is such a high chance of your sales being positively affected by these samples.
One great way you can do this is by offering cocktail samples and selling the ingredients together in a gift basket or a bundle with the recipe written on it. This makes it extremely easy for your customer to take home and replicate and likely spend a few extra dollars in your store.
Fact: POS Nation's liquor store-specific POS system makes creating and sell baskets and bundles easy!
2. Wine Pairing Nights
Have you considered hosting a wine pairing night?
This works incredibly well if your liquor store sells the snacks in question to promote customers deciding that, yes, they should buy the bottle of wine and the crackers you paired with it.
You can put a spin on this with less-conventional wine pairings. Maybe you can do a night pairing wine with popular candy bars. Or perhaps you do a night pairing wine with Flaming Hot Cheetos!
If packaged snacks aren’t your thing, consider partnering up with another local business for a co-sponsored wine pairing. Maybe a nearby bakery has a dessert that’ll go perfectly with the wine you choose! With enough preparation, you can make an event that will really stick with your customers once they go home.
The idea of doing a wine pairing night doesn’t need to feel high brow or only for those in well-to-do areas. Wine pairing nights can be successful regardless of your clientele. They can be a great way to reflect your local community.
3. T-Shirts
T-shirts function as a way to not only give your customers something as a little bonus, but as a way to stir up free advertising for your business.
It’s not easy to offer free liquor as a promotion, but offering free stuff is a great way to get people to come in the door. By providing free T-shirts with a specific purchase amount, you get people wanting to buy more to get the free item.
You also get the advantage of your customers who get the free shirts wearing them around, functioning as free advertising for you. You can even think of sayings or slogans that are funny, eye-catching, or currently relevant to get people to want to look at the shirt in the first place.
T-shirts aren’t usually very expensive to produce, and they can come out of your advertising budget. They’re a great way to get your customers thinking about your location more often than when they’re only driving by. Their friends and family will see their T-shirt too and consider stopping in after seeing it’s from your brand.
4. Mixology Sessions
Your store already sells everything your customers need to make a great cocktail, so why not make an event out of teaching them how to do it?
This promotional idea offers you the chance to bring in local mixologists as well to host the event. You can even host a virtual mixology session on your social media pages, encouraging your customers to seek you out online and help with your brand recognition.
5. Sponsor Local Events
This idea gives you a lot of room to be creative. If your liquor store is nearby a TexMex joint, for example, you can consider offering small margarita samples to customers with a receipt from the place next door. This is a great way to encourage customers to visit even if they otherwise wouldn’t have.
Another option is for you to donate funds or some non-alcoholic product to local events. Whether this is water bottles to a youth sporting event or snacks for a local 5k race, you can get your name out there by sponsoring your hometown events, helping more and more people recognize your brand as one they want to support.
At first glance, you may think this is a lot of work. But how else are people going to know about your wine pairing nights, sampling events, mixology sessions, or local event sponsorships?
You can also use social media to promote seasonal or specialty items. For example, many breweries, wineries, and distilleries do limited releases that their fans look forward to all year. If you get your hands on some of these products, you can tease their arrival on social media.
You can also use your expertise to help customers find what they need before they even come to your liquor store. Think of all the questions customers ask when they come in and create short videos around them.
The Right Liquor Store POS System Helps You Run Promotions
All these ideas are great, but your liquor store's POS system has to be able to keep up. Functionality like mix-and-match bottle pricing, case-break inventory tracking, and sales reporting help you create, track, and identify promotional opportunities.
If you’re excited about these promotional ideas but are feeling less-than-excited about your liquor store's POS system (especially with inventory management, we can help.
First, we recommend watching our free webinar, "Increasing Your Liquor Store Profits in 2022."
Second, check out our free guide, The Guide to Liquor Store Inventory Management. This guide includes:
- The top inventory problems unique to the liquor store industry
- The best inventory management features
- The top tips for better managing your stock
- An overview of the major liquor laws and guidelines
Our liquor store POS system offers you all of the tools you need to grow your business and offers you the ability to scale to the services that you and your business need.
