• by Katie Petrillo , June 12, 2013

As a marketer or media planner for a leading alcohol brand, you’re all too familiar with the daily struggle to find targeted ad space and quality impressions. You’re looking for diverse, yet impactful ways to market your product. To reach key influencers, consider the $38 billion celebrations industry. 

Indeed, the celebrations industry provides new opportunities for beer, wine, and spirits brands. Party hosts spend freely to make the event a success, and alcohol often tops the list of items purchased. Online party planning calculators typically suggest that the host spend 20% of the budget on alcohol for parties with 5 or more people. Brands that position themselves in front of party hosts and their guests at the right time will reap the rewards.  

For brands, there is a lot to understand about party planning -- including timing, planning tasks, and what is most helpful to the host. Here are four specific ways that beer, wine and spirits marketers can focus their efforts on the celebrations industry:

1) Know your audience.  Women plan the majority of celebrations. They choose the theme, plan the food and drink menu, send invitations, set up the decorations and do the shopping. Typically, party hosts take 4 to 6 weeks to plan their event and carefully research their decisions and purchases. The majority of the planning is done online, as hosts comb through blogs, Web sites, social media, and more for the most creative and eye-catching party ideas. Skinnygirl positioned their site as a relevant resource for women by serving up specialty drink and food recipes, fashion tips, and even themed party ideas (most recently for the Kentucky Derby).  

2) Provide value.  Why should a party host choose your brand? A brand that can provide information to make hosts’ lives easier will come out on top. Consider promoting easy, creative drink recipes that don’t require too many ingredients. Or offer presentation and garnish ideas. Even brands that educate customers about the various types of glassware can be helpful to hosts. InstantParty.com provides recommended drink and food recipes by flavor and offers step-by-step instructions for creating an inviting setting for your next party.

3) Target hosts online.  Over the last 10 years, party planning has transitioned from paper to digital. It's important to find hosts at the exact time when they are planning their events in order to impact their party purchases. Many brands do this through search engine marketing, which can help them reach some hosts who are actively searching for similar products. However, there is an entire group of hosts that will never look for beverages via search. For those hosts, seek out sites where host go to plan the party and look for ideas. This could include party planning Web sites or smaller niche blogs that focus on party recipes, decorations, and DIY ideas. Ideally, your plan should include a combination of digital marketing strategies.  

4) Don’t forget guests.   Each party has only one or two hosts, but many guests. Depending on the event type, every host will send approximately 30-40 invitations. How many times have you brought a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer to a party? Guests represent a huge opportunity for beer, wine and spirits brands but they are also much harder to reach. During peak seasonal times like Christmas or the Super Bowl partner with sites that have a high-volume of active party hosts. During non-seasonal times, concentrate your efforts on sites that help brands not only reach hosts, but also their guests.

Party hosts need your product and they need your expertise. Tell them what to buy for certain occasions. Tell them how to best serve and present your product. Do it in a way that makes the host look creative and thoughtful. And don’t forget about their guests because they can play just as big a role in this market as the party host.

For more on how you can reach consumers who spend billions on alcohol for parties every year, download the free white paper today.