Market Entry 101: Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Strategies for Alcohol Brands

As an founder launching an alcohol brand, there are two primary routes to market success: the bottom-up on-trade strategy or the top-down consumer-first approach. Both strategies have their strengths and challenges, and your decision will depend on your brand’s resources, goals, and market positioning.

1. Bottom-Up Approach: Building Relationships First 🤝

For many early-stage brands with limited budgets, the bottom-up approach is often the go-to strategy. This method is all about developing relationships with key players in the on-trade—bartenders, bar owners, and hospitality decision-makers. The aim? To get your product featured in bars and restaurants and let your brand grow through word of mouth and advocacy.

Step-by-Step Process:

• Identify Key On-Trade Players: Start by targeting bars, restaurants, and hotels where you want your product featured. Build a list of venues whose image aligns with your brand.

• Build Relationships: Engage with bartenders and bar managers directly. Face-to-face meetings, product samples, and training sessions for staff can go a long way in making your brand memorable.

• Early Wins: Focus on smaller venues or niche bars where you can create a buzz more quickly. These early wins build credibility and help your brand gain traction in the market.

Challenges and How to Overcome Them:

• Time-Consuming: Building personal relationships takes time. A solution is to leverage brand ambassadors or local influencers to expand your reach more quickly.

• Constant Nurturing: Relationships are fragile and require consistent engagement. Support your on-trade partners with exclusive promotions, bartender training, or personalized incentives to keep them engaged.

• Scaling Roadblocks: Once you’ve established relationships, scaling becomes a challenge. Invest in tools like CRM systems to track these relationships and maintain them efficiently as your brand grows.

The bottom-up approach can be highly effective for building a strong foundation, but as you scale, the personal nature of these relationships can make rapid growth difficult without the right team and resources.

2. Top-Down Approach: Driving Consumer Demand 📈

The top-down approach focuses on creating consumer demand first. By targeting the end consumer directly, you create a pull effect, encouraging on-trade buyers to stock your product because their customers are asking for it. This strategy requires more upfront investment but offers faster scalability.

Step-by-Step Process:

• Define Your Target Audience: Before anything else, you need a clear understanding of who your consumer is. This includes demographics like age, gender, income level, and lifestyle preferences.

• Activate Digital Marketing: Use targeted social media ads, influencer partnerships, and user-generated content (UGC) to create awareness. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are excellent for driving consumer interest, especially for lifestyle-driven alcohol brands.

• Retail and eCommerce: Make sure that your product is readily available through retail and online channels, so when demand spikes, consumers know where to find it.

Challenges and How to Overcome Them:

• High Upfront Costs: Digital marketing, influencers, and ad campaigns require significant initial investment. Start small with targeted campaigns to test the waters before scaling up.

• Brand Authenticity: Today’s consumers can easily spot inauthentic marketing. Make sure your brand’s message aligns with its values, and use real feedback from consumers to strengthen your campaigns.

• Standing Out in a Crowded Space: You need creative and impactful campaigns to differentiate your brand. Consider experiential marketing like virtual tastings, pop-up events, or collaborations with local influencers to make a lasting impression.

The top-down strategy offers scalability and speed, but it also requires a larger budget and careful planning to effectively engage your target audience and convert them into loyal customers.

3. The Blended Strategy: Best of Both Worlds 🔄

While both strategies have their merits, the real magic happens when you blend them together. Combining bottom-up relationship-building with top-down consumer marketing allows you to leverage the strengths of both approaches.

How to Execute a Blended Approach:

• Develop Two Distinct Teams:The bottom-up team focuses on personal relationships with on-trade buyers and works to get your product featured in bars and restaurants. These relationships build credibility, as having your brand stocked by professionals adds to its appeal.The top-down team drives consumer awareness and demand through digital marketing, influencer partnerships, and eCommerce efforts. This creates a pull effect, where consumers are asking for your product, and on-trade buyers need to stock it to meet demand.

• Coordinate Your Teams for Maximum Impact: Ensure both teams are aligned toward a common goal, but maintain separate strategies for each approach. For example, while your bottom-up team focuses on bartender education and promotions, your top-down team should be executing digital campaigns and influencer collaborations.

Key Metrics to Measure Success:

• On-Trade Success: Track repeat orders from bars, feedback from bartenders, and brand visibility within key venues.

• Consumer Demand: Measure website traffic, online sales, and social media engagement to see how well your digital campaigns are driving consumer interest.

Why This Works:

• Bottom-Up: Build Credibility and Supply By nurturing relationships with on-trade buyers, you give them reasons to stock your product and establish credibility with consumers. “Used by professionals” becomes a powerful selling point for your brand.

• Top-Down: Drive Consumer Demand At the same time, digital marketing efforts increase consumer awareness, encouraging people to ask for your product at bars, restaurants, and retail locations.

When executed well, the blended strategy offers flexibility and resilience. You’re creating demand from both the supply side (on-trade) and the demand side (consumer-driven), giving you a balanced approach to scaling your brand.

Key Takeaways for Brand Owners:

Bottom-Up Strategy:

• Best For: Early-stage brands with limited budgets.

• Action Steps: Build strong, personal relationships with key decision-makers in the on-trade. Regularly engage with them through promotions, education, and support.

• Challenges: Scaling is difficult without a dedicated team; ongoing relationship management is critical.

Top-Down Strategy:

• Best For: Brands with capital to invest in larger-scale digital marketing and consumer campaigns.

• Action Steps: Develop targeted consumer campaigns, partner with influencers, and build strong retail and eCommerce channels.

• Challenges: Requires a significant upfront investment and long-term digital marketing strategy.

Blended Approach:

• Best For: Brands looking for long-term, scalable success.

• Action Steps: Build two distinct teams—one focused on relationships and one on consumer-driven demand. Align them with a common goal while maintaining separate execution strategies.

• Challenges: Requires excellent coordination between teams and consistent refinement based on data and feedback.

Final Thoughts

As a brand owner, your market entry strategy will define how quickly and effectively your brand grows. Whether you choose a bottom-up or top-down approach—or blend both—ensure that your brand’s identity, story, and resources align with your strategy from day one. Success in this industry isn’t just about the quality of your product—it’s about the relationships you build and the demand you create.

By balancing personal relationships with smart consumer-driven marketing, you can create a strategy that scales, adapts, and delivers long-term results for your alcohol brand.