Using customer data to create your marketing plan
It can be tough to build a marketing plan for your winery. What promotions will bring the most sales? What kind of photography should you use? Should you focus on lifestyle content, or terroir and winemaking details?
Luckily, your customers can help you answer many of these questions. By taking a look at your most profitable customers, your social media super-fans and your website data, you can get a better picture of which marketing strategies will help you sell more wine.
Identify your most profitable customers
You might think that your best customers are your most frequent customers, the ones who make the largest number of purchases throughout the year. But your most frequent customers can also be the most costly. Each shipment increases shipping costs, and frequent buyers tend to use discounts or other incentives that can eat into your profits. Customers who make a smaller number of large-scale purchases can therefore sometimes be more profitable.
Have a look at your customers and compare your biggest spenders to your most frequent buyers. Does the AOV of those making bulk purchases compensate for the fact that they only buy a few times each year? Does the amount of money spent fulfilling recurring orders heavily eat into the sum of these purchases? Identifying which group is more profitable can help you better target your marketing campaigns.
If your frequent shoppers bring in more money than your bulk buyers, consider having several small sales throughout the year, for example, around holidays such as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. On the other hand, if people who make large orders are more profitable, consider creating a rewards program for grand purchases. This could be in the form of shipping incentives when a customer’s shopping cart hits a certain threshold, or offering special perks such as free tastings.
Find your social media super fans
Take a look at your social media followers to identify your biggest fans. Who leaves positive feedback and goes out of their way to sing the praises of your latest varietal? What kind of photos and comments do they share that indicate why they invest in your brand?
Every social media mention of your brand can help you understand why your customers enjoy your wines. For example, a comment that includes tasting notes or winemaking details indicates an interest in the technical side of wine. On the other hand, one that reads, "Great way to spend a day with friends," shows that person appreciates your wine for social reasons.
You can use these insights to inform how you talk about your wines. For example, if your customers show an interest in technical information, consider sharing behind the scenes winemaking photos and vineyard details. If you see people posting about your wines in a social setting, use language and imagery that promotes that.
Analyse your website data
Your site has tons of data about your customers - and prospective customers - that you can use to market your wines more effectively. Take a look at what pages people spend the most time on, where they come from and what their path to purchase looks like.
If you notice that customers spend a lot of time on your winery’s About or History page, consider weaving more of that information into your emails and promotions. If certain product pages are more popular than others, feature those wines on your homepage, or creating a special promotion around them.
On the flip side, what pages have the highest exit, or bounce rates? Bounce rate refers to the percentage of people who leave your site after viewing that page. If certain pages have high bounce rates, think about what you could do to keep people interested and engaged. Adding links to product pages, related blog posts or other relevant information could help move them farther along the purchase funnel.
Whether it’s order purchase patterns, social media mentions or web browsing, your customers are constantly giving you feedback about what works - and what doesn’t work. By keeping these metrics in mind and regularly reviewing performance, you can take advantage of this valuable information to make better, more informed marketing decisions that will help you sell more wine.