Regularly sending out eNewsletters is a PROVEN technique to instilling loyalty in your site visitors and turning potential customers into actual customers. But, if you don’t already have a huge list of subscribers to start with, how do you go about growing your list?

Growing your Winery Email List

• Have your ‘Subscribe to our eNewsletter’ form prominently displayed on your homepage and, even better, on every page of your website.
• Add to your list the email addresses of all the people who have ever purchased your wine online.
• When people order your wine over the phone be sure to ask for their email address and include them to your list.
• Have a ‘Guestbook’ or sign-up sheet always available in your tasting room and on your table at winery events where people can give you their name and email address.
• When discussing your wines with an interested party, ask them if you can add their email address to your eNewsletter list.
• If you belong to a regional winery/wine growing group such as ‘Dundee Hills Wine Growers Association‘ that collects site visitor emails, ask the website administrator to send you a list of all their email subscribers.
• Offer the chance to win a prize by subscribing and be sure to include the price (so they understand the value they are getting), a picture and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is.

  Some potential prizes could be:

  • a cork-screw
  • a tasting kit (aka tasting flight) Since you probably can’t send wine, this could include a wine opener, logo glasses, wine glass sheet along with notes and a pen (maybe even some cheese?)
  • a logo wine glass
  • Some of your branded apparel
• Give new sign-ups an incentive to join by offering something they can download after signing up. (and be sure to include the price and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is)

  Some examples could be:

  • A collection of recipes that can be paired with your wine in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
  • A wine and food pairing booklet in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
  • Maybe a ‘how-to’ manual on hosting a wine tasting? (Which of course would be in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.

  I know coming up with this material make take you some time, but it would be so worth it in the long run because not only does it increase your eNewsletter sign-ups, but it helps to build brand loyalty. Even better, once these digital files are put together, it will cost you nothing for them to be downloaded!

• Use Twitter to collect email by:
  • Including something in your Twitter bio like "subscribe to our eNewsletter to get more indepth info"
  • Responding personally to new ‘Followers’ with a ‘Thank you for following me, if you want more information be sure to sign-up for my eNewsletter’

Ideas for Using Your List

You want to PUBLISH REGULARLY (weekly or monthly) so your recipients have more opportunities to get to know you.  Since I know how difficult it can be to come up with fresh material for a regular eNewsletter, something I’ve done to help me out is keeping an idea file where I can store anything and everything that could be of interest. 

Here are some things I’ve come up with you can use in your eNewsletters (I know some are pretty obvious, but I hope I’ve included some stuff that was new :

• Post any wine awards and/or good reviews along with a link to where they can actually purchase the wine (if you have a shopping cart).
• Include any new wine releases along with tasting notes, food pairings and a link to where they can actually purchase the wine (if you have a shopping cart).
• Any wine sales and/or special offers such as free shipping. (And I always thought it would be good idea to offer a special ’2 day sale’ just for your eNewsletter subscribers to see if it increases your sales any.)
• Let your subscribers know about any upcoming events.
• Offer seasonal packages.  Examples of this could go on forever (Christmas, Valentines Day, etc…) so maybe shake it up a bit with a little known special day?  For example, did you know December 5th is Prohibition Day?  This is as good a reason as any to offer a ‘Happy Prohibition Day’ package!



• Winery specific information
  • Let folks know when and what you are bottling — and include pictures!!! (Remember, you want your recipients to get to know you and what better way to do this then with pictures.)
  • If you use one of those traveling bottling trucks, maybe let your subscribers know about it and explain how they work (I know I was fascinated when I first found out about the traveling bottling trucks and was amazed how they fit all that equipment into a truck!)
  • Let them know when you are barreling down.
  • Let folks know if you are considering using any new techniques or equipment such as oak alternatives or screw caps — and ask their opinion!!  Make them feel involved in the decision.
  • Let your subscribers know about any new personnel you’ve hired or any new milestones you’ve reached. For example, ‘Our 10 Year Anniversary’, or ‘We’ve just added a new winemaker, John Smith, to our team.  He is know for his . . .’
• Vineyard Updates
  
  • Let them know when bud break happens and include pictures with captions.
  • Do the same thing for veraison explaining what it is and include pictures with captions
  • Of course harvest is always a great time (if you aren’t too busy ) to let your subscribers know what is going on.
  • Consider letting them know about canopy management, what it entails, why it is done and, as always, include pictures with captions
  • If you do anything special with your vineyard, include that in a eNewsletter. For example, Domaine Drouhin has a ‘green harvest’ during the summer where they thin a lot of their clusters, and Sokol Blosser is certified organic which entails a lot specific vineyard practices they need to do in order to maintain their ‘certified’ status.
• Unique ways to use your wine
  • Pouring your desert wine over berries for a sweet treat!
  • Instead of buying ‘cooking wine’ in the grocery store, suggest they use some of your wine and why.
• And then of course you can always throw in recipes to be paired with your wine.

What to Use to Send Out Your List

I recommend NOT using your regular email program to send out your eNewsletters — it can really tie up your server and the more sign-ups you get the more unwieldy it will be to handle everything.  So I suggest using Vertical Response or Constant Contact to send out to your list.  The reason for this is:

• They are very inexpensive.  If you plan to only send out eNewsletters sporadically, then your best bet is to use Vertical Response because they charge per email address and you can send out to about 1,000 emails addresses for only $15.  Constant Contact charges a monthly fee so they are good for those of you who plan to send out eNewsletters regularly.
• They provide the coding for your web designer to add to your website so every new subscriber will automatically be added to your eNewsletter list.
• They make it easy to prepare and send out your eNewsletters and you can even schedule them ahead of time
• And I saved the best for last!!!  They can actually track how many of your eNewsletters were opened and, if you included links in the eNewsletter it can even tell you what links were clicked on along with how many times.  This information is PRICELESS for figuring out how successful your eNewsletters are!

What Is A Good Open Rate?

For those of you who ARE tracking your eNewsletters, I thought I’d throw in this interesting bit of information I discovered today:  According to Donna Gunter of ‘Get More Clients Online’, "a good open rate is considered to be 30-40%, which means that between 30 and 40% of your list is actually reading your broadcast."  This may not seem like a lot, but considering how busy everyone is now-a-days, and how many eNewsletters they must get, its impossible to think all of your eNewsletters are going to be read by everyone.

As always, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts. So if you have an idea for winery eNewsletters (whether its growing your list or ideas on what to write about), please feel free to comment this blog or email me directly.