How Smart Systems Will Help Your Winery Sell More Wine
I just got back from Texas Hill Country, located about an hour outside of Austin, Texas. I was there to present Vin65 features and show wineries how smart systems could help them sell more wine. There were about 40 people in the audience - and they asked some great questions.
Just like how wine consumers palates vary, your winery operates a certain way. There's no one perfect way to run your wine club, email customers, or display promotions. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations of your winery. Once a week, you should take a step back and ask yourself how you can sell more wine. Brainstorm some ideas - and then make your technology stack work for you.
The world of wine is complicated. We have all felt the pains of returned packages and club cancellations. More and more, wineries are interested in an integrated system - something that provides ecommerce, POS, club and CRM options in one package.
Be omni-channel.
One system not only saves you time and money - but makes sense with so many fragments of DTC. Automate your efforts - save the manual labour for the vineyard and use technology in your back-office operations. Vin65 puts a huge emphasis on ease of use and having one customer, one product and one transaction across ecommerce, POS, club and CRM. One database keeps costs down - but also gives you insight into your customers. Customer data equals smart marketing. Smart marketing equals sales. Sales equals referrals. You get the picture. Make sure your systems can keep up with your goals and growth.
Look for a platform that grows with you.
A platform that grows with you is essential. Your club may only have 250 members now, but what will it look like in 2 years? 5? 10? How do your system providers prices increase as your sales volumes grow? Will you be charged per user login on the admin panel or per device with the POS? Is there a contract - and if you do leave - do you have to pay for exports?
Vin65 pushes up new features every Monday. These are performance improvements, bug fixes, but also new features our programmers build to help you sell more wine.
Ask about the little things.
You need to learn about the little things, such as: what tools work for me in the background? Can I automate some of my marketing? Can I segment my email lists? Are there automatic enticements to get my customers to buy more from me? What were the last 3 new features your platform has pushed out? When? Why were they built in the first place?
Do some research and find a platform that works to improve regularly. In this technology driven world - you'll want to make sure your platform keeps up.
You can view the entire presentation below.