It is easy to spend the first few months in a new market getting ready to sell. You translate the website, announce that you are coming and start contacting distributors. You are busy, but you may still be waiting for the first customer.

There is nothing wrong with those actions. But they leave an important question unanswered: how will the people who might buy your bottle actually discover it?

“Build awareness” is too broad to be useful. You need to work out whose attention matters, where those people already spend time and what you will invite them to do. Then connect that activity to a way to try and buy the product.

Here is how we would approach that work.

Find a smaller audience than “the market”

Before committing to a country-wide campaign, look for a group of people with a particular reason to care about your product.

For a rum brand, that might be an enthusiast community, specialist shops and the educators who organise tastings for them. For an aperitif, it could be independent food shops, supper clubs and hosts whose events suit the way the product is served. These are possible starting points, not a formula for every brand.

The useful connection is not that everyone drinks alcohol. It is that your bottle has a credible place in something they already enjoy.

Start by listening. Look at the questions people ask, the events they attend, the products they discuss and the local accounts they follow. You are looking for a reason to enter the conversation, not somewhere to drop a promotional link.

Spend some time in the market yourself

A focused visit by the founder or someone from the team can be a powerful way to begin. Online research gives you a starting point. Spending time in the market lets you check whether your assumptions hold up.

Arrange a few conversations before you travel, but leave room to walk into shops, look at menus and shelves, and attend relevant local events. Notice which products sit alongside yours, how they are priced and how staff describe them. Speak with potential partners and spend time in the communities you hope to reach, not only in distributor meetings.

Use the visit to answer specific questions. Does your proposed price make sense beside the alternatives? Does the way you explain the product connect with buyers? Which shops, venues or groups feel like a genuine fit? What would make it worth their time to try it?

Where time and budget allow, staying for a concentrated period can give you room for a second conversation, a tasting or a follow-up while you are still there. It also helps you see more than the first impression of a single meeting.

The aim is to come home with a better baseline: a clearer view of the offer, a more useful contact list and agreed next steps. Record what challenged your assumptions as well as what encouraged you. One visit will not tell you everything about a country, but it can make the next round of outreach much less speculative.

Build a prospect list you can actually use

Research should leave you with people and businesses to contact, not just a presentation about market size.

Keep potential buyers separate from people who can introduce the product. A retailer might place an order. A club organiser could bring together people with a shared interest in the category. A local creator might help explain the product. They need different approaches.

For each prospect, record why they fit, the relevant contact, what you could offer them and the next action. Use appropriate business contact details and respect local outreach rules and opt-outs. A large scraped list is not a substitute for knowing why someone should hear from you.

A useful first list is small enough to research properly and follow up yourself. “Independent shop with an active tasting programme and a relevant range” tells you more than “alcohol retailer in France”.

Start with the websites and social accounts of relevant shops, local event programmes and specialist directories. A spreadsheet is enough: add the reason for the fit, the source, the last contact and the agreed next step. Research tools can help you assemble the list, but check each prospect before contacting them.

You can expand the list once you learn which reasons for contacting people lead to worthwhile conversations.

Make social content useful to the outreach

Your social presence and your sales activity should not feel like two different businesses.

Before a buyer replies, they may look at your profile. Give them something that helps them understand the product: how it is served, what makes it different, who makes it and where they can get it. A founder explaining a genuine product decision can be more useful than another polished bottle image with a vague caption.

Create content for the audience you chose. An enthusiast may want to hear about production. A food-focused community may respond to a pairing or an occasion. A trade buyer needs to understand how the bottle fits their customers and offer.

Then give each piece an appropriate next step. That could be joining a local tasting, asking for trade details or buying from a relevant stockist. Do not send everyone to a homepage and expect them to work out the rest.

Paid promotion can be one test, but decide what it is testing. An event invitation aimed at adults in one city is a different exercise from advertising a bottle across a whole country. Check alcohol-advertising and platform requirements before running a campaign. Judge the activity against its purpose, not simply its impressions.

Give people a specific reason to reply

Outreach becomes easier to write when you have a concrete proposal.

For a shop with a tasting programme, ask whether the product could suit an upcoming session. Explain why you chose that shop, offer the relevant information and make the proposed next step easy to understand.

For an educator or club organiser, start with what their audience would get from the collaboration. Perhaps it is a producer-led session or a tasting that explores a category they already care about. Discuss their fee, your contribution and who handles bookings and follow-up.

For example, an approach to a shop could read: “I saw that you run producer tastings. We make [product], and I thought it could suit your customers because [specific reason]. Would it be useful if I sent the trade details and we discussed a sample?” Only use that opening if you have checked the programme and can explain the fit.

A short, relevant message gives someone a decision they can make. Sending your entire brand story and asking for “thoughts” leaves them to do the work.

Keep track of replies and objections. If people engage with the story but hesitate at the price, that is different from never reaching the right person. Change the part that is not working rather than sending the same message to a longer list.

Use partnerships to go deeper, not just wider

A local partner is valuable when they contribute something specific: trusted relationships, selling time, category knowledge or access to a relevant audience.

That might be a sales agent, a specialist retailer, a distributor, an event host or a community organiser. A club is not automatically a sales channel, and a creator is not automatically a sales representative. Agree what each person will actually do and how they will be paid.

Start with an activity you can both support. A tasting with a clear audience and follow-up plan gives you more to evaluate than a loose promise to “build the brand”. If it works for both sides, there is a basis for doing more.

Your own research and outreach also help you choose partners. You have some understanding of which customers respond, which objections matter and where you need help. That makes the conversation more precise than asking someone to take responsibility for an entire country.

Connect the activity to an order

Picture a small launch built around a specialist shop. The shop agrees to host, a relevant local account helps introduce the event, and your own content explains the product and where to find it. Your trade outreach points nearby buyers to the same occasion. Afterwards, attendees have a stockist or an online buying option, and interested businesses receive the details they asked for. That is an illustrative plan, not a reported result.

A social post, a buyer email and a club tasting can reinforce one another. Someone hears about the bottle, looks it up, tries it and finds a place to buy. But that sequence breaks if nobody can give a clear answer about availability.

This is where Lexir fits. A brand can establish stock in a chosen European market, send samples and fulfil business and consumer orders under the arrangements agreed for that market. Local partners have something available to introduce, and interested customers have a way to act.

It also gives the brand orders and customer feedback to compare with its marketing activity. Did a tasting lead to purchases? Did the shops you contacted place orders? Did those customers come back?

Decide what deserves the next round of effort

Do not expect every activity to work, and do not treat every positive reply as demand.

Use separate tracked links for the activities where you can, record the source of enquiries and ask buyers how they found you. These will not capture every influence, but they give you more to work with than a combined follower count.

Review what each effort produced against its cost and purpose. A creator post might bring attention but few qualified enquiries. A small trade outreach campaign might produce only a handful of replies, but two worthwhile buyer conversations. Neither tells the whole story on its own.

Keep the useful connections, change the weak offer and stop spending where you cannot see a reason to continue. Before moving into another market, ask whether you have learned enough to repeat anything deliberately.

Creating initial demand is not one announcement or one partner signing. It is the work of finding the right people, giving them a reason to care and making the next step possible. You can begin that work with a focused plan rather than waiting for the whole market to notice you.

Hero image: AI-generated editorial illustration, not an actual Lexir event.