9 Compelling Reasons to Capture Email in the Tasting Room

DTC Shipments Keep Growing

Growth in DTC wine shipments continues to see amazing progress. Wines and Vines suggests sales are up 12% from March 2015 to March 2016. Sales volume also surpassed $2 Billion for the second time in history. With consumer demand stronger than ever, wineries need to position themselves to take advantage of the opportunity to sell more.

Easily Capture Email with Technology

Email acquisition in the tasting room is easy and simple. Guests come to the tasting room to enjoy themselves and try your product. Wineries experience the best possible scenario for building a long-term relationship with customers. Throw away the notepads on the tasting room counter. There is no purpose to collect email addresses on paper. Get yourself an iPad, install an app from your email service provider and start collecting emails from your guests. If you use Vin65 POS, leverage the receipt function for email capture. For a more passive approach, extend free WiFi and capture email from your guests when they connect. Either way, you must figure out a way to get email from as many guests as possible.

Email is More Accurate

My wife can’t read my writing. I doubt the winery employee copying my email address from their notepad can read it either. If a customer volunteers their email and you hand them an iPad, it will more than likely be correct.

Save Time and Money

How much are you paying someone to perform data entry for email addresses? How much time does it take them to complete? How much time surpassed from when the guest visited the tasting room to when you typed the email in your system? My answer to all three of these questions – “Too Much!” Present an iPad to your guests to save time and remove costs.

Tourists May Not Come Back

Are you making money on the first visit from your guest? I estimate a visitor costs the average winery $35. If that visitor is local, then sure, they can come back and buy your wine; however, let’s face the truth. Most visitors are tourists who may never come back. The only way to sell them more wine is to stay connected. Capture their email in the tasting experience, give them a business card with a promo code to purchase from your website and influence guests to buy your product again.

Automate a Welcome Campaign

Now that you have your guests email, send them a Thank You note. Automate this process and leave a lasting impression. Not only will guests be pleased they heard from you, it is a great opportunity to let them know you will continue to send them nuggets of information. After a few days, send another email to have them relive their experience with your brand. Offer them a promo to buy from your website. Maybe automate another email that invites them to your club. A little incentive goes a long way. Trust me, it works.

Customer Engagement Builds Relationships

Capture email, engage guests and sell more wine. Email has a 40x greater conversion rate than social media. Facebook and Instagram generate brand awareness and build community but they don’t sell wine very well. If you don’t have time to email your guests, Vingage Consulting can do it for you. We are experts in our field and we have proven our success with all our clients.

Drive Repeat Purchases with Active Marketing

Understand your customers. Create segmented lists for targeted campaigns with specific purpose. Target local customers with invitations to winery events. Send winery happenings to mailing list members. Give your club members access to exclusive information. Announce your new releases. The list goes on. There are so many things you can market and most wineries don’t have staff or time to do this themselves. For less than the cost of a full-time person, Vingage Consulting can manage customer engagement for you. We demonstrate ROI and guarantee we sell more wine.

Incentives Drive Loyalty and VIP Customers

You don’t need to discount wine, but you do need to offer incentives for engagement. Incentives drives sales and build loyalty. We all know the cost of your estate-grown wine. If you eat a few dollars with penny shipping on a three bottle purchase, that’s worth the sale. That customer becomes loyal and they will spend more money with you in the future. Even with the shipping discount, your margins are still higher than distribution pricing. If that customer keeps coming back, you are in good shape to be more profitable.

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