Guest Blog Post Featuring Laura Perret Fontana, Digital Wine Marketing Strategist & Member of the DTC Consultant Network
Top 4 Digital Wine Marketing Tips Guest Blog Post
How much time do YOU spend online? The U.S. consumer spends on average 24 hours a week!* With this significant figure, almost all companies and wine brands have come to understand the importance of using digital media to reach consumers. But where are your ideal customers spending time in the digital landscape? With over 9,000 wine brands competing for the attention of new customers in the US today, direct to consumer teams need to consider all proven engagement strategies when building effective digital marketing campaigns. We can no longer rely on one form of digital communication to stay connected with current customers or to appeal to new audiences. Here are four ways that brands are using the Internet to improve brand awareness and increase direct sales:
#1 EMAIL ENGAGEMENT
Most of us are trained that it is polite to do something with an email. Be it to reply, forward, click or do as is instructed based on the call to action. With the global community sending approximately 196 billion emails every day and 109 billion of these being business correspondences**, email is an extremely powerful tool to connect your brand with consumers! It is essential that your email campaigns stand out and make a statement so as not to get lost in the daily email shuffle. Email open rates have steadily declined over the past three years across the club member list segment. How is your team improving deliverability and ensuring that subject lines are interesting and appealing? Developing a clear plan for how to best segment contacts by interests, lifetime values, geographies, etc. is an essential task in better communicating with current members and creating more effective email engagement strategies. You are invited to join my webinar on Wednesday, February 27th to learn more about how to best utilize email marketing for your wine brand. We will review the different types of emails (content, branding and marketing) as well as learn how to create content for these, optimize your email strategy, reach the right consumers and get them engaged!
#2 SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
68% of adults in the U.S. report using Facebook***. That’s over 200 million people in the U.S. alone that are on the platform! With the drastic increase in social media use over the last few years, the importance of brand presence on these platforms has never been so evident. Social media strategy is not as simple as posting a picture of what you are doing, but rather needs to be curated for the platform, the audience, the time of day and meet your campaign goals based on the initiative. When done well, social media engagement can be an extremely useful branding and sales tool! You are invited to join my webinar on Wednesday, March 13th to learn how to best leverage the available social media platforms to increase brand awareness and connect with your ideal target audiences where they prefer to engage online.
#3 WEBSITE ENGAGEMENT
There are over 1.8 BILLION websites, but 0.1% account for 50% of web traffic****. Most people understand the importance of having a website, but not all recognize the consequences of not maintaining that site. Whether keeping your winery site updated with current vintages or refreshing seasonal content to optimize user engagement, websites are an important tool in the sales and retention processes that should not be ignored. Direct sales and marketing teams should work together to develop an annual website update calendar to ensure sales promotions and marketing campaigns are clearly message across all direct to consumer sales channels, including the website. Seasonal imagery, mobile-friendly tools and interactive content are necessary components of an effective website environment in today’s competitive landscape. You are invited to join my Digital Marketing Webinar: Website on April 17th to get hands-on instruction for optimizing your site to appeal to today’s wine enthusiast.
#4 ONLINE ADVERTISING ENGAGEMENT
Facebook reports that 6 million active advertisers use their platform to promote services and products*****. Are you one of the 6 million taking advantage of these easily accessible advertising opportunities? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Google online communities have created relatively user-friendly platforms to help launch your foray into online advertising. They offer very specific targeting options based on geographical location, gender, age, interests, buying behaviors and so much more. Online advertising outlets offer flexibility with respect to appearance, campaign goals and budget. For example, on Facebook, a wine brand can run ads with a carrousel of images, pay for a boosted post to increase engagement or conversion results or use video to invite new audiences to engage through conversion to website ticket sales or online reservation bookings. All are unique ways to engage with current customers and appeal to new consumers while controlling your brand identity.
To learn more about Laura Perret Fontana, Digital Marketing Strategies and the newest Member of the DTC Consultant Network, visit her BIO PAGE or contact her at [email protected].
*Source: Technology Review
**Source: Radicati Group
***Source: Pew Research Center
****Source: Tek Eye
*****Source: Statista