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© 2023, Wine Chemistry Creative. Digital Wine Marketing, Sonoma California 95476

Wine Club Marketing Services

Get the help you need to grow your winery’s most profitable DTC channel

Get the wine club marketing services that can bring you the fastest wine club growth with less effort.

With Wine Chemistry Creative, you get:

  1. Quicker Wine Club growth
  2. Targeted marketing for your audience
  3. Better member loyalty
  4. Improved member lifetime value
  5. Higher wine club profitability

Hop on the Wine Club Cash Cow

Illustration of a cowboy hat. The right wine club marketing services are as important as a well-fitting cowboy hat for riding the wine club cash-cow.

Your Pinot has it all going on. It’s got some violet … a little pepper … and I don’t know what rock that is, but it’s there. It’s doing it just right.

Your wines are selling in restaurants. And your ex-girlfriend keeps seeing mentions of you by Esther Mobley and Karen MacNeil.

As pleasurable as that feeling is, it could be even better if you weren’t schlepping boxes of wine to restaurants all the time.

Maybe it’s time your wine club started pulling its weight. I’m thinking of a cash cow kind of thing.

Are you with me?

Photo of a nice cow. The symbol of healthy wine club growth.
Did you know that wine clubs often account for as much as 66% of a winery’s profitability? Yep. That’s according to a report by our friends Wine Business Monthly from right here on the Sonoma Plaza.

Strengthening and streamlining your wine club’s marketing can really beef up your bottom line.

Ruminate on this:

Marketing a wine club is different.

Different audiences, different competition, different incentives. It’s not the same as marketing a winery. 

Marketing a wine club can be like herding cats

Wine Club marketing is not the same as marketing a winery. There are some different challenges to think about.

For starters, your wine club might appeal to a different audience than you’re targeting on your website.

Also, your wine club has a different set of competitors than your winery. And not just other wine clubs. 

And lastly, there are different incentives that people consider before joining a wine club.

This is not our first rodeo. We know how to tie down even the wildest challenges.

Roping your wine club cash cow requires the steady hand of a wine club marketing team.

Read on to learn how our wine club marketing services add that needed cowboy grit to your plan.

Preparing for a smooth ride: proper wine club positioning

Are you feeling ready to ride that wine club cash cow?

Woah there, big fella! First, let’s check your wine club’s positioning in the saddle.

By taking time to first understand your audience, you’ll be in a better position to rope them in with marketing that hits the target.

That means more new member sign-ups, better wine club growth, and members who don’t go wandering off.

You follow?

You can read a little more about wine club positioning right here.

Wine Club Marketing Services

Wine club positioning

Wine club positioning is about deciding where you want to be in the marketplace.

It helps your audience understand what you're about, and what they can expect from you.

Positioning your wine club is about defining a niche, or category, in which your wine club is compared only to other similar wine clubs, and ideally, your wine club is seen as the leader in this category.

A benefit of good wine club positioning is being able to align your wine club marketing with those potential club members who are likely to love your wine club the most, stick around the longest, buy the most wines, refer the most friends, and not complain about the stuff in the bottom of the bottle.

Here's the good news/bad news thing about positioning your wine club: if you haven't done it already, the market has positioned your wine club for you.

But there still remains the opportunity for you to re-position your wine club in order for it to align more closely to the types of customers you identify to be your wine club's best fit.

Your winery may have already conducted some positioning work to identify where your winery sits in the marketplace, but it's necessary to understand that your wine club's positioning is not the same. This is because the reasons for which someone might join your wine club — which are mostly about convenience, access, and benefits — are likely different to the reasons people have for buying your wines — which are often more related to price, flavor, and perception of value.

When conducting your wine club's positioning, you'll be considering convenience factors such as membership tiers, frequency of shipments, ability to skip or customize orders; and benefit factors such as discounts, perks, and events.

Wine Club Audience icon

Identify and attract people likely to be your wine club's best members

Attract better-qualified winery traffic

Create easy and compelling ways for website visitors to join your club online

Retain Members Longer icon

Increase club member loyalty and engagement, and gain referrals from your members

Eyeing the competition

We mentioned earlier that your wine club has different competitors than your winery.

That’s because the wineries that are your closest competitors are likely offering different options in their wine club.

Knowing which membership or wine subscription offers you’re being compared to can help your planning.

This is how you can outshine the competition, and stay in the saddle longer.

Read how you can correctly identify your wine club’s closest competitors here.

Wine Club Marketing Services

Identifying your competitors

Wine clubs are compared on the basis of convenience, access, and perks.

Knowing who you're being compared with means you can present a better package than your competitors.

The number of wine club memberships that folks retain has been decreasing in recent years. Folks who are likely to join a wine club generally have around 2-3 active wine club memberships.

People will make a choice between your wine club, and some other, probably similar wine club.

Identifying your closest competitors requires you to know why people are joining your wine club, and researching which other wine clubs also satisfy those reasons.

For example, if new members tell you they love your line-up of Rhone varietals, and were convinced to join because they could skip shipments as often as they liked, you could create a list of other wine clubs which offer likewise. 

This is the simplified process of conducting a Wine Club Competive Analysis. It's an effective exercise to see how your wine club stacks up.

The next thing to look for is how your wine club competitors are running their membership promotions.

To increase your competitiveness, you can learn what it takes to develop a good wine club onboarding program here.

Growing the herd — online

Are you feeling chafed by the sleepy rate of new member sign-ups online?

Your website is a whole different arena than the tasting room for growing your herd of wine club members.

In the tasting room, new member sign-ups are influenced by the level of hospitality your guests receive.

Online, the analog to that tasting room hospitality is User Experience (UX).

UX research studies show that improvements in site navigation, design, and ease of website use directly lead to increases in conversions.

(A conversion is when a user takes a desired action such as making a purchase or joining a wine club).

Our 20 years of UX design research, education, and best practices mean you get a website that converts visitors into members.

Read how your peers are increasing new member sign-ups online  

The online analog of tasting room hospitality is user experience.
Bradley Squires

Engagement Catalyst, Wine Chemistry Creative

Riding into the sunset

What can you do to keep your faithful wine club members by your side long into the future?

Building lasting connections with your club members is done by understanding their needs. And then, catering to those needs.

We help you with one of the most effective ways to turn your new members into long-term fans of your brand; onboarding.

 

For a list of ideas for creating lasting member loyalty, read this post.

 

Adding to your posse

Expand your wine club team’s ability to reach valuable audiences.

Partnering with an external agency is a smart move.

For the DIY folks, we offer consulting and coaching to get you started on the right trail.

For those who need a professional to step in and get it done, take a look at our packages below.

Not sure? Hop on a free 30-minute consultation to find out how you can easily reach your goals.

*We will provide a detailed proposal for your approval before starting.

Select the package you’re interested in. We’ll contact you to discuss your specific needs.

Select Package

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Not sure how to get started? No problemo, friend!
Just pick a time for a free 30-minute consultation and we can chat about ways you can get the best results.