If I had $1,000 to spend on wine/spirits marketing, here’s what I’d do

Strategic spending is crucial in the wine industry, as it can significantly advance the sales of your wine or spirits.

It's important to note that marketing money can be wasted significantly without a clear strategy.

More than 100 years ago, John Wanamaker said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

Dreaming of glory and a fat ROAS.

Many winery and distillery owners accept this as a universal truth even to this day.

But this is 2024. Knowing whether or not your advertising and marketing money is wasted is absolutely possible. However, many people make a handsome living from their clients' ignorance, so the myth continues.

If I were a winery owner, and I wanted to spend money to build the sales of my wine brand, here is what I would do (and not do).

TL;DR

• Not only is it possible to measure the ROI/ROAS, it’s mandatory. For every dollar spent, expect _____.
• Prioritize 1st party data above all else because it comes directly from your consumers and trade partners. Building audiences on social media is like building a house on rented land.
• Stop wasting money under the guise of building brand awareness.
• What good are impressions, clicks, likes, and shares if they don’t ring the cash 💰 register?

Start with a large fortune.

How famous is the saying: “To make a small fortune in the wine business, start with a large fortune?” This is all fun and games until it’s YOUR money!

When I reflect on my years in the corporate world of wine and spirits, I often think about the “other people’s money” that was wasted. So. Much. Waste.

One of the best things about the pandemic is that it empirically showed us how many expensive activities and expenditures we could afford to do without.

But if you own a winery (or distillery), you know cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. For every dollar you spend to market your brand, you simply must be able to point to a return on investment. Otherwise, your large fortune will indeed become a small one - and quickly.

Before diving into the things that I would spend my marketing budget on if I owned a winery or distillery, here is a short list of things I would reduce or eliminate spending money on:

• Paying people to “manage” distributors.
• Paying for people to travel to manage distributors
• Public relations without a large base of distribution already in place.
• Brand awareness campaigns with the belief that this will drive new distribution.
• New distribution incentives with the distributors.
• Boosting FB & IG posts.
• Running “buy now” or “shop now” ads to a cold audience with extremely low purchase intent.
• Painting the sides of distributor delivery trucks -especially those that never keep enough of my wine in stock. The irony!
• Activities that cannot be scaled. Basically, anything that requires the physical presence of a human being.
• In-store tasting demons (unless it was to support distribution with a major customer) because the level of purchase intent is extremely low, and repeat sales are nil.

The single biggest marketing bang for the buck is….

…the acquisition of a customer email address.

If I had $1,000 to market my wine (or spirits) brand, I’d spend all of it to acquire as many well-qualified, expertly targeted email addresses as possible.

According to Astra Digital, the lifetime value of a consumer email address is between $5 and $15. The value is much higher for many high-end wineries (and other consumer product groups).

Across all industries, there is a near-unanimous consensus that email is by far the best-performing marketing channel versus other options.

So, why don’t more wineries and distilleries embrace this truth? They don’t know how to leverage it in a modern way, so they fail to extract its true value.

Newsletters are a relic from a bygone era 🩼

Remember the very early days of email marketing? We’re talking mid-to-late 1990s. In those days, newsletters were all the rage.

Fast-forward to today, and you must ask yourself: Is a monthly newsletter an effective email marketing strategy? I submit that it is not, and if you need convincing, please check out this webinar recording: The Anti-newsletter Email Strategy.

If you must have a monthly newsletter, ensure your email list is segmented properly and only send it to those who regularly read it. Your open rates should be as close to 80% as possible; otherwise, you’re just annoying people who don’t care about your newsletter and can’t be bothered to unsubscribe.

“Modern” email marketing

In a nutshell, modern email marketing is about building relationships and trust at scale.

It’s about personalization, segmentation, and automation.

This article does not intend to teach you how to execute email marketing in a modern way (I have plenty of other resources for that).

My intent today is to convince you that if you have marketing $ to spend, use it to grow your email lists (one for consumers and one for trade).

The benefits of prioritizing email marketing are legion and include:

• It is extremely inexpensive.
• The ROI can be measured with great accuracy.
• It’s the biggest bang for the buck.
• Given the complexity and “bottleneck” of the 3-tier world, you must be able to communicate directly with trade buyers.
• Due to the hyper-competitive nature of the category, you must be able to communicate directly with your consumers.

You can use your email lists to:

• Sell products via your website
• Send trade buyers to your product pages on LibDib
• Pack out events
• Gather feedback from customers
• Enroll new wine club members
• Share important news and updates (briefly and without scrolling).
• Track metrics over time to improve and build upon what works best.

How to grow your email lists FAST

Whether you’re looking to add a thousand fresh new consumers to your list or a couple hundred new and well-qualified trade buyers, the process is basically the same: lead generation campaigns.

We have many free resources that will show you how to do this. To get started, check these out:

• The life-changing magic of lead magnets
• All about lead generation for the trade

Here is a short checklist of what you will need:

1. A compelling and irresistible lead magnet
2. An automated 4-email nurture sequence
3. An expertly crafted Meta “Lead Ad” campaign for either/both FB and IG
4. Patience (got to respect that customer journey and this takes time)

Don’t have the time or bandwidth to learn and do this? Reach out, and my team will be happy to assist you.

Make every dollar count!

Now more than ever, wine and spirits brands must ensure that every dollar they spend on marketing returns the highest possible value.

Brand awareness has value, but it takes a long time to ring the cash register. Email, however, holds the potential for a much faster and far more certain return on investment.

Don’t believe me? Disagree? Let me hear from you in the comments!