So Now What?

Taking wine sales & marketing expertise to the next level

For more than twenty years, wine sales have steadily grown in the United States. Thousands of new wineries and wines numbering in the hundreds of thousands have entered the market. The quality of our wine is undeniably better than ever before due to significant investments in land, soil, vines and viticulture. Also in this time frame, we made incredible investments in research, education, wine making and packaging/closure science.

With more great wine to sell, we then doubled down on the same sales channels we have always relied on: three-tier, tasting rooms and wine clubs. We redesigned our labels, and In the last five years alone, spent hundreds of millions of dollars in just Napa and Sonoma to build luxury tasting rooms.

The result? At many wineries, sales are flat or growing only slowly. Most brands struggle to gain or maintain shelf space at retail. The wine industry–like so many other industries before us—is still ignoring the signs of major market changes underway. We prefer to keep selling and marketing in ways that are familiar, certainly working harder––but without investing the time or money required to ensure true sales & marketing transformation.

Continued success will require:
1. Leveraging insights about wine customers to better market, sell and serve them—where and when they want to connect about wine.
2. Bringing the winery experience out to where customers reside in new and inventive ways (beyond the wine country).
3. Better digital marketing content & tools –so the customer feels visually & emotionally connected even when sitting in their office in Chicago on a wintry day.
4. Embracing trends like augmented reality that help restaurants and retailers sell their wine ---AND connects them directly with the customer that buys their wine via 3-tier.
5. Taking the time to create an integrated marketing strategy –with a defined set of marketing actions that all work together towards attracting, selling and retaining customers.

The Good News:

For more than 8,000 years we have been making, selling and drinking wine. Wineries with vision that invest in both the art of making and selling great wine will continue to thrive.

MJ Dale, Founder