It’s not easy being a DTC wine marketer.
In the game of DTC sales, many marketing professionals already have the deck stacked against them without enough time or resources to maximize the results they need from direct marketing.
And to make matters worse, too many otherwise level-headed wine marketers are laboring under the enormous weight of a common myth.
Sometimes less is more with email marketing
WINE MARKETING MYTH:
BIGGER IS ALWAYS BETTER
Take, for example, the average winery’s email list. Since email marketing has been around for 20 years, many wineries in high-traffic locations have built lists of prodigious proportions.
But looks can be deceiving...
If you’ve been building your list for a while, chances are the vast majority of your marketing contacts are now dead weight…completely non-responsive.
Remember that lovely couple from Coos Bay who liked your Chardonnay in 2017 but hasn’t opened any of your messages in three years…maybe they’re not into you anymore.
For one established winery, our analysis showed that for every 10,000 email addresses they had on file, fewer than 2000 contacts opened any of their messages in the last six months, and fewer than 3000 had opened any marketing emails in the previous year.
Yet, there they were, paying full-price for the privilege of sending all their messages to all their contacts because bigger is always better, right?
In this case, our client used their newfound insight to profit from a new marketing mindset.
NEW EMAIL MARKETING MINDSET:
ONLY TARGET ACTIVE LISTS
It’s as simple as filtering your lists, so your messages only go to customers and prospects who are still actively interested in what you have to offer.
To start, run a simple report that shows what % of your email list opened any of your marketing messages in the last year. Then focus your resources on them.
The benefits of this approach can be profound. A typical wine marketer can use this mindset to:
· Cut their current email marketing costs by 50% or more
· Boost the deliverability of email messages sent to active subscribers
· Redeploy limited funds to marketing campaigns proven to multiply wine sales
The path to better digital marketing isn’t always so easy or accessible. But we can all raise a glass to our mutual success when we realize that bigger isn’t always better when it comes to DTC wine marketing.
Happy Selling!