2021 was a banner year for wineries that sell directly to consumers.
Twenty-nine percent of wine marketers reported their best year ever on the strength of ecommerce and innovation in the way consumers relate to their favorite wine brands.
For the innovators using text messaging in the wine industry, best practices are beginning to emerge for growing text marketing lists, sending text marketing campaigns, and managing two-way text conversations with consumers.
BEST PRACTICES FOR LIST GROWTH
- Text Marketing Keywords make it easy for any customer to join a winery’s text marketing list Web-Based Signup Forms that website visitors can complete to join a winery’s text marketing list
- Email Marketing is the most effective method for starting a text marketing program
BEST PRACTICES FOR OUTBOUND CAMPAIGNS
- Transactional Texts triggered by customer behavior to send order and shipping confirmation messages
- Preference-Based Content Streams that use keywords to deliver weekly or bi-weekly content, like upcoming winery events
- Predictive Sales Offers that use purchase history and customer tags to target sales offers personalized for each consumer
BEST PRACTICES FOR MANAGING
TWO-WAY TEXT CONVERSATIONS
In addition to sending outbound marketing messages to many consumers at once, text marketers in the wine industry are also finding ample success in engaging their customers with two-way text conversations.
Entire hospitality teams are turning to text messaging to conveniently communicate with their customers, answering questions in real-time, and selling more wine as a result.
Best practices for managing two-way text conversations include:
- Assigning Trained Staff responsible for each customer conversation
- Automated Away Messages that instantly reply to customer requests
- Deploying Mobile Apps so winery staff can message their customers wherever they are
Two-way Text Marketing / Courtesy VinterActive
THE FUTURE OF TEXT MARKETING IN THE WINE INDUSTRY
In the future, as text marketing continues to mature in the wine industry, best practices will surely mature too.
Forward-thinking wineries are already experimenting with QR codes in tasting rooms to grow their text marketing lists, leveraging social media for text marketing content, and creating new ways to serve their customers with personalized text messaging.
In 2022, rapid innovation in the business use of SMS messaging will give wine marketers even more tools to grow their text marketing lists, manage conversational sales, automate personalized text messages, and harness SMS messaging for B2B sales and employee communication.
In a world where online consumers are trending toward text messages as their preferred form of communication from their favorite brands, but so few U.S. wineries are capable of texting their customers—this epic mismatch spells nothing but opportunity for savvy wine marketers.
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About the Author
Founder & CEO of VinterActive LLC, Bryan is a pioneer in the development of preference-based direct marketing and its successful application in the wine industry. His wine marketing research and analysis have helped hundreds of wineries across the U.S. grow sales and customer satisfaction by leveraging the best practices of DTC wine marketing.
Bryan holds an MS from M.I.T. and a BS from U.C. Berkeley. His award-winning work has been featured in books, magazines, and seminars, including CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, eMarketing Magazine, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Wine Marketing Report, and the Wine Industry Network.
