The hardest part of the wine business is getting people to take their first sip, but once they taste your exquisite flavors, the result is satisfied customers and increased sales. To reach this point, we need effective winery marketing strategies to ensure your wine fills people’s glasses.
Marketing tactics are constantly evolving across the board. Couple this with the wine business’s intricacies makes staying on top of the changing times essential to reach your customer base effectively.
Advertising is no longer as simple as paying for a billboard or a commercial on TV. There are now more ways than ever to market your winery. Let’s inspect the ins and outs of winery marketing.
Wine Merchandising
Merchandising wine is essential when trying to get yours into the hands of consumers. It’s important not only how it’s displayed in-store but also how it’s displayed online.
In-Store Merchandising
You’ve got the customers in the store, and the next step is to get them to make a purchase.
The fewer questions a customer needs to ask about the wine, the easier it is for them to purchase. Ease of purchase also sets up the opportunity for repeat business. This is winery marketing at its most fundamental level.
You can ensure ease of purchase by making the wine placements sensible so that it is easy for the customer to locate what they’re hoping to find. Having an informative label can also ensure ease of purchase, especially for those who aren’t looking to ask for help.
In wine marketing, making your bottles stand out is essential, especially when placed in a retail store where you may not have control of placement.
We can encourage purchases by making the bottles attractive and informative.
Online Merchandising
In winery marketing, showcasing your winery online may be more important than showcasing the wine in person. Getting customers to choose a wine without seeing or tasting it is hard.
Online wine sales are becoming an increasingly popular wine marketing avenue, and more people are choosing to do their shopping from the comfort of their homes.
Make your website easy to use, convenient, and full of knowledge.
Share the story of your wines, describe how they taste, and make your customers want to come back for more. Use a professional photographer to ensure your images are eye-catching.
Complimentary Products
An excellent winery marketing idea is pairing your wine with complimentary products to enhance sales. Consider including free items such as limited edition wine glasses, a unique cork-stopper, or even something as simple as a branded corkscrew.
Wine enthusiasts are more willing to make purchases when they get more than bargained for! Something as simple as including glasses and making the bottle of wine a gift set will make it more appealing.
It’s natural for potential customers to desire to try something new or even make an extra purchase when allowed to get a gift. Gifts can be especially beneficial to the winery if using branded items to give your business more advertisement.
Create a Wine Club
Wine clubs are gaining popularity, especially as people shop from home. An excellent way to bring your wine into new homes is to develop a wine club. Customers can pay a membership fee to receive your products each month.
The club could include a few monthly bottles, paired with other related products, that wineries can ship directly to the home. You could also have different offers like discounts in-store, exclusive events, or even the opportunity to be the first to experience new wines or labels.
The club’s exclusivity, along with wine and accessories on their door, is a great way to entice customers to join. This could bring your wine into new homes and new wines into the homes of loyal customers and wine enthusiasts.
Winery Listings & Travel Sites
Another fantastic winery marketing strategy is to use winery directories and travel sites to promote your business. Being listed on directories can be great if you offer your winery as a venue option for weddings or other formal events.
Example: Let’s say you are a winery outside Santa Barbara in beautiful Santa Ynez. You have a vast gathering room too far from the main lobby to be a part of the primary experience.
This opens the doors to being listed as a venue for corporate gatherings. Being close to Santa Barbara may even garner your local business from the nearby hub of tech start-ups.
Additionally, utilizing your winery for more than just wine is a great way to promote your business and bring more customers through your doors.
Winery Social Media
Digital marketing for your wine brand is essential and social media is a great way to level the playing field for wineries of all sizes and locations. It can bring the small country winery to the front door of a midsize apartment in NYC. Not taking advantage of social media for your winery, where you reach out to new customers on a platform they’re already using, is a missed opportunity.
Look to your loyal patrons if your hang-up is finding content to post. Encourage guests to post on social media and repurpose their posts on your page.
Work With Lifestyle Influencers
Influencer marketing can be hugely beneficial if your goal is reaching out to new customers. When choosing wines, customers try something because someone else made the recommendation. So, it’s helpful to get your wine in the hands of those who can influence and encourage others to try it, too.
Lifestyle influencers are people with a large social media fan base. Working with someone with a sizable group of followers is an excellent winery marketing tactic and a great way to reach out to new potential customers, especially millennials.
Working with an influencer may require payment, either directly with a flat rate or in other ways, like giving a portion of the sales they helped generate. Sometimes, even giving them free samples is enough to get them on board and increase your customer base.
Have Fun With Product Giveaways
Giveaways are a brilliant strategy to expand your customer base. It may seem counterintuitive to make money by giving things away, but the giveaways not only get people talking about your winery, but they may also get your products in the hands of those who wouldn’t have tried them. Giveaways alone can expand your customer base.
You can hold contests on social media, allowing customers to earn entries through shares, comments, and tweets. You could even offer a label designing contest to not only reach out to new potential customers but also showcase a local artist. The giveaway could be a complimentary bottle of wine or a ticket to your hosting wine event.
Live Stream Your Virtual Wine Hour
Pique the interest of new and regular customers by live streaming your wine hour. Use your social media account to give others a look into your tasting room and what to expect when they arrive at your establishment.
While live-streaming, make it feel like those watching are there with you by sharing tasting notes, background information on the wines viewers are tasting, or some history on the winery itself. Make the time you’re live streaming exciting and informational to keep people watching and encourage them to come to your next event.
Create Associations With Your Follower’s Interests
Using social media is a cheap way to advertise your business, so you want to ensure you’re doing it correctly. When using social media, it’s essential to keep your posts interesting. Creating similar posts with only pictures of your wine won’t keep your followers interested in what you have to share. If they’re not interested, they’re not communicating and doing the advertising for you.
Pique the interests of your followers by creating associations with things that matter to them. Considering your customers’ interests may mean posting inspirational quotes, recipes including your wines as an ingredient, or sharing upcoming events. Keep your posts fresh, exciting, and relevant to help increase your following and help boost sales.
Content Marketing For Wine
Content marketing is a great digital marketing tool to showcase your wine. You can incorporate winery SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to draw in new customers by using keywords and other technical actions to make your page easier to find.
Give your readers and those new to wine a place to educate themselves on your products and give them the desire to try what you offer.
Something as simple as discussing ways to pair food with your wines or the importance of the ingredients can encourage a reluctant customer to try your wine. Knowledge is power, and when a customer feels confident in their choice, they’re more likely to commit not only to the purchase but also to your brand.
Discuss Wine Pairings
Wine pairings could be a topic to discuss on your website or blog. Knowing which foods pair well with a Pinot Noir or a Chardonnay is essential when serving dinner. Still, for a novice, this may be otherwise intimidating, causing them to avoid grabbing a bottle of wine altogether.
It’s helpful to provide a brief food-pairing list to customers needing help. Provide this information in a blog, product details, or a short note on your wine label.
Educate About Ingredients
Consumers everywhere are becoming more aware of the ingredients in the foods and drinks they’re purchasing, which continues into wine. That’s the beauty of a winery. Customers can physically see and touch the beautiful scenery that creates their favorite wines.
Educating your customers on these ingredients can boost sales. Product education works exceptionally well when speaking to sustainable practices. Especially true if you have clean wine and follow organic, climate-safe, or eco-friendly methods. These are becoming increasingly popular and are something you can display to your customers looking to support those causes.
Showcase Your Expertise
Expand your customer’s confidence in you by showcasing your expertise. Share your knowledge with your customers by discussing topics ranging from choosing suitable grapes to cooking with wine.
Example: A winery in Paso Robles can create a farm-to-table experience where they gather local fruits, cheeses, and other delicious foods the area is known for. Even though the written word, including food in your storytelling, is sure to capture attention.
Sharing your knowledge with your customers will let them know that your business is trustworthy and reliable when looking for information. They will come to you for expertise besides wine tasting and enjoying the scenery.
Create a FAQ section
It’s essential to understand what matters to your customer base. Creating a frequently asked questions section can help your customers navigate their questions regarding your products, the brand, or even the wine. Let your website be more than just for sales but also a place with reliable information.
Email Marketing For Wine
Although times are changing, using email marketing is still profitable. Never underestimate the power of periodically sending emails to your customers and sharing information about your winery.
Insights
When sharing your emails, it’s important to give insights about wine. Don’t just make it about your specific business; talk about the latest trends in wine and new ideas. Talk about how the wine got its start or the process by which you grow the grapes. You could even discuss the benefits of wine. Give your readers more than deals or information about upcoming events; give them something worth opening the email.
Tell Your Story
Don’t let the history of your winery be a mystery. Consumers love knowing where their products come from, and this is especially true for wine lovers. This passion for background knowledge is what makes wineries so great. Let people look into your brand and learn what it means to be a part of your winery family and what makes it worth believing in.
Offer a Promotion
In your emails, it’s essential to offer promotions. Do more than provide a coupon; provide opportunities. You can do things efficiently, like sending out a random percent-off coupon in the email, but you can also provide exclusive offers and deals only to those who receive the emails. These offers could be an early entry to private sales or wine tastings.
Retargeting Campaigns
Another marketing option is retargeting campaigns. Retargeting banner ads can help travelers remember your winery or remind them to purchase on your site. You use data from website visitors to create targeted ads to bring them back to your page.
These ads can be effective because you know they’re interested in your products; you need to bring them back. You can use fun ways to encourage them back to your website with banner ads like, “Do you still want to have a drink with me?”
Brand Campaigns
Start a brand campaign to increase brand awareness, so people know more about your business and what you offer. The more people you introduce to your company through remarketing, the more likely they will deem you trustworthy and will make a purchase.
Abandoned Cart Campaigns
Another thing that can be successful is targeting those who create a cart but then choose to abandon it. The customer may abandon their cart for several reasons, so it’s crucial to figure out why and offer ways to remedy the problem.
If you think it could be the price, it may be worth sending follow-up emails to users who started an order but didn’t complete it and offering a small discount to complete their order.
SEO & Content Marketing for the Wine Industry
Located in Central California, we work with wine companies in Santa Ynez, Paso Robles, and Napa Valley. If you are interested in learning how our SEO & content marketing agency can help you yield more fruits from your winery business, fill out the form below.