Here’s a fun fact: I, Erica, am a pastor’s kid. Not only do I stand up and preach on the pulpit of email marketing for you here, I have actually preached sermons in a real church. I even graduated with a minor in religion (which may surprise you), but the drama minor probably won’t.
As a pastor’s kid, it’s likely ingrained in my DNA to create analogies that help lessons stick. Today’s analogy: creating a successful email marketing program is a lot like making wine. Keep reading to discover the parallels between the winemaking process and email marketing program development, so you can make miraculous things happen in the inbox.
BONUS: Read to the end for how to put all this inspiration into action inside PRESS SEND.
As we’ve learned more about the winemaking process over the last few decades, it’s astonishing how aligned each stage is with building an effective email program. Understanding these parallels can take your email marketing from water-like, occasional, half-hearted batch-and-blast sends, reactive and jam-packed with too much information to act on, to thoughtfully timed, perfectly cultivated campaigns that delight subscribers and help them take the next step with your winery.
The Winemaking Process & Email Marketing Program Development
1. Planting & Harvest
Where you plant your vineyard determines the varietals you plant, the methods you use, and how and when you harvest. This process carries a certain amount of risk and reward.
Your list-building activities are your terroir. How you grow your email list determines the kind of subscribers you attract, the content you deliver, and how frequently you send. Just like you can’t make great wine without phenomenal fruit, you can’t have a successful email program without subscribers. The foundation of your program is how you grow your list.
2. Sorting & Crushing
Winemaking involves sorting to ensure only the best fruit moves forward, then crushing, where skins break and juices mingle, absorbing flavor and color.
In email marketing, this is segmentation plus design and strategy. Segmentation ensures your most engaged subscribers receive your campaigns, maximizing your results. And a distinctive visual identity with a clear strategy is what gets the creative juices flowing, transforming new subscribers into long-term customers.
3. Fermentation
Fermentation transforms grape juice into wine through complex chemical reactions.
In email marketing, nurturing transforms subscribers into paying customers. The best programs include multiple triggered and automated campaigns: welcome journeys, post-purchase triggers, and cart abandonment emails. (The full build order lives in the automation roadmap.)
A customer journey isn’t linear. It’s a winding road. Successful programs constantly assess these journeys, identifying key moments to provide value and nurture subscribers further.
4. Clarification
Clarification ensures the wine is clear and stable by removing suspended matter.
In email marketing, promotional planning and execution provide the clarity. Planning helps your emails come together efficiently, and stable engagement and revenue follow.
5. Aging & Bottling
Wines improve with time in the barrel and the bottle. The best age for years, sometimes decades.
Similarly, onboarding and retaining wine club members increases their lifetime value over time. The average club member stays about 18 months. The best stay for decades, and the emails you send them are a big part of the difference.
The Analogy: Water Into Wine
At every stage of the wine lifecycle, there’s a correlation to a winning email program. So, what will you do with this analogy? Look at your current program and ask: are we investing equal attention in every stage?
- List-building
- Segmentation
- Strategy and design
- Nurturing
- Promotional planning and execution
- Club communications
Most wineries focus on one or two stages and neglect the others. Imagine if your winemaker only paid attention during clarification and ignored the rest of the process. The same goes for your email program.
How Email Mavens Can Help
If you’re realizing certain stages of your program need more attention, that’s exactly what PRESS SEND is for. The course is built on the five phases you just read: we teach the exact system we install for our winery clients, phase by phase, so you can make more money with your email marketing.
Once you learn this system, you can’t unlearn it. It will serve you today and for years to come.
We can make miracles happen, and it all starts when you decide to treat email marketing as a powerful revenue channel for your winery. However and whenever you choose to go all-in, know that Email Mavens believes every winery can sell more wine online by sending better marketing emails.
Keep pressing send on your next best email!
