How To Convert Visitors Into Wine Club Members
Wine club members are your best customers, and if treated as such, they can also be your best ambassadors.
If your wine club members feel that they are getting excellent customer service and love being part of what you offer, they may also encourage their friends and families to become members as well. At the very least, they will share their positive experiences with their friends and families. Its a win-win all the way around!
It isnt a make or break deal whether or not you have a brick and mortar tasting room or retail location, but it is easier to convert your guests if you do, simply because of the potential number of interactions.
If you do have a tasting room or retail location, you have more opportunities to pour your wines and explain them and your brand to your visitors, but you need to make the most of every interaction more on that later.
If you dont have a tasting room or retail location, you need to get a little more creative with your wine club marketing efforts, like hosting dinners at restaurants or doing in-home presentations. Some brands are really successful with these methods, because the presentations tend to be intimate and focused and the wines are usually paired with foods that enhance the whole experience. If you use this method, even if you do have a brick and mortar retail location, you will have a captive audience and it creates a great opportunity to captivate them with your wines and your brand story.
Why Start A Wine Club
Wineries love online wine clubs because they are a source of predictable revenue and can be used to match inventory depletion with wine production, by enabling you to create shipments based on your varietal production.
Wine clubs are membership-based, periodic shipment subscriptionswhich means they have a higher customer lifetime value than single purchases online. They let you show off your fan favorites while giving a boost to new product launches and limited release wines. In doing so, your winery can cultivate a deeper relationship with your customers.
Best of all, wine clubs allow you to reach and continuously touch customers who cant make it to your winery while allowing them to forge a deeper relationship with your brand.
Beware Of The Discount Motivation
You will notice we havent mentioned discounts as a selling technique. Due to the complex three-tier distribution system we have in this industry, buying direct from the winery isnt usually the cheapest way for customers to acquire our wines. A typical wine club discount is there to offset the shipping fees, and make any widely distributed wines comparable to what a customer would find at retail. But, rarely is a wine club the cheapest option for customers. If a customer is under this impression, they will often be disappointed, feel cheated, and quickly cancel.
Many wineries use special discounts offered at the time of sign up. For example, If you sign up today, you get this bonus Ensure management is monitoring the cancellation rate on these offers, especially if youre being compensated on tenure. Many wineries require a club member receive a certain number of shipments before the employee that signed them up gets the bounty. If it seems youre signing up several new wine club members each month and not receiving the club signup bonus, it could be because youre selling based on an initial discount. Customers only interested in the discount and not the club benefits are picking up on the advantage of a sign-up-then-cancel strategy. When youre salary depends on it, you want to ensure youre maximizing your opportunity and not letting potential money walk out the door.
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How Do I Know If Its Okay To Drink
According to the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some people should not drink alcoholic beverages at all, including:
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Anyone younger than 21 years of age
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Women who are or may be pregnant
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People with certain medical conditions
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People who are driving, plan to drive or are participating in activities that require skill, coordination, and alertness
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People taking certain prescription or over-the-counter medications that can interact with alcohol
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People who are recovering from alcoholism or are unable to control the amount they drink
Best For Artisan Wine: The California Wine Club
The California Wine Club
Since 1990, The California Wine Club has delivered blends from working wineries.
Whereas some clubs offer their own wines or private label vino, they only feature real-working wineries with the intent of helping small, family wineries share their wines with wine lovers all over the country.
The California Wine Club prides itself on the quality of the handcrafted bottles it features. Each bottle is hand-selected, and the company does not outsource.
There are a variety of levels for choosing a subscription. The Pacific Northwest Series features two bottles of handpicked, artisan blends from Oregon and Washingtons best family wineries for about $77 per shipment.
The Premier Series features a different winery each month and delivers two hand-selected, handcrafted blends, a guide to the winery that includes tasting notes and insights, access to a personal vino consultant, their Love It guarantee, plus VIP touring and tasting at any of the small family wineries they feature.
The Premier Series offers a pay-as-you-go system, where you pay around $41 indefinitely until you decide to cancel.
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The Most Important Factor In Wine Club Success
What is Utility and How Can You Use it?utilitythe amount of pleasurenext incremental unitWater-Diamond Paradoxtotal utilityOpting Out – Staying In
So what are you doing to keep your club member’s utility high so they don’t stray to an interloper?The Most Important Metricwhat matters the most is the second sale and all subsequent sales in their club life.Measuring Time in a Wine Club Silicon Valley Bank/Wine Business Monthly Tasting Room Surveykeeping a wine club member only two years seems embarrassingly short to me.you can’t keep shipping the same thing because it wont give them the same zing.Your wine club members want varietyMeasuring Spend in a Wine ClubSVB-Wine Business Monthly Tasting Room SurveyOffering Up-Front Discounts
Disadvantages Of Joining A Winerys Wine Club
- Shipping charges may exceed the discount advantage
- The selection made by the winery might be a wine variety you dont enjoy.
- The discounts are based on full retail pricing. With many of the wineries, especially the larger wineries, you can find a better deal at various wine shops that deal in volume sales.
- Even though you can quit a wine club at any time, most people dont get around to notifying the winery. You will need to call or email to inform the winery that you want to quit the wine club. Human nature usually means that you wont leave a wine club anytime soon.
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Best For Date Night: Winc
Winc
Your wine journey at Winc starts with a six-question quiz to get to know your tastes and preferences. Based on your responses, theyll send four wine choices each month.
Then, youll review the bottles, and your preferences will be fine-tuned even more. The goal is to cater the experience to your tastes, so that you can spend less time choosing the best wine, and more time enjoying it.
Founders Xander Oxman and Geoff McFarlane joined forces with winemaker and sommelier, Brian Smith to create a personalized wine club that offers online membership.
The subscriptions are flexible, allowing members to skip a month or cancel at any time. Satisfaction is guaranteed, so if youre unhappy with a bottle you can receive a refund. Subscriptions start at around $60 per month, plus shipping for three bottles. Or, receive free shipping with four or more bottles.
Wincs recommendation for the best wine for date night: Try the 2018 Porter & Plot Cabernet Sauvignon from Mendocino, California. Harvested from the CCOF-certified Cox Vineyard, this bottle is bursting with dark fruits and spice.
Action Steps For Wine Club Sales
This article is part of the email Relationship Sales Success Series. It provides a step-by-step guide to improving wine sales and wine club sign ups. While it focuses upon techniques for those working winery tasting rooms, the principles of great sales skills can apply to any industry. Sign up for the series here.
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Are Wine Clubs Worth It
From rich reds to sparkling whites to pair with your Thanksgiving turkey or toast the New Year tis the season to imbibe. When you consider just how much wine you might need between gifts, guests , and yourself this year, it seems like joining a wine club could be a good idea. Or is it?
The wine club business has picked up considerably since the first mass market Wine Club of the Month was founded in 1972 in the United States. There are large-scale clubs, such as the Williams-Sonoma Wine Club and The New York Times Wine Club , and there are clubs that market to Millennials, such as Winc and the trendy Plonk Wine Club, with a focus on artisanal and boutique wines . As a result, there is a range of pricing and schedules: two bottles per month, six bottles every quarter, or an annual shipment are just a few choices.
How To Boost Wine Club Membership
An increase in wine club convenience equates to an increase in wine club members and membership retention.
Zach Kamphuis, general manager, Commerce7
Why should a consumer sign up for a wine club instead of just buying the wines ad-hoc? Traditionally, the added value of joining the wine club is the member benefits. Most member benefits, however, are localized. Free tastings, exclusive events, and member-only sections/seating are great selling featuresfor local members who live nearby and can take advantage of those perks. But how can you drive value for out-of-city, out-of-state, or even out-of-country members who cant take advantage of your member benefits?
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A Special Case: Winery Vip Clubs
While there are tons of articles comparing particular wine clubs one of the most overlooked kinds of wine clubs is a specific winerys VIP program.
What members of these groups have in common is a passion for a particular winery. Join a winery’s club if you have a desire to be in the loop. You will get updates about new releases, limited quantities, or special events.
So you visit a small, family-owned vineyard in Napa Valley and fall in love, but you live on the East Coast? As long as its legal to ship to your home state, you can still get access to amazing wines. Many of these wines youd never see on the shelves of a grocery store. Its a way to stay in touch with memorable wineries. Also, you can get gems youd miss out on if you had to rely on your local retailers.
Is A Wine Club For You
From rich reds to a crisp cava, wine has a way of conveying a story. If youre curious about wine, want to get a good bargain, or wish to expand your palate, theres a wine club for all of that.
Wine subscription clubs are designed to make your life easier by picking out the best bottles suited to your interests and can save you the time and hassle of going out. Some wine clubs partner exclusively with certain winemakers or brands that you wont find anywhere else. Now thats worth raising a glass to.
Why join a wine club?
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Convenience: Replenish your wine supply from the comfort of your own home
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Price: Most bottles are priced within the $10-$15 dollar range
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Experience: Some wine clubs offer exclusive access to sommeliers
Things to watch out for:
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Wine clubs that require long-term commitments
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Hidden shipping costs or additional fees
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No satisfaction guarantees
Subscribing to a wine club can save you money in the long run. Wine clubs often offer members exclusive pricing on a variety of wines, provide free delivery, and grant access to limited release wines and, on occasion, give free tickets to wine tasting events.
If you are a regular wine drinker and appreciate a good wine, joining a wine club is worth it. On average, members can save from 40 to 60% on wine through their membership. The average price per bottle on most popular wine clubs is $10-$15.
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How To Get Started Selling Wine Online
Once you’ve obtained all applicable licenses and permits, you need to build your eCommerce website with a platform that can handle the special requirements of an online wine store. 3dcart has everything you need, including integration with payment providers for high-risk merchants, simple-to-use age verification, connections with UPS and FedEx, and even a eCommerce ready wine website template. Sign up for a FREE online store trial with no obligations and no credit card needed, and check out all the features that make 3dcart the best shopping cart software for selling wine online.
Determine Your Customers Needs
The customers needs are quite complex which makes your job a challenge to identify their specific needs. With an average conversion rate for wine clubs hovering around 5%, that means 1 person out of 20 will sign up for the wine club when asked. It takes a lot of questions to get to know a customer in order to provide them with what you think fits best for them. Check out a few examples below of clues of potential customer needs, and how you might position the wine club to meet them.
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I Am Thinking About Trying To Use Square To Run A Wine Club Membership And A Winery Tasting Room
I need tools to organize inventory, shipping, customer engagement, and reoccuring billing for a wine club. I already use it in the Tasting Room for POS, but putting together the pieces for run a wine club is more complex. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
I have the same need, and there is no apparent Square module. Square thinks in terms of a rewards program buy twelve cups of cofee get the thirteenth free. This just isnt’t what a wine club is.
Hi and , thanks for sharing your experience! Glad to hear you’re interested in utilizing more of Square’s features at your wineries.
, any chance you can reply with more details on what you’re looking for in a rewards program? I’ll be sure to surface any feedback to our product liaison team.
I wanted to circle back with some updates and suggetions on the features mentioned earlier:
- Customer Engagement Square Customer Engagement allows you to connect and maintain relationships using Marketing and Loyalty programs.
- Inventory We offer a select set of inventory features in Square Register, but you’ll find additional solutions with our Items & Inventory partner apps.
- Recurring/Subscription Billing No specific timeline yet, but we’re actively working on this one!
- Shipping If you’re not using the Square Online Store, check out our eCommerce partner apps for additional shipping options.
Hope this information helps. As always, feel free to reply here with any other suggestions or insight. Cheers!
What Are The Best Tips For Selling Wine
When selling wine, it is important to find a strategy that specifically affects the customer base in one’s area. Alternatively, selling wine online or remotely can be effective, but this strategy is not always the case when a seller cannot offer either a unique product or very low prices. Tactics for selling this product usually involve a high degree of knowledge about wine and wine pairings, but ambiance can also be important when making sales. General sales tactics can also apply to wine sales, and psychology can sometimes be utilized to overcome customer objections.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when trying to sell wine is the specific customer base that a business is targeting. For example, college students buy very different types of wine than tourists, and making sure that the needs of visitors to a wine store are met can help boost sales. This is not only an issue of price but also of presentation. Even the design of the store can draw different types of customers into a store.
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