Digital Wine Clubs Have Come of Age — Are You Ready?
As a new and growing channel, the digital wine club has come of age — and consumers are ready. Just ask the eCommerce operators at Winc, DryFarmWines, and FirstLeaf, among others, who have signed up millions of subscribers online over the recent few years. So what should wineries be doing to join in the fun? First, let’s talk about the wine club model as we know it today. The wine club model has had a long and successful run in the wine industry, serving for many years as the ATM for wineries. It’s a quintessential piece of the cultural backdrop in NorCal — kind of like Beach Blanket Babylon, the long running show in SF which recently wound down after 46 years.
Our fast-paced digital world is once again crying out for something fresh and exciting, but also for something authentic. And in order for wineries to introduce a younger model and to hit that mark, you have to know the answer to a very loaded question:
What is a wine club, and why should anyone care?
Wine clubs began as a way to build relationships with customers after coming in for their first tasting room visit which was typically a 5 sensory experience. Each time a wine shipment arrived at their homes, wine club “members” could relive the memories of their winery visits and recreate the experience with family and friends. On the winery’s end, this club idea turned out to be a great way to balance stock and move inventory. Many wineries started enhancing their wine clubs with added benefits and transformed them into “Loyalty Programs”, with the idea that the most loyal customers of the winery (the big spenders) should be treated with extra special benefits.
But what is loyalty all about anyway? Is it granted, earned, acquired, or sold? Most of us would say that loyalty (like respect) is earned. So how have most wineries earned the loyalty of their customers? It’s true that wine clubs have been created to provide incentives that were not available to non-members, like special discounts, access to certain wines, free tastings on premise. But it’s also true that wine club membership has generally revolved around what was best for the winery and not necessarily for the consumer.
So what about the virtual wine consumer?
This kind of consumer might not occur to you, but think about how many you probably have or could attract. This is the customer who can’t or won’t visit the tasting room on a regular basis, but wants to be included. It’s the wine lover who consistently re-orders and engages with you on social media, but maybe they live several states away, have young children at home, work on weekends, or are unable to travel, so they can’t enjoy your winery in ways that your local, abler members enjoy. With these types of consumers, you have to help them be loyal. You have to show them how they can be loyal. And you have to remember that while there may be obstacles between you and this customer, there is also one other thing — your wine. So, how can you nurture and enhance loyalty through a genuine, virtual relationship?
Let’s do a quick refresh of the relationships we build by simply reordering products:
Subscription: A signed agreement between a supplier and customer that the customer will receive and provide payment for regular products or services, usually for a one-year period.
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. Think magazines, Netflix, your software as a service.
Continuity: The unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over a period of time.
A continuity program is a company's sales offer where a buyer/consumer is agreeing to receive merchandise or services automatically at regular intervals (often monthly), without advance notice, until they cancel. Think vitamins of the month.
Replenishment: the act of filling something up again by replacing what has been used
A replenishment program is a business model in which a customer signs up for the replenishment of needed products on a prescribed basis. Think the Amazon Dash button on your refrigerator door that allows you to push the blue-tooth enabled button to reorder detergent, toilet paper, or other out of stock items.
Member: People who together make up a group or organization.
A membership club means any membership-based club or program which has as a primary purpose of offering to members thereof products or services and/or discounts related to areas falling within the primary focus of the Applicable Membership Clubs. Think your everyday wine club.
Loyalty: Faithfulness to something to which one is bound by pledge or duty. Staying true to someone or something even when other things call attention.
A loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of a business associated with the program. Think Foley Food & Wine Society that allows you to earn and spend accrued points at any one of Bill Foley’s wineries, resort hotels, restaurants, or shops.
Most wine clubs began more as subscription or continuity programs rather than as “membership” programs. As visitation benefits were added and infused with more concierge-like services, the concept of wine club membership or loyalty programs made more sense. But virtual wine clubs are another animal. An animal with expectations that can’t be satisfied by just emotional connections established during tasting room visits. These expectations need to be set and met by other factors, such as:
Cost/Value
Uniqueness
Convenience
Access
Customization
Personalization
Trust
Education
Entertainment
Aspirations
In-home experience
Lifestyle
Culinary tastes
Accolades
Peer reviews
Personal socio/philosophical preferences
Packaging
Other
That’s a tall order. So how to tackle this as a winery? We can learn a few things from companies outside of the wine industry.
Club members of the Dollar Shave Club receive personally chosen razors and grooming products however often they choose. It’s simple and special, and the Dollar Shave Club begins with a quiz that lets members describe their shaving routines and preferences. Similar, more upscale companies are Harry’s Shave Club and The Art of Shaving. From the jump, it’s all about the members.
Let’s move from shaving to what we’re all really here for — the wine! Winc is a poster-child for online wine clubs. It’s nice to look at, it’s straight-forward, it’s fun, and it’s all about the members. You tell Winc about your taste buds, and they start sending you wines to try, every month. They’ve already become sort of a blueprint for other wine-subscription clubs.
Dry Farm Wines is another one that’s become a hit for several reasons. They pride themselves on selecting natural, low-sulfur wine varietals from small farms all over the world, and with our society prioritizing health and natural food more and more every day, Dry Farm is really leading that market. Their wine selection is also impressively targeted for the virtual wine club audience. Dry Farm finds varietals that are so unique and exotic, that it’s not just for non-Californians. It’s for anyone who likes wine and wants to explore it.
There’s a handful of other digital wine clubs, too. WineBox uses a similar quiz to Winc, but includes food pairings in their deliveries. FirstLeaf utilizes the quiz tactic as well, and includes a custom intro shipment to get you started. And similar to Dry Farm Wines is Bliss Imports, who specializes in organic wines from small vineyards that their team personally visits to select from.
Hopefully those examples get your creative juices flowing, and now is when a cup of coffee, a blank sheet of paper, and some brainstorming comes into play. Get back to the basics, get in the mindset of being just a normal wine-loving person, and imagine: you’re surfing the internet and stumble upon a wine club that you’ve never seen or heard of before. Listed on that wine club’s page are member perks and features that are so unique and special and customizable, you feel like it’s a no-brainer. You have to sign up. This is the coolest thing ever.
So what is it? What are the things listed on that page that speak to you?
To me, the components of a virtual wine club can be aggregated into three levels of benefits – Basic, Advanced, and Outside the Box. This trifecta of offers certainly doesn’t apply to any and every winery. Wineries and their members each have distinct personalities and tastes, but I guarantee you can take one of these ideas, tailor it to your look, feel, and capabilities, and design a strategy to promote it, launch it, and let your members run with it. Let’s browse all the possibilities…
Basic benefits should include the following:
Customized Wine Shipments – Members can receive the winery’s wine selection or opt to pick out the bottles they want.
Included Wine Club Shipping — Wine club shipments should have shipping included, and $5 or $10 shipping on any other orders under a case.
A Deeper Discount — Go big on discounts. The cost of subscriber membership will be greatly reduced because of all the expensive benefits at the winery that virtual members won’t have access to.
Free Virtual Wine Tastings — Up to 4 times per year, members can book complimentary “1 on 1” virtual tastings for themselves and/or friends, or for a work team, book club, or any other sort of group that is used to meeting in person.
A Welcome Package — Upon joining, members would receive all kinds of "swag", such as branded glasses, a branded wine key, a blanket, a hat, etc.
Exclusive Virtual Experiences — Members will have access to special happenings like cellar tours, behind-the-scenes during bottling, harvest or crush, or the ability to gift a virtual tasting to someone else.
Share the Wine — Members can send their friends the same wine that they will receive in their shipment so that they can taste it together.
Your winery can also have add-on offers that can ship to a different address with member discounts and shipping offer
Create a SKU that allows members to ‘Add On A Tasting Kit’ to any order.
It might include a glass, an aroma wheel, potentially more detailed tasting or production notes.
Members-Only Monthly Offers — Offer members large formats or bundles that are best sellers, or had limited stock and were first come first serve. Discount the bundle or large format bottle, and have a different offer every month.
First Dibs on Non-Wine — Members get first dibs on products like t-shirts, hats, olive oils, jams, or anything else the winery makes
Advanced Benefits could feature:
Member Holidays — Members pick their personal 10 favorite holidays and receive discounts for those events or on those days. Offers like free shipping, 30% off, customized and discounted 3-pack or 6-pack, etc.
They should choose holidays like family members’ birthdays, anniversaries, religious holidays, Super Bowl — days that the winery won’t already be promoting. This can be a very personal offer like, “Our winery is here for our members’ most important moments.”
Virtual Winemaking — Be in the room virtually when the winemaker(s) are tasting and blending
Anniversary Benefits — Perks that will grow with the length of the membership
1 year - dinner voucher to a restaurant in the member’s area that carries your wine
3 years - one night Airbnb near member stocked with dinner ingredients, recipe, and wine pairings
Rotating Partnerships — Partner with other special subscription services at a discounted price
Meat butcher boxes
Spa products
Cheese
Care Package — Ship wine as a gift once a year to a friend or family member to help them discover the wine that the members themselves love. It could be for a special celebration (Mother's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthday etc.) or just because.
Quarterly Wine Pairings with a famous chef. This would be for all members to join since it would be very difficult to do this on a 1 on 1 basis. The other issue is having the members buy the food to cook and pair with the wine, which isn’t a huge perk. But it’s a fun activity if a chef and a wine professional could tackle this together
A winery would work with a Chef who would create a personalized menu to pair with the wines being offered in each shipment, from appetizer to dessert.
This would be a virtual offer as well. Members could tune-in & watch to prepare the meal with the Chef and if the member couldn't make the time of the class it will be recorded and sent over to them.
Another option is Food Feature of the month. Your winery sends ingredients with the wine shipment. Following will be a virtual experience for club members to cook the food and drink the wine that came in their shipment.
For up to X amount of people you can reserve a Chef for a virtual dinner party with friends. Wine club member discounts could apply on the wines to have shipped to their friends or a certain dinner party pack could be created.
Pantry Pairings — What's in Your Pantry? Send a survey to club members asking the top ingredients currently in their pantry. Pick an ingredient for that month and offer up a dish to make with it and a wine to pair it with. It'll be a surprise every month.
“The Napa Valley Package”, “The Sonoma Coast Package” — Depending on what AVA the winery is located in, create a specialized package that would be included in a shipment with local olive oil, specialty chocolates, etc. This would be a good way to help unify small businesses within a community.
Wine Preservation — Including some sort of wine preservation system within club levels could be a good option if tasters don't want to drink through their whole bottles at once.
Virtual Bingo or Trivia Night — Play with club members & game pieces can be shipped to them beforehand with a curated wine pack at a discounted member price.
Assortment of Discounts with other hospitality and service providers
Outside the Box Benefits could include things like:
Digitized Club Booklet — Printed recipes + Live Cooking Demo with each shipment.
Live Vineyard Tours — Have the vineyard manager get a Go-Pro and take members on a hike through the vineyard. Or set up a Vineyard Live Stream, so members can check in with the vineyard as a momentary escape.
Introductory Shipment — Since they haven’t visited the winery or may be unfamiliar with the brand, find new ways to entice members. A sampler pack of all current vintage wines…
All bottles are sample-sized splits (or full-sized bottles & a complimentary Coravin). They rank all the wines in order online & receive a discount on their first full-sized order, free shipping on all orders, customized pack offers
“First Day of Spring/Summer/Fall” Virtual Vineyard Walks — Done seasonally with your winemaker, owner, or vineyard manager.
Access to the Winemaker’s Journal — This can be formatted as something very organic like a private blog with scanned photos of notes, or can be a vlog series that features anyone on the winemaking team who is interesting or has a good personality, like “Follow Our Cellar Boy Around for the Day”
Membership Anniversary Gift — A package including one bottle of wine (member’s choice), merchandise, personal card from the winemaker or owner, etc.
Blind Virtual Tasting Pack — This can be a game with a vertical of wine vintages, all white wines or all red wines, or you can do this with unreleased wine. Members receive vials of the wine & write their notes during the tasting on an online form to submit — “Help Us Write the Tasting Notes”
Quarterly Club Meeting — A fun hangout with topics everyone helps choose in advance, like a wine, music, movie, or each month can have a theme with a dress code like “Flashback to the 70’s”. The type of club would really depend on the winery but should drive home the sense of a casual club hangout. Emails to members would have language like, “What are we talking about this month? Let us know, we’ll choose the best ones to put on the agenda.” It’s a cool way to let your members meet and get to know each other, as opposed to just the winery staff.
Rewards Program — Let members rack up rewards points. The more you buy, the more you unlock with savings, exclusive releases, special virtual tastings with the winemaker, etc.
Vineyard Packages — Along with a wine from each vineyard, include a small jarred sample of the soil/terroir/pressed grape leaves/a snack that’s nonperishable/a polaroid photo of the vineyard with a winemaker note or something special to go with it, so it’s interactive and truly brings all aspects of the wines to their doorstep.
If they have a virtual tasting with a Winemaker and are talking about the soil that the wine comes from, they could see photos of the vineyards on the screen and hold the soil in their hand to feel more connected.
Virtual Blending Seminar — Instead of full bottles, members are sent smaller bottles and they go through and create their own blend with the Winemaker. The winery can send test tubes, a blank label, an entire fun mixing kit to go through that process with them.
Wine Quiz — When customers go to the wine club page they are taken to an optional quiz where the winery can get to know them and their wine preferences.
Local Artist Features — Shipment can include a print, jewelry, keepsakes, whatever resonates most with the winery. This can evolve into local business features and could range from art, jewelry, local music, homemade soaps, household items, plants, etc.
Music & Books — Your winery could offer a free month of a music streaming service with a club sign up or include a vinyl record with each shipment, create custom playlists, feature musicians during the virtual tastings. This can also be an Audible subscription with a list of the winery’s favorite podcasts.
Culinary - Subscription to monthly online cooking classes with tie-ins to online wine education and /or wine pairings.
Incorporate Augmented Reality — A few wineries already use AR for their wine labels. Examples are in this article: https://www.breakthrubev.com/news/augmented-reality-labels.
This is a fun way of telling the story of the wine. Wine Club Members would get instructions on how to access the AR feature (which app to download). It can be a label, a card with greetings from the family, a digital version of the tasting room, something significant to the brand.
These are Your Next Steps
Evaluate your wine portfolio, pricing structure, storytelling content, digital assets, and other resources. A lot of these ideas depend on your winery’s story, what wines you offer, and how you offer them. For example, if movies and trivia aren’t aligned with your overall brand, introducing them may feel sort of random to members. This doesn’t mean you can’t do it, you’ll just have to promote and launch it in the right way.
Develop a strategy for launching a virtual wine club that has as many “outside the box” benefits as realistically possible. If you’ve got a great idea, figure out how to make it work for your winery logistically. You may have to start on a simpler scale and develop as you go, and that’s okay! Where there’s wine, there’s a way.
This can be an added tier to your existing wine club, or an entirely new offering. You can try integrating it into your current wine clubs, first!
Hone in on who the target audience is most likely to be. This is a big piece of the puzzle. Segmenting your emails and geo-targeting with ads will be really helpful here.
Develop a highly targeted digital marketing strategy to build awareness and acquire new members. Narrow down all the channels you need to launch the offers you choose. For example, if you’re going with membership perks like partnering with local businesses or restaurants, collaborate with them on the advertising.
Learn from what works and what doesn’t and do more of the former and less of the latter. Don’t get too overwhelmed, it’s all a grand experiment, anyways!
It’s benefits in the “Outside the Box” tier that are the most promising for maintaining interest and building loyalty for wineries looking to grow their audiences. These are just a few examples that anyone can build on. For those brands able to inspire and edu-tain their members beyond the essential magic of their wines, there is a big upside and an unblazed trail ahead of you.
Remember, this is a great way to get NEW customers and advocates for your brand. Most of the existing virtual wine clubs of recent years started with no customers and acquired them mostly online through social media, digital advertising, and referrals. And with a reduction likely in tasting room traffic visitation by those in older demographics, the traditional wine club enrollees, there will be a new paradigm required for offsetting wine club attrition with new members through effectively targeted digital marketing.
