How to increase wine club membership retention — the 10 ideas that work best
If you’re looking for how to increase wine club retention, you’re in the right place. With wine clubs in the last two years reporting declining member retention rates, wine club managers are beginning to implement more robust wine club loyalty programs.
These 10 member retention ideas help your members feel valued, boosting their perceived personal connection with your winery, and making them feel they belong.
With the right member retention strategies, you can double your wine club retention.
For small wineries, improving wine club retention is more profitable than increasing acquisition. There are better member retention ideas than free cheese.
Open this window for insights into current wine club attrition rates >.
Wine club attrition rates are going up
Responses compiled in Rob McMillan's 2022 Silicon Valley Bank DTC Report show an average wine club attrition rate of around 18%.
In California, where the average wine club size is close to 3,000 members, a churn rate of 18% represents a loss of 540 members per year.
For many wineries, this is an uncomfortably high churn rate.
Membership retention models focused on strengthening personal connections with members are markedly more effective than simple discounts or free shipping.
Where are your member retention strategies focused?
This article provides ways you can support your members’ reasons for joining your wine club, but the single, most compelling reason club members have for staying club members is simply this: they feel a personal loyalty to your winery — often it’s to the people at your winery.
So as you read through these membership retention ideas, keep in mind that each one should be approached with a focus on building a personal connection with your members.
With our tasting rooms seeing fewer visitors, our biggest source of wine club sign-ups has dwindled. Our existing wine club members are more valuable than ever.
Related reading:
Increasing wine club member acquisition online >
How to calculate membership retention rates >
10 ways to increase member retention
#1 Create a New-Member Onboarding Program
The #1 most effective way to increase member retention is to create an onboarding process to welcome new members when they sign up.
Wine Club managers almost universally recognize the importance of increasing member retention.
Yet, surprisingly few have a formal Welcome process in place beyond a single confirmation email.
That moment when a new member joins your wine club is one of the finest opportunities you’ll have for cementing their loyalty to your brand.
New member welcome programs help your new members feel they made a wise decision in joining your club.
Read specific details for creating a new member onboarding program at your winery >
The single, most compelling reason club members have for staying club members is this: they feel a personal connection — a personal commitment — to you.
#2 Allow (encourage) customization of orders, re-orders, and skips
People who join your wine club don’t necessarily want to receive the wines you want to send. According to the Canadian wine sales platform Commerce7, 38% of wine club members will edit a wine club shipment if given the opportunity.
If you’re wondering how to retain members in your club longer, the option to customize club shipments is often cited as a must-have by wine club members. Wine clubs allowing customization of club shipments see, on average, a 34% decrease in the likelihood of members canceling within the first year.
Get help attracting and retaining more wine club members for your small winery, with optimized web content, member retention programs, and targeted Google Adwords.
Additionally, your wine club is now competing with an entire universe of wine subscription services, which allow customization of not just the wines, but also how many, how often … even never.
#3 Train your staff to recognize club members and treat them like family
A frequently unvolunteered reason for canceling wine clubs, but one that is often revealed in follow-up calls is members feeling ignored just like anyone else when visiting the winery.
Your job is to treat your wine club members as if they belong to your inner circle, as part of your winery’s family, and deserving of special attention. This special attention increases long-term member loyalty and often produces the side effect of causing other visitors to want to get in on some of that special treatment.
What makes club members stay
At Kunde Family Winery in Kenwood, near Sonoma, Wine Club Manager Chris Trinks attests to the importance of excellent customer service at every point of contact with a club member.
"Access," Trinks says, "Is why people join the wine club, and excellent customer service — in person, on the phone, and by email — is what makes our members stay."
#4 Make your club pick-up events something to talk about
Here’s something that you don’t get for joining a wine subscription service: club pick-up parties! So, go ahead and rub their noses in it! Offer your club members barrel tastings when they come to pick up their wines. Bring in a food truck, and a local musician, and make it a memorable outing.
Member retention strategies which include lively pick-up parties benefit from club members connecting with other club members and sharing their positive stories about the wines.
These members are more likely to tell others about their positive experiences upon returning home and look forward to still being members next year so they can attend the next pick-up event.
#5 Offer off-schedule club-only packs and curated offerings
Wine clubs face new competition from all sides — not just from other wineries (even Snoop Dogg has a wine club) and they’re offering a ton of variety.
It’s hard for a small winery to stack up against that level of variety (and celebrity).
Offering club-only sets of verticals, or even curated packs that include wines from other small, local wineries that you join forces with between scheduled ship dates can keep your wine club interesting, providing insider-only access to otherwise unavailable wines.
#6 Boost your wine club retention with a free gift
Send a recipe for … I don’t know — grilled asparagus with aioli and include in the recipe an offer to be sent a free jar of locally made aioli.
Yes, it costs a few bucks to do this, but what is the cost of acquiring a new member?
The occasional surprise gift sent to some or all of your members goes a long way, of course, in delighting your loyal supporters.
But it does so much more: it gives your members something to talk about to their friends, strengthening your brand.
Wine club events get your members mingling and sharing stories about what they like about your winery. There is a direct correlation between wine club events and wine club retention.
#7 Offer better perks on birthdays (not just offers to buy more wine)
Do you have a gazebo at your winery? Offer it to a club member for free on their birthday. Do you have a special events space that’s not booked up in January? Offer it out to your biggest spenders for free.
Also, instead of offering your club members a discount on wines during their birth month, send them a gift instead. Send them a wine key with a hand-written note, or a winery t-shirt — something that isn’t a sales pitch, and use it as an opportunity to let your members know how much you appreciate them.
#8 Engage members with contests, raffles, and giveaways on national wine days
Invite your club members to enter a members-only draw for a free group tasting on National Rosé Day (June 13). Or if you produce Reisling, test your members’ knowledge on International Reisling Day (March 13th) with a Reisling trivia quiz and a chance to win member-for-a-day benefits to give to friends or to win some winery merch.
Offering extra tastings or benefits at your winery is always a good idea as these types of giveaways encourage members to bring their friends, which can often result in more club sign-ups.
Other National Wine Days include:
- Syrah Day: February 16 #syraday
- National Wine Day: May 25
- Mothers Day (not an official Wine Day, but still…)
- Carignan Day: October 27
For an extensive list of National Wine Days, visit WineLoversVillage.
#9 Increase member retention with longevity incentives
How are your wine clubs’ discounts structured? Is it a flat percentage regardless of tenure? Does the discount deepen after 5 or 10 years? Do longer-lasting members receive more benefits?
If you offer your maximum discount the moment a person joins your wine club, there is little left to surprise your members with over the long haul, and as Rob McMillan says (do I need to mention who he is? We all know him, right? SVB? State of the Wine Industry Report? Yes, you know) “You can’t keep shipping the same thing, because it won’t give them the same zing.”
#10 Be alert to your members’ needs
How effectively is your winery able to track the behavior of your wine club members? Do you have technology in place that allows you to see when a club member’s engagement drops to a lower level?
Whether your winery is large enough to have a technology solution to help you, or you’re exporting data from your CMS into Excel to do battle with pivot tables, knowing where your members are, in terms of their membership lifecycle, is crucial in knowing how to speak to them.
Members who are disengaging with your emails, buying less wine, and skipping events might still love everything about your winery but have too much wine on hand. You can let these folks know they’re still special to you with an email asking if they’d like to pause their shipments, transfer their club membership to a relative or friend, or if there’s something else you can do to help them enjoy their membership better.
Digging Deeper:
Monitoring club member engagement
Club member engagement levels should guide your wine club email marketing.
Monitoring club member engagement, and subsequently sending only relevant emails can be accomplished based on knowledge you gain about your members’ preferences as the relationship continues.
Attuning your wine club communications to member preferences, does not run contrary to pursuing your stated business goals; indeed, it will make it possible to achieve them.
If you're looking for an automated approach to monitoring your club members' engagement, the winery management tool Commerce7 claims their built-in algorithms can predict a member's likely cancellation with a 90% accuracy.
- Bonus Strategy: Reconnect With Former Members
Ok, this one isn’t about retaining wine club members, but it’s still a worthwhile thing to do. It’s unlikely that people who opt out of your club suddenly start hating your wines. There’s a very good chance that they opted out for some other reason; either they weren’t keeping up with their wine shipments or they had too many clubs, or whatever.
Try rekindling the relationship at a later time by offering former club members their old discount on their next order, or send a special “Club-Member-For-A-Day” offer.
Digging Deeper:
Staying in touch with former members
There are no bad break-ups with wine clubs. Heitz Cellar's Chloe Tyer explains why.
At Heitz Cellar in St. Helena, Napa Valley, where former members are referred to as Wine Club Alumni, the word, “Cancelled” is never used.
Director of Membership, Chloe Tyer, who lives by her credo that “There are no bad break ups,” makes it a point to keep in touch with her wine club alumni. “They didn’t stop drinking, they don’t hate wine, maybe we just weren’t right for each other at that particular time,” and so she sends a monthly email that is non-transactional, just to stay in touch.
As a Napa Valley winery, efforts like this serve to help all of us. There are no hard feelings, no bad tastes left in the mouth — visitors to Napa still get to cherish the time they spend here, and they’ll return someday too.
Bradley Squires
ENGAGEMENT CATALYST
Bradley Squires, the founder of Wine Chemistry Creative, helps wineries become memorable. He thinks of this as Creating Chemistry with your customers and future customers. Bradley has provided marketing services for some of the largest (and smallest) brands in the U.S.. Notable brands include Vintrace, UCSF, Ericcson, Grgich Hills, The Nature Conservancy, and Napa Valley Vintners. He holds degrees in Oenology, Viticulture, and Wine Marketing. He doesn’t have a dog.
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