You hear a lot of marketers talking about how email marketing is back and booming. In fact, according to ReportLinker, in 2020, the global email marketing market was valued at $US7.5 billion which the source projected would increase to $US17.9 billion by 2027. There is a great opportunity for a winery to ride that wave, but when you aren’t a marketer yourself the whole process can be pretty daunting.
Number 1, how do you even come up with ideas? It's all well and good to say "You have to send emails" but what content should those emails contain? Your day is spent conversing with customers and perfecting your winery experience. At the end of the day, your creativity could be spent! We’ve been there.
So to ease your way into email marketing, here are five campaigns that pretty much every single company in every industry uses. These campaigns are cyclical, the themes can be repeated again and again. So all you need is a little bit of your brand personality (or your own personality) and reach your customers with email marketing campaigns that work.
This email is a no-brainer. And according to Omnisend welcome emails had the top conversion rate worldwide in 2020 at 51.94%. It makes sense. Oftentimes, these welcome emails will have some kind of offer like %-off or credit to put towards the consumer’s future purchase. Otherwise, these emails can provide a little bit of introduction to your winery’s brand and showcase your most popular wines.
We love email receipts. They are the ultimate excuse to get your customers’ email address and a direct line to them with news on your latest product offerings. They can double as a welcome email AND a thank you email for their recent purchase or visit to your winery. With the WithWine POS, you can collect email address and send receipts direct to the customer that can include their wine tasting notes – no more paper littering the bottom of their bags while they are touring your wine region – and have links back to your eCommerce site to encourage repeat purchases.
Another campaign that is a must for wineries: the new vintage launch. No matter what industry you are in, a product launch is always a great marketing angle. You have a new product to sell, it’s time to spruik it.
In the lead-up to the vintage, you could do a countdown to the new release with updates on tasting notes and conditions on the vintage, food pairing recommendations and special deals. Partner it with matching posts on your social media accounts and maybe even a competition where the winning prize is a case of your new wine!
For every new season hero a new wine. Keep an eye on your wine sales and take note of the wine ranges that sell more at different times of the year. Rosé in spring? Shiraz in winter? Give those products a boost with a “Taste for the Season” and amplify with your favourite food pairings for that particular wine and chuck in some pictures of yourself or your team enjoying a glass. Make your content relatable, personable and unmistakable yours.
Don’t forget about the holidays. Consider special Christmas offers, even Easter deals. Go a step further and lean into those wine holidays. Not sure what we are talking about? There are a few international wine days for our favourite wines like Chardonnay Day at the end of May and Shiraz Day in July. Not sure when they are? We have created a Google Calendar of these #WineDays for you to celebrate your wines.
We are big believers in offering credit over discounts. With discounts, you’re sacrificing revenue today hoping to incentivise loyalty tomorrow. But with credit, customers often see it as “free money” which incentivises repeat (and larger) purchases.
Customers can earn a little bit of credit by purchasing through the WithWine POS and when they get their email receipt they can see how much they have and so they might buy that second case of Shiraz after all. Go further and get personal with your customers by considering additional rewards just for being in your email database.
Think about how awesome it is to get an email on your birthday wishing you a happy birthday. How much better would that be if the email included credit to spend at one of your favourite wineries? Sending Happy Birthday emails is a surefire way to solidify your relationship with your customers. We have built a birthday filter on the WithWine CRM so you can filter which customers have birthdays coming up that week, month etc. and send them a birthday email for that exact purpose. Change it up and make it suit the season: big reds for winter birthdays and stunning sparkling wine deals for those with birthdays in summer.
Newsletters will never go out of style. A survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and MarkingProfs found that 74% of content marketers include email newsletters in their marketing campaigns in 2020 – WithWine is among that number! Allow your customers to get to know your brand with a newsletter. Let them know what’s happening at your winery, with your team.
What sets you apart from the big corporations is your authenticity. Lean into your identity as an independent winemaker and seller. You are an expert on your product, share your expertise with those that want to support you! Inject as much of your brand as possible into your social media presence, your website/blog, and of course, your emails to your customers.
We know that many wineries love their current email layouts, but did you know you can copy the HTML template from email providers like MailChimp into the WithWine CRM? Craig shows you how in the video below:
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