In this presentation from Bar Convent Brooklyn, Kiowa Bryan, On-Trade and Marketing Director at Spiribam USA, discusses her key digital marketing tips for alcohol brands. Bryan provides tips on analyzing data and how alcohol brands can make sure they are competitive in the digital marketing realm.
In this video, Mike Boswell, the Vice President of Digital E-commerce at Breakthru Beverage Group, discusses the future of B2B E-commerce in the alcohol industry and its potential impact on your beer, wine, or liquor brand. Discover how to optimize content for B2B platforms, tailor your brand’s presence, and stay ahead in this rapidly evolving industry.
In this video, Josh Jacobs, the CEO of a Speakeasy Co., discusses three major consumer trends related to the alcohol industry and three strategies for how brands can improve the e-commerce and at-home experience.
In this video, Ryan Malkin, a principal attorney at Malkin Law, provides an overview of the current direct to consumer market for spirits, wine, and beer. He dives into what direct-to-consumer means in each alcohol category, the states where each category can legally ship direct-to-consumer, and estimated size of direct-to-consumer channel in the U.S.
Key Digital Marketing Tips for Alcohol
Kiowa Bryan (0:13)
My background is in hospitality—I was a bartender for 15 years before moving into brand ambassador and marketing roles at Speakeasy Co. and Spearhead USA. Prior to the pandemic, our business split was 80% on-premise and 20% off-premise. Almost overnight, 80% of that business disappeared, pivoting us to 100% off-premise, split evenly between retail and our online e-commerce store. Navigating that shift required adopting new platforms, learning web design on the fly, and balancing marketing with on-trade responsibilities as venues reopened.
Kiowa Bryan (2:50)
In marketing, the “Rule of 7” states that a potential customer needs to see your brand seven times before pulling the trigger on a purchase. Hitting those touchpoints doesn’t require endlessly creating new assets. Establish one strong hero image for each product expression that aligns with your brand’s ethos, and reuse it consistently across social media, roll-up banners, in-store point-of-sale displays, and email newsletters. This repetition builds immediate visual recognition while keeping photography costs down.
Kiowa Bryan (4:43)
Digital marketing eliminates the guesswork of traditional mass media because you can track customer behavior, analyze performance, and adjust strategies in real time. Digital execution requires “closed-loop marketing”—a framework where sales and marketing function as a continuous feedback loop rather than a linear funnel. Every digital ad, social post, or search impression must contain a clear, direct path leading the user back to your website or online storefront.
Kiowa Bryan (6:37)
Monthly performance reviews are essential to refine digital strategy:
- Sit down once a month to review analytics across paid ads, email campaigns, web traffic, and e-commerce conversions.
- Use monthly data insights to make tactical adjustments for the following month.
- Prioritize short video content—even a two-second clip yields significantly higher reach and engagement than a static photo.
Kiowa Bryan (7:50)
Your website serves as your brand’s primary first impression. Between 60% and 75% of users browse on mobile devices, making mobile optimization just as critical as the desktop view. Because your website is the first place interested consumers land after discovering your product, your primary operational goal on-site must be capturing user data to construct a direct email marketing list.
Kiowa Bryan (8:55)
Third-party social platforms evolve and change, but an email subscriber list remains a permanent, owned asset. Effective ways to grow and leverage your email list include:
- Offering immediate value, such as a 10% discount pop-up in exchange for an email address.
- Collecting emails via giveaways or raffles at trade shows and live events.
- Maintaining a monthly sending cadence to avoid spamming subscribers.
- Delivering value in every email through exclusive recipes, venue partnerships, or nationwide event calendars.
The Future of B2B Alcohol E-commerce from Breakthru’s Mike Boswell
Mike Boswell (0:09)
I’m Mike Boswell, Vice President of Digital and E-Commerce at Breakthru. Breakthru is over an $8 billion business across 16 U.S. markets, covering beer, wine, and spirits as the third largest distributor in the country. Today, I’m going to talk about B2B e-commerce, what to expect, how it’s evolving, and what you should expect from your distributors as this channel grows.
Mike Boswell (1:26)
While e-commerce grew 131% during the pandemic and has since leveled out, continuous growth remains ahead. Looking at grocery, beverage alcohol represents about 9% of total offline sales, but only 4% to 5% of online sales. Closing that online share gap represents a $1.4 billion opportunity left on the table. Brands need to work with distributors and retailers like Kroger to ensure beverage alcohol is prioritized online with high-quality content. Furthermore, while B2C e-commerce is about $6.1 billion (representing 4% to 5% of total volume), B2B e-commerce is vastly larger—with one distributor alone already reporting $3 billion—and will eventually account for 30% of your total volume.
Mike Boswell (5:06)
B2B experiences are shifting away from traditional, alphabetical catalog listings toward personalized, relevant content. At Breakthru, we segment accounts—such as craft spirit or fine wine accounts—so that search results automatically prioritize those categories for relevant buyers. Brands must deliver rich product descriptions, keywords, and high-quality images to ensure their products are picked up by these personalized search algorithms. Additionally, contextual search is replacing keyword matching; searching for a major brand like High Noon will now contextually suggest other RTD options within the portfolio.
Mike Boswell (8:47)
Adopting B2B e-commerce directly empowers sales reps. A Breakthru study found that sales reps in the top 10% of B2B platform adoption grow their business 30% faster year-over-year and sell 14% more points of distribution. By directing buyers to order reorders online, reps save five minutes per order—accumulating to 26,000 hours saved across our team last year. This extra time allows reps to focus on securing new points of distribution, cocktail menu placements, and retail displays for your brands.
Mike Boswell (9:52)
To win in B2B e-commerce, brands should raise their expectations with distributors to demand personal, relevant online experiences. Active accounts on B2B platforms buy more products, driving growth and profitability for everyone.
Mike Boswell (10:44)
To summarize, brands must focus on three core actions:
- High-Quality Visual Content: Provide primary bottle shots, hero images, lifestyle photography, and back-of-bottle images.
- Rich Product Descriptions: Craft detailed copy with relevant category keywords.
- Asset Management Solutions: Utilize Product Information Management (PIM) or Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems to seamlessly deliver updated content to distributors in bulk.
Using E-Commerce to Improve the At-Home Experience for Alcohol Consumers
Josh Jacobs (0:10)
I’m the CEO of Speakeasy Company. We’re an e-commerce platform working with about 300 brands, ranging from emerging players to Sazerac, Edrington, Stoli, William Grant, WhistlePig, and Heaven’s Door. My objective is to show you how radically different today’s consumer is compared to pre-pandemic times and how early adopters can take advantage of this shift.
Josh Jacobs (0:35)
Three major consumer trends define today’s market:
- Drinking at Home: The majority of polled consumers indicate they drink more at home now than pre-pandemic, with only 5% drinking more in bars and restaurants.
- Premiumization: Driven by an “at-home treat” mindset, 2022 was led by premium spending across every category. Notably, 40% of older Millennials drink more at home and spend more than Boomers.
- Experience Over Product: Producing great juice is no longer enough. Successful beverage alcohol companies operate primarily as marketing-first organizations that build curated experiences.
Josh Jacobs (2:09)
Online channels solve the traditional limitation of fitting a brand’s narrative onto a tiny bottle label. D2C e-commerce enables three key strategies to deliver a next-level, at-home premium experience:
Josh Jacobs (3:04)
1. Product Bundles & Curated Occasions:
Unique experiences do not need to be overcomplicated. Brands like Frey Ranch combine spirits with branded merchandise, turning buyers into paid brand ambassadors. Other brands design experience-driven gift packages—such as vodkas shipped in light-up cases or paired with novelty party props—to create memorable occasions that build lifelong fans. On-site exclusives, like Villa One offering signed Nick Jonas guitars, leverage digital platforms for limited-inventory offerings impossible to stock in physical retail stores.
Josh Jacobs (4:49)
2. Strategic Collaborations (“Collabs”):
Partnering with influencers or adjacent brands opens access to highly engaged audiences overnight. For example:
- Nobilis Spirits leveraged Mike Rowe’s dedicated audience to sell thousands of bottles in days.
- Hoon Young partnered with author Jack Carr, generating more sales in 24 hours than in any prior month.
- Nosotros collaborated with Robb Report to reach luxury demographic lists.
- Eastside Distilling partnered with Frito-Lay to create a Lay’s potato-based vodka that sold out within hours.
Josh Jacobs (7:25)
3. Limited Time Offers (LTOs):
LTOs leverage scarcity and impulse buying to answer the consumer question: “Why buy now?” During Dry January, WhistlePig launched a low-ABV “Dry Orange Old Fashioned” mixer kit, driving one of their highest-volume sales months on our platform. Similarly, Heaven’s Door released the luxury Bootleg Series featuring Bob Dylan’s artwork on ceramic bottles housed in leather cases. High-profile D2C releases demonstrate immense commercial scale—such as Tesla Tequila generating over $10 million in sales, or top non-celebrity digital brands reaching $5 million in annual e-commerce revenue.
Josh Jacobs (9:24)
Product bundles, collaborations, and LTOs allow brands to differentiate from the crowd, drive customer acquisition, and foster loyal brand advocates. Globally, e-commerce alcohol is projected to add $31 billion over the next four years. While still nascent in the U.S., digital alcohol sales present a massive frontier for forward-thinking brands.
An Overview of the Direct-to-Consumer Market for Spirits
Ryan Malkin (0:09)
My name is Ryan Malkin, and I have a law firm based in Miami that I started about 10 years ago. Previously, I was in-house counsel at Pernod Ricard in New York, and now I work with both the biggest and smallest alcohol brands in the world, as well as many Park Street clients. Today, I’m setting the stage to walk through the basics of direct-to-consumer (DTC) fulfillment, largely focused on spirits and providing an overview of the current legal landscape.
Ryan Malkin (0:43)
The DTC market for beverage alcohol is expanding rapidly and is expected to hit $17 billion this year, growing to $20 billion by 2027. Pure DTC refers to a supplier selling directly to a consumer—similar to a Napa Valley winery model. During COVID, states like New York temporarily permitted distilleries to ship directly to consumers via mail, but many of those emergency provisions have since been rolled back. Pure DTC for spirits remains extremely limited across the U.S. compared to wine, which enjoys widespread shipping authorization.
Ryan Malkin (2:38)
In spirits, pure DTC is mostly restricted to intrastate sales (such as within California). It is important to distinguish between shipping and delivery: shipping involves common carriers like FedEx or UPS transporting product over longer distances, whereas delivery refers to a local retailer handling the “last mile” drive from store to home. The Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) and the American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA) are actively lobbying via initiatives like Ship My Spirits to pass legislation bringing spirits DTC parity to wine.
Ryan Malkin (4:20)
Because pure spirits DTC is legally restricted in most places, spirit brands utilize a modified three-tier DTC model using third-party platform technology (such as Speakeasy) and retail partners. Under this setup:
- The brand sells inventory to its wholesaler (e.g., Park Street in New York).
- The wholesaler sells that inventory to a licensed retail partner.
- The consumer places an order on the brand’s website (powered by the third-party platform).
- The licensed retailer receives, processes, and ships the order directly to the end consumer.
Ryan Malkin (6:02)
While this modified model creates a seamless, brand-centric checkout experience for the consumer, the supplier does not capture the higher profit margins that a winery would under pure DTC. The brand is still selling through the standard three-tier system and receiving its standard wholesale price. However, this structure remains a powerful launch tool, allowing new brands to test consumer demand in distant markets and build a data-driven case for broader distributor expansion.
Ryan Malkin (7:14)
Marketplaces like Drizly, Minibar, or ReserveBar connect consumers directly with local retailer inventories for last-mile delivery, whereas integrated tech partners embed the retail fulfillment engine directly into the brand’s site. To ship across state lines, out-of-state retailers frequently rely on the “title theory”—the legal argument that ownership of the bottle transfers at the retailer’s physical store counter, with the retailer merely acting as the consumer’s agent to ship the package. However, states like Michigan and South Carolina actively issue cease-and-desist warnings against out-of-state retailer shipments into their jurisdictions.
More Resources on Digital Marketing & E-Commerce:
Unlocking the Value of Virtual
Optimizing Social Media & Product Pages for Conversions
The Difference Between B2B & B2C E-Commerce