Direct-to-consumer wine sales increased 66% from 2010 to 2015, with 4.3 million cases valued at nearly $2 billion. -ShipCompliant’s Annual Report
Why wouldn’t you want to sell more wine direct to the consumer? You put in the hard work to make the wine, why should the middle man get a cut? The customers care about YOU and your story.
In 2015 there were 8,638 wineries in the United States. Of those, 3,626 wineries produced 1,000 to 5,000 cases per year.
So...how do you do you get your share of the next $2 billion?
First you need to understand how the sales funnel for emerging wineries works.
The five step sales funnel really works in a circle. Let’s start by defining the obvious goal: to generate revenue by selling wine direct to your consumer. The majority of that revenue is going to come from tasting room sales and wine club sign ups. So we begin:
AWARENESS
How do you get people to find your tasting room?
Most people are finding your tasting room either by doing research online or from a recommendation (referral). We’ll get to the referral stage later – let’s start by how your potential customers find your tasting room online.
How do you stand out with amongst all of the other wineries? . There’s a lot of different ways (and new ones being created all of the time!), but here’s where to start:
- First and foremost, you need a website. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated. It just needs to have the basics: where you’re located, what you sell, who you are.
- Secondly you need to understand what sets you apart from the rest of the wineries and then create an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy around that.
- Create cross promotional strategies and social media strategies, you can get in front of new audiences.
- Targeted public relations to travel blogs, guides, etc. that direct tourists.
- Optimized TripAdvisor and Yelp pages.
ACQUISITION
You’ve got tasting room traffic – great! Now how do you get them to purchase wine?
One word: email. Why? Email has the highest ROI of any marketing tactics. -The Next Web
Email is going to play a huge two-part role here. In order to continuously communicate with buyers, you need to get their email addresses.
First, you want to incentivize potential customers to sign up for your mailing list and visit your tasting room by offering them a discount on their first visit.
Second, once visitors are in the tasting room, you are going to incentivize your staff to collect as many emails as possible.
CONVERSION
Revenue. How do you get it? Obviously you are going to have a trained tasting room staff who will help sell the wine. But standard sales tactics alone aren’t going to sell your wine. The experience and feeling generated at the tasting room will be the largest factor that contributes to someone making a purchase.
Make sure your staff is well-trained and the tasting-room experience you have created makes an unforgettable experience that will leave a lasting impression on all 5 senses. That experience well help turn tasters into buyers and buyers into wine club subscribers.
However, if for some reason they don’t make that in store sale, this is where collecting those email addresses come in handy. Sending emails throughout the year will help you promote sales, specials, the wine club, harvest events, and more, creating sales.
RETENTION
The clear retention strategy is the wine club sign up because it generates recurring revenue. Creating an effective wine club means giving your buyers what they want: discounts, fun events and, most importantly, love. People aren’t just buying wine, they’re buying an experience rooted in connectivity and love and your wine club can promote that.
Wine club sales and events throughout the year will help you maintain a more steady annual revenue stream. There’s also, again, the email address. Emailing special off-season sales can help get you some big pushes in the slower months.
REFERRAL
Word of mouth marketing is the number one way to drive more revenue for your winery. This brings us back full circle to stage one: driving awareness.
People trust the recommendation of their friends and family over any type of marketing collateral you put out. This is especially true with the millennial market who are constantly using social media to talk about their experiences – think photos on Instagram, posts on Facebook and Twitter.
In addition to creating a strong in-person experience, having a presence on social media that continues that experience is essential.
Like a circle, this sales process will be incomplete if any of the pieces are not in place, which means missed revenue opportunities. Do you have all the right pieces in places? If not, we can help. Click the link below to set up a time to chat.