It’s only August so you’re thinking you have plenty of time to get your site ready for the holidays – think again. Now is the time to make sure that your site is optimized for the traffic that is soon to come your way. The following are a few quick pointers to ensuring you maximize [...]

Winery owners looking to increase tourist traffic to their tasting rooms should consider expanding their website with web pages optimized for each town name in their primary market area.

Tourism Search Traffic

Google and Yahoo seem to reward well organized websites. They also seem to reward well written content placed on meticulously named pages. Since [...]

What Is Swag?
Not since the days of pirates has swag been so important; and unlike our swashbuckling forbearers, we needn’t navigate the open seas to find some. But what exactly is swag, and why should you be excited about it?
The terms “swag”, “schwag”, and “tchotchkes” all refer to one concept – free stuff! [...]

by Scot Burns - Owner, Redbarn Marketing

Those who’ve been in the industry a while know that the toughest part of the wine business is not making the wine (that’s the fun part) it’s selling it. For the majority of wineries that don’t have “uber-status” you are going to have to push your wines to the [...]

by Jason Eckenroth - Founder and President, ShipCompliant

Compliance Checks: What, Where, When and Why
The term “compliance check” has become almost ubiquitous in the wine industry. But what exactly does it mean, and when should you run a compliance check?

The diagram above shows a typical workflow for direct to consumer wine orders. The entry point to [...]

Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.
Have a Purpose

In my research of email marketing practices for wineries I receive 10 to 20 emails per day from the various winery lists I am subscribed to. I look for the best and the worst examples of email marketing.
After reading thousands of emails I have a [...]

Build A Sales Team Without The Overhead
Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.
Are you developing new revenue channels by tapping into the power of Internet marketers and publishers? With the highly competitive online wine landscape, it’s critical to fully leverage the power of the web in your favor - particularly finding ways to work [...]

By Scot Burns, Owner - Redbarn Marketing.
Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.
I like to use analogies in a lot of my communication with clients. Not only do they usually add a bit of humor, but they lend themselves to a clearer picture of what really needs to be accomplished. Essentially it can help [...]

By Jeff Carroll, Vice President of Compliance - ShipCompliant
The Wild Ride Continues
Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.
If, just after the Supreme Court ruling of May 2005, you thought [...]

By Mitch Tarr, CEO - ZinMarketing, Inc.
Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.
One of the biggest fears I hear from wineries about sending email to their ‘list’ is the fear of being labeled as a spammer. It’s a real fear but I don’t think the winery industry is overusing email in any way.
I ran [...]

By Paul Mabray, CEO - Inertia Beverage Group
Surprise!
Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.
My first mentor once told me that the best way to elevate your customer’s experience is not just to establish a relationship, but also to SURPRISE them (in a good way). Today I recognize this great piece of advice as central [...]

To Sample or Not To Sample: There’s No Question
For those in the business of producing or importing wine, it is a truism that good wine reviews will help sell wine. In fact, reviews and ratings of wine may be the single biggest weapon in a marketing arsenal. But before those ratings and reviews are put [...]

Increasing Power of Blogs
With 3 clicks and no technical knowledge needed, anyone in the world can create a blog. This fact alone drives professional journalists up a wall as their new competition may not be traditionally trained writers with degrees, but bloggers with a loyal following (who also happen to enjoy wine).
Wine blogging provides an [...]

The Value of Email
Email is one of the most valuable communication channels with consumers. You can tell whether your message is real, relevant, personal, and meets the expectations you have of the sender. And when the email doesn’t meet those standards, we can hit the opt out or spam button - and we don’t [...]

Packaging a bottle of wine is now more important than ever?
Over the last few years we have seen an enormous growth of new wines in the marketplace. Not just from California and other states but from all around the world. With this growth, the look and feel of not only the bottle but also the [...]

We know that most of you agree that your company should be customer-focused. Have you analyzed your database to measure your customer-focused activities? Can you answer the questions you need to know:

How much is a Direct-Sale customer worth?
How much should I invest in customer acquisition?
What is the lifetime value of my customer?

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The ‘Customer-Worth’ Equation
The [...]