The October-November-December (OND) period represents the make-or-break season for beverage alcohol brands. With 36% of annual off-premise sales occurring during these months and consumers increasingly willing to trade up during this period, having a strategic OND sales approach is critical.
The challenge? Competition intensifies, CPMs get more expensive, and every brand is fighting for the same holiday dollars. Here’s how successful brands are cutting through the noise and maximizing their OND performance.
Plan Your Sampling Strategy Around Clear Objectives
Before diving into tactical execution, successful brands first determine whether their sampling program serves a sales strategy, marketing strategy, or both. This foundational decision shapes everything that follows.
Todd Richman, Samson & Surrey (formerly National Sales Director for the Tastings at Overproof), emphasizes the importance of clarity from the start. “You want to think about how you want to align [a sampling program] with either a sales strategy or a marketing strategy, or maybe it’s a little bit of both,” said Richman.
Sales-focused programs track cases moving out of warehouses, distributor sell-through, bottles sold at tastings, and reorder rates. Marketing-focused programs prioritize demographics, conversion rates, and customer feedback. Producers may use their data to decide on a mid-sampling program switch from mixing a whiskey with sparkling water to ginger beer and see improvements in both conversion rates and sales.
Richman’s data shows tastings increased in velocity by 50% from October to November, then jumped 124% in December. Suppliers must plan their budgets accordingly—lighter in September, gradually increasing through the final four months of the year.
Balance Chain and Independent Retailers for Maximum Impact
Smart brands diversify their retail approach, leveraging the unique benefits of both chain and independent accounts during OND.
Chain retailers offer the opportunity for larger shipments and the ability to book far in advance, but they also come with challenges, including limited rescheduling flexibility and heavy competition. “You may be sampling your whiskey brand amongst four other whiskey brands,” noted Richman.
Independent retailers provide more intimate settings where you might be the only brand sampling, ensuring full customer attention. “Every sale matters, and it’s a great way to ensure you’re cementing relationships with your retail partners,” said Richman. Independent stores often excel at social media promotion and have engaged customer databases, amplifying sampling efforts beyond the in-store experience.
The key is streamlined communication—with smaller operations, a brand might only need to send a text message or two to book an entire quarter’s worth of samplings.
Convert Window Shoppers with Strategic Limited-Time Offers
OND represents the perfect storm of pent-up demand meeting increased willingness to spend. All year, consumers have been eyeing premium products but waiting for the right moment to purchase.
Philipp Klumpp, Founder & Head of Strategy at Beyond the Agency, recommends experimenting with urgency-driven offers. “A 48-hour sale with exclusive premium bottles plus a glass thrown in as a little extra” creates the urgency needed to convert browsers into buyers, he explains.
The key is ensuring exclusivity—bottles available only during the limited-time offer comply with local regulations while creating genuine scarcity. One brand Klumpp worked with saw daily sales jump significantly, with double the average transactions during their promotional period.
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Reward Loyalty with VIP Experiences
OND also presents an opportunity to deepen relationships with existing customers who can become repeat buyers for next year’s holiday season.
Successful VIP programs create exclusive access and genuine urgency. Building off his limited-time offer strategy, Klumpp developed a “12 Days of Gifting” campaign featuring different SKUs, bundles, or merchandise dropped daily. “During those 12 days, customers received emails that required them to act during a certain time period, offering a more true ‘first access’ feel that drove quick conversions,” he explains.
The most effective VIP perks include early access to limited-edition bottles, complimentary engraving, custom gift bundles, and gift wrapping services. These personal touches encourage higher spending while making loyal customers feel truly valued.
Think Like Your Customer, Not Your Category
The biggest mistake brands make is thinking like industry insiders rather than consumers. Most customers don’t think in terms of category or brand—they think about moments, experiences, and end results.
Customers are excited to make margaritas with their college friends, but they are not always looking to buy a specific tequila. They may need wines for a Thanksgiving dinner that includes their siblings and their grandma, or canned drinks to enjoy outdoors with other loved ones.
Brands must build their marketing around moments and focus on experiences rather than product features, especially during OND. They must connect what is being sold with what customers are actually buying: memories, celebrations, and special occasions.
Premium and luxury whiskey, tequila, and sparkling wines like champagne and prosecco can make ideal gift options for celebratory occasions and, post-pandemic, customers are more willing to buy these items online. Online purchases can provide a wealth of data that can be adjusted in real-time throughout OND or used to prepare a stronger strategy for the next holiday season.
Execute with Precision and Measure Everything
With tastings potentially occurring every day except Sunday during OND, having streamlined systems becomes critical.
Richman recommends the “Trinity Pitch” approach for ambassador training—three key points per brand, maximum. “On average, a sampling agent has three to maybe five minutes with a customer, and if you’re sampling three products, that’s just over 1.3 minutes per product,” he explained.
Calculate ROI by measuring total tasting costs (product, talent, time, point-of-sale materials, mixers, shipping) against case sales, distributor depletions, and table sales. Track talent performance, conversion rates, and location-specific data to optimize future programs.
The brands that dominate OND are those that plan strategically, execute flawlessly, and measure everything. If this execution is maintained heading into January, when the competition decreases, brands that can forge a successful OND can also set themselves up for success in the new year.
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