Many wineries that I talk with are interested in using email to bolster their direct to consumer sales but seem to be struggling with how to get it done properly.
Here are three basic building blocks that will help you get a better result from your mailings.
I’m working on the assumption for these three wine marketing tips that you are most interested in selling product. (It’s certainly not the only reason to send an email but it’s one of my favorites)
Wine Marketing Tips.
1. Send often enough. Many wineries are quite concerned that just the step of sending an email will have dire negative effects on their brand and are reluctant to send more often than once per month.
In our experience of sending many, many email campaigns, it’s not the sending of the email that’s the problem, it’s what you send.
If you send relevant, useful, interesting, emails, you can send something every two weeks or even every week. There are some companies that get away with sending emails every day . . . with out destroying their goodwill.
For wineries, I’d get out there and send something at a minimum of every two weeks and more often if something is going on that would matter to your readers.
2. Don’t send the kitchen sink. A big challenge with many emails I receive from wineries (I’m on over 497 winery lists) is that they tend to fall into the old school newsletter writing camp and want to tell everything that’s up in the winery every month. Which in some cases is quite a lot.
The problem here is that readers are pressed for time, they get LOTS of emails and need to prioritize what they do with that time. They may start to read your email but if it’s too long, they will leave it or file it to come back later (they never do–do you?)
Make your emails short and to the point. If it’s news, tell it, if it’s an event, sell it, if it’s a promotion, offer it; so your reader can get on with their busy days.
3. Link to a landing page. Another common problem I see with email copy from wineries is that they ask the reader to visit the home page of their site and hope they can get to the product you are featuring.
If you are offering a case price on a 2004 Pinot Noir, send them directly to the product page which should have a big <order now> button on it.
Don’t assume your customer can figure it out. Make it easy for them so they don’t get discouraged and want to come back later (they never do)
You can learn more about how we help wineries create and run killer email marketing campaigns to build your club, clear your inventory, or generate interest in events at our winery marketing page.