I recently gave a presentation called Unlocking Growth: 3 Quick Fixes for Your Winery’s Digital Marketing on this topic. Marketing can be very overwhelming for wineries that aren’t sure where to start.
Wineries often excel at the hard parts: growing grapes, making incredible wine, building gorgeous tasting rooms, and selling wine in person.
However, there is often a missing link: digital marketing growth that actually matches that stellar in-person experience.
If your online presence feels stuck, here are three quick fixes to stop guessing and start selling.
Fix 1: Create a Strong Brand Position
A confused buyer doesn’t buy or visit. Our brains are hardwired to notice what is different, not what is the same, so sounding like every other winery actively loses you sales.
Many wineries rely on vague brand positions, using generic phrases like “family-owned” or “award-winning boutique winery”. Here are two examples of vague brand positions I see all the time:
-
The Generic Welcome: “Welcome to our family-owned winery. We are passionate about making great wine and treating every guest like family.”
-
The Award-Winner: “We are an award-winning boutique winery dedicated to crafting high-quality, handcrafted wines.”
The Ultimate Test: If you can take your website’s opening headline, slap your biggest competitor’s logo above it, and it still makes perfect sense—you do not have a brand position.
You have to figure out how you are different.
You can differentiate through your Wine Style Strategy (like Mathany Family Vineyards, who positions their 100% sustainable bottles as “Wine You Don’t Have To Defend”), The Place (your building or AVA), or your Personality (like Bingham Family Vineyards, who highlights their large multigenerational farming family that plays music together).
Try filling in this formula: Only (your brand) delivers (unique differentiating benefit) to (target audience)BECAUSE (your unique story/reason).
Here is how we filled this out for Bingham Family Vineyards:
Only (Bingham) delivers (100% Texas estate wines) to (music-loving locals) BECAUSE (we are a 13-kid family that farms the soil and plays the songs).
Which we translated into this final mini-brand story:
“Rooted & finely tuned in the High Plains of Texas, the Binghams are a multigenerational wine growing family that produces 100% Texas grown and crafted estate wines. Truly Texas, from soil to song.”
Once you have your final position and brand story use it on everything: your website, labels, brochures, social media, etc.
Fix 2: Increase Your Online Visibility
A great brand doesn’t matter if visitors cannot find it. Currently, 46% of all Google searches have local intent, and 84% of those happen on mobile devices. Your primary goal should be landing in the local Map Pack (the top 3 local results on Google), which leads to 126% more traffic than being ranked just below it. Here are two ways to show up higher in the Map Pack:
- The N.A.P. Golden Rule: Your Name, Address, and Phone number must be identical across Facebook, Yelp, Google, and your website. If they don’t match exactly, the search engine robot gets confused and drops your ranking. Furthermore, 80% of consumers lose trust in local businesses if they see inconsistent contact details online.
- Reviews are Currency: 99% of people check reviews online. Reviews aren’t just for feedback; they are data points for AI, so you need to respond to every single one to show trust.
Fix 3: Build a Loyalty Loop
Most wineries let tasting room visitors walk out the door and rely on Facebook algorithms to bring them back. The problem? Organic social media posts reach less than 5% of your followers – even if they “follow” you. Facebook is now a pay to play platform. They really want you to Boost ads to reach your followers.
You need to shift your focus to a “Loyalty Loop” via email marketing.
- Email is permission-based, meaning there is no Meta middleman.
- It boasts a $36 ROI for every $1 spent.
- Plus, it is 16x more expensive to acquire a new customer than to bring back one who is already on your list.
Start with a Welcome Email: Just like you would greet tasting room visitors, you need to welcome new email list subscribers. More than 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email. Keep it simple: offer a discount (if applicable), show how you are different, invite them back to your tasting room, and include clear Call-To-Action buttons.
Ready to stop guessing and start selling?
Here is how we can work together to build your digital marketing engine:
Wineries: If you need help finding your unique voice in a crowded market, designing a website that converts traffic to club members, or creating unforgettable labels that win the shelf, let’s chat.
Wine Associations: The Digital Marketing Workshop I offer is discounted educational partnerships to bring the 8-Week Digital Marketing Workshop directly to your members.
Looking for a Speaker? Are you looking for a wine marketing speaker for your wine association? Contact me for a list of presentations.