Basic Marketing Principles
DTC Best Practices
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Focusing on the Basics
As we’re all very much aware, shifting market trends have made it a tough time for wine sales. While uncertain
economic times may make it tempting to pull back on marketing spend or concentrate resources on the latest
and greatest trend, it’s worth remembering that huge benefits can often be gained by focusing on the basics. The
essence of marketing is to understand the needs of your customers and develop a plan for meeting those needs.
With that in mind, all marketing efforts should fall into one of four buckets:
1. Building Equity
2. Generating Demand
3. Garnering Loyalty, or
4. Enhancing Channel Sales and Profitability
By compartmentalizing in this way, all promotional tactics are focused on specific goals and objectives,
allowing you to more easily measure results and plan for the future.
Building Equity
Put simply the focus here is on acquiring new
customers. This includes all efforts to gently guide
potential customers through the relationship cycle:
from awareness, to contemplation, to preference for
your wines (and your brand) and finally to loyalty
and word of mouth. Several tactics fit into this
bucket, including but not limited to the following:
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Focus on direct marketing and list building
strategies. Maintain and stick with a
promotional calendar.
Reach out to both traditional media and the wine
blogging community.
Social networking is a great way to attract new
customers of every age (most notably younger
generations), to add a human touch, and to build
goodwill. Whether developing a Facebook
both participating in and monitoring
conversations.
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If you’re feeling adventuresome, consider
developing an online video. Video can be used
for many purposes: winemaker interviews,
culinary productions, or telling your story in
general. It can add a whole new dimension to
your marketing effort.
Build traffic to your website using SEM and
SEO. SEM is an often overlooked method of
paid advertising which, if approached correctly,
can be very powerful both in building brands
and in generating demand. Use it to build
awareness for your winery, as well as for short
term promotional efforts. Focus on niche
keywords, your winemaker, your winery and
other terms which are important to your brand.
page, joining the conversation in Twitter or
utilizing YouTube, you will need a strategy for
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Generate Demand
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This involves the use of promotional methods to
generate sales and increase the “average spend per
customer”.
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Focus on the tasting room: Invite people to
events, sponsor other local events and work with
neighboring wineries if feasible. Capture
information that will allow you to approach
these visitors in the future (incentivize them to
sign up for your newsletter or mailing list, and
always encourage wine club participation.)
Recognize that tourists are looking closer to
home and reach out to locals. For California
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wineries, this might mean anyone within a three
hour radius.
Build upon your eCommerce strategy.
Remember the adage that “Content is King” and
revisit your website. Make sure that content is
up to date and product images and descriptions
are clean and well thought out. Also, be sure
that your site is frequently updated, with news,
events and other happenings. Don’t allow it to
get stale or give the appearance of nothing more
than an online “brochure”.
Consider different techniques for increasing
average order value: offer product bundles, case
discounts, or shipping incentives on volume
orders.
Focus on the Basics
The essence of marketing is to understand the needs of your customers and develop a plan for meeting
those needs.
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Engender Loyalty
The use of creative methods to increase the lifetime
value of customers and club members
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Attack email campaigns and club promotion
strategies with renewed vigor (use geographic
and other forms of segmentation to ensure
promotions are focused).
Examine ways in which you can add value to
club memberships. Acknowledge milestones
such as birthdays, anniversaries, or club
longevity. Offer “members only” events, tours,
and tastings. Include re-order materials with
your club shipments.
Focus on current club members and solicit
updated credit card information when necessary.
Revisit your customer service policies and
customer relationship management strategy and
ensure club members are treated accordingly. In
turn, this will allow you to rely on your
customers to help with marketing - happy
customers and the word of mouth they generate
can be very positive. And remember that social
media is not just about acquiring new
opportunities become available, the landscape for
Direct-to-Consumer sales will begin to change
dramatically. Participation in these marketplaces
provides many benefits, namely:
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A captive audience and the ability to introduce
your wines to an expanded customer base
New opportunities for market research and
testing without the traditional costs associated
with them.
Costs for participation are significantly lower
than through traditional channels, resulting in
better margins.

Customer acquisition: participation in winery
direct programs means that customers are
delivered to you for future marketing
opportunities.
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An opportunity to build brand equity: today’s
wine buyers are savvier and are accustomed to
searching out preferred brands. Online
marketplaces provide an excellent opportunity
for building awareness.
customers; it is also a great tool for generating
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Be sure to utilize relevant metrics so that you
always understand the value of your customers.
Enhance Channel Profitability via new
Marketplace Opportunities
Pursue new growth opportunities and customer
acquisition strategies via expansion into new and
profitable sales channels. As new marketplace
New marketing models for wine will dramatically impact
the wine industry in the coming years.
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Finally, as you reach out to new customers via
channels which have not been available in the past,
it is important to remember that you are building a
brand. With that in mind it is essential that you
maintain a consistent customer experience across all
sales outlets: from sales collateral, product
descriptions, prices, and the content and images
provided to online marketplaces all the way through
to the customer service experience. Customers
should know and respect your brand regardless of
the touch point.
Ensuring a Consistent
Experience
To drive profitable growth of your DTC
business, you’ll need to ensure a superior
experience for your customers across the
board.
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About WineDirect
An effective direct sales program requires a fulfillment partner you
can rely on, access to new markets and customers, and revenuedriving marketing and sales programs.
Founded in 2002, WineDirect offers a full suite of services to ensure
your success in the direct sales channel. Our services are available
either as an all-in-one solution or a la carte. The choice is yours.
1. An industry leading eCommerce platform to drive direct sales
2. Sales and marketing programs to build incremental revenue
and customer loyalty
3. Built in checks and balances to ensure you’re compliant with
state regulations
4. Seamless and cost effective fulfillment services to deliver
satisfied consumers
Contact us today to learn how WineDirect’s full suite of
services will improve your ROI.
800.819.0325
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