2022 has been a wild year in the wine industry. Coming out of the pandemic, tasting rooms have picked up and ecommerce is slumping comparatively to the gold rush of 2020. Pair this with the headwinds of negative press about the cost of vacations in wine country and uncertain economic times, it can feel as if the last three months of the year (OND) are make or break.

We want to help you maximize wine sales in OND and end the year strong. Every winery will be fighting over the same customers. It will be as competitive as ever. Start your OND planning today, if you haven’t already, and use these 10 wine marketing tips to guide your strategy.

1. Prepare Your Marketing Calendar

Without a clearly mapped out plan, you will be running scattershot during the holiday season. We suggest you make a calendar and schedule all of your marketing activities including emails, social media posts, digital ads, text messages, etc. 

With everything in one place, you can determine if you are over communicating or under communicating with your audience. Remember that everyone is sending emails during this time so you need to find the right cadence for your audience. 

If you are going to run specific deals, be sure to communicate expiration dates to create urgency for your customer. Try 48 hour flash sales for instance. On the day the deal expires, send a reminder email and exclude customers who purchased already. We’ve found these last chance emails can generate just as much revenue as the first email.

If you need assistance putting a calendar together and getting ideas, use this fantastic fillable marketing calendar from our friends at Outshinery.

2. Avoid The Tyranny Of Choice

When customers are provided too many choices, they panic and make no decision instead of a decision. If you produce 10+ different wines, offering them all in your holiday shop will be overwhelming to customers. Instead, curate your collection into a few choices. Make a new collection on your website called “Holiday Specials” and then put together 3-5 options at various price points. Offer a single bottle of your best seller and a few creative bundles for those willing to spend more. You do not need to be everything to everybody. Make the decision process easier for your customers. 

3. Create Your Content Now

Content is everything! Once you decide which wines you will feature, start producing photo and video content. Everyone does the same cheezy bottles on a table in front of twinkling lights so think about how you can stand out this year. Get creative!

If you plan to market on social media, put extra focus on video content. Facebook, Instagram, and obviously TikTok are prioritizing video content over photos. Think about how you can create a story that your customer can see themselves in such as families gathering around a holiday table. 

There are many ways to create effective marketing content. The fastest and cheapest is user generated content. Check your instagram profile and look at who has tagged you. If you like the content, message the user and ask if you can repost their content. Some will say yes and some may charge, but it’s usually worth it. 

For digitally rendered bottle shots, lifestyle shots, and videos check out Outshinery. 

If you prefer working directly with a photographer/videographer, we have been working with Rocco Ceselin for years and cannot recommend him enough. He can do shoots on your property in wine country or you can ship him bottles to shoot in his studio. 

4. Start Running Ads ASAP

If you plan to run digital ads this holiday season, then start today! Acquisition costs will rise everyday up to Christmas. It’s important you start building your audience now while costs are lower. 

Platforms like Facebook, Instragm and Google thrive when they have historical ad data. They measure the success of your ads and use that data to optimize future performance. If you start cold turkey for Black Friday, your ads will not be very successful. But, if you can get a 2 month jump start, the platforms will have a good amount of data to work from.

Spend October building a top of funnel audience (customers that have never heard about you) while costs are lower. Then in November and December, run retargeting ads to convert those users. 

If you don’t know where to start, check out our recent webinar with Commerce7 about running digital ads for wineries. 

5. Test Your Offers

Do not wait until Black Friday to find out if you have a good campaign idea or not. You are putting all of your eggs in one basket. Use October to test your campaign ideas, offers, copy, and creative. 

If you are running digital ads, start testing different offers such as shipping deals vs. product discounts vs. limited production exclusivity. Run each offer for a week and see which performs best for insights into what your audience will respond best to. As you hone in on the offer, test different photos, videos, and copy as well to optimize your ads for maximum performance.

You can also test the offers via email. Run an A/B test via email platforms like MailChimp or Klaviyo in October and see which offer drives the most revenue. Don’t overthink this and worry that you will run the same offer a month later. Customers have shorter memories than you think. 

6. Collect SMS Opt-Ins

SMS text messages are the best way to reach your customers during the noise of the holiday seasons. Texts get through to customers and 98% of them are read within 3 minutes of delivery. Emails get lost in spam folders. 

In a recent campaign we ran for one of our winery clients in September, customers who were sent a text message had an on-page conversion rate of 42% while email only had a 25% on-page conversion rate. It’s simple- text marketing outperforms email marketing!

Use October to collect as many opt-ins as possible. For the aforementioned client, we sent an email to their customers saying they would get VIP access to a new release if they signed up for text messages. It worked like a charm and drove tons of opt-ins. Use the same concept and tell your audience they will get advanced access to Black Friday deals if they sign up for texts. Then send them a text 48 hours before Black Friday with a special link.

If you are not yet texting your customers, we highly recommend you check out RedChirp. They are a wine specific text messaging platform that integrates with tons of ecommerce platforms including Commerce7, WineDirect, VineSpring, etc. You can book a free demo of Red Chirp’s platform at this link.

7. Focus on Retention, Not Acquisition

Come November and December you should focus exclusively on customer retention and not acquisition. Most customers do not decide to try a new brand for the first time when gifting wine. It’s too big of a risk. 

As mentioned above, the cost of customer acquisition is very high on digital platforms during the holiday season. It’s way cheaper to send an email, text message, or call existing customers in your database. Do not be afraid of your own customers. Pick up the phone and call them. Ask them how they are doing. See how you can help them order gifts early. Even with all the digital tools available, wineries forget that old-school tactics like phone calls work best. Engage your customers. They want to hear from you.

8. Communicate Shipping Cutoffs Early And Often

Shipping wine is complex and full of friction. Do your customers a favor and make the shipping process as straightforward as possible.

Start communicating in October your shipping cutoffs for each of the major holidays. Send reminder emails and text messages the day before each cutoff as a helpful reminder. When in doubt, set the cutoffs a day or two earlier than what your shipping company tells you to build a buffer. There are always customers who come to you the day after hoping for a Christmas miracle. 

We suggest adding a “Shipping FAQ” to the bottom of your holiday shop page on your website clearly communicating cutoff times, costs, and expectations. This can put your customer at ease and make them more likely to convert. If a customer is trying to decide between two brands, they are more likely to choose the one that can provide a smoother and clearer shipping experience. 

9. Sell Digital Gift Cards After Shipping Cut Off

Once your shipping cutoff passes, it doesn’t mean you cannot keep generating revenue for the year. The day after your cut off expires, send an email to everyone that has not yet purchased and provide a link to purchase a digital gift card online. Send the same email again the day before Christmas. We’ve had a lot of success with this strategy and booked meaningful revenue in the final days of the year.

10. Segment Your Email List

Not all customers in your database are equal. You will have the devoted fans, the casual buyers, and the one time customers that never came back. Don’t send them all the same email every time. If someone has not bought from your winery in the past 3 years, they don’t need 5 holiday emails from you.

Before the holiday season starts, clean your email list and then segment it! Find all of the customers that have not purchased from you in many years and stopped opening your emails and unsubscribe them! I am sure your heart skipped a beat reading this as you have hope they will purchase again this year, but they won't. 

Email providers look at your open rates to determine if your emails are spam. If you have low open rates because your list is full of old customers who are no longer interested, you increase the risk your email won’t be delivered or marked as spam. 

We suggest using a wine analytics platform like WinePulse which can automatically segment customers for you. They can show your best customers and at risk customers so you can target them with appropriate offers. I’d email my big buyers a week or two early and give them first access and my best deals as a thank you. 

I’d then message my at risk customers and give them a compelling offer to come back and make an order. If they don’t respond to two emails this holiday season, then stop emailing them. Focus on customers most likely to convert to keep your open rates high.

As you get deeper into the season, segment out customers that purchased already. Keep shrinking your list as you get closer to your Christmas cutoff.

We hope with these ideas you can crush it this holiday season.

Simon Solis-Cohen is the founder of Highway 29 Creative, a leading digital and creative agency serving the wine industry. He challenges clients to think about the future and constantly innovate. The agency chases data, not fads, and provides one-stop shopping for wineries looking to enter or jolt their direct to consumer sales. Their approach starts by designing and building a website focused on conversion (wine sales, club sign ups & tasting room reservations) and then dives into each digital channel with consistent and effective content and messaging.