Can I ask you a personal question?
How many subscribers are on your email list? Is it 5,000, 1,000, or 257? Every single one of those 257 subscribers is an individual human being with unique aspirations and motivations. But too often, as email marketers, we’re sending our campaigns to a list or segment instead of thinking about what might actually inspire action from the individual human beings who subscribe to our winery’s email campaigns.
Today’s content will help you create more human-to-human connections by harnessing the power of winery email personalization.
Personalization vs. Segmentation
Firstly, let’s clear up any potential confusion about the difference between personalization and segmentation.
While it’s easy to use the two interchangeably, they are not the same thing. A segmentation strategy helps you create different core messaging for the different subsets of your overall audience. On the other hand, personalization makes each email unique, different, and meaningful to the individual subscriber on your list.
Segmentation helps you create an email just for your six-bottle wine club members, acknowledging their status and reinforcing their benefits. Personalization helps you send an email that acknowledges they’ve been a member since January of 2019, with wines they specifically purchased from you in that time. Both help you create a deeper connection, but personalization helps your individual subscriber feel far more valued and seen, which in turn, helps them stay engaged with your email campaigns way longer.
If your segments aren’t built yet, start there: the three segments every winery needs. Personalization sits on top of segmentation, not instead of it.
Why Personalization Pays Off
The industry research on this has been consistent for years: subscribers engage more with messages that reflect what they’ve actually bought and done, and a meaningful share will take their money elsewhere when a brand treats them like a list instead of a person. Personalized calls to action convert better than generic ones. And wineries that layer personalization onto a segmented program see it in revenue, not just clicks.
Across our client accounts, the emails that name the wine someone bought last time outperform the ones that don’t. Every time.
Five Ways to Personalize Your Winery’s Emails
1. Acknowledge Them by Name
As Dale Carnegie said, “There is no sweeter sound in the English language than the sound of our name.” Use it to your advantage. (It’s the weakest form of personalization, though. The four below do more.)
2. Use Product Blocks
If your email service provider is connected to your point of sale, you have the ability to populate your email campaigns with top-selling products based on overall online sales activity or products that might be relevant to your customer based on their unique shopping habits. If you’re a Commerce7 user, consider Digimatic, which automatically connects your customer information and purchase information to your email service provider.
3. Show Loyalty Status
Loyalty programs are another way to personalize your email campaigns. Populate your email campaign with a banner across the top that shows your customer how many loyalty points they have, inspiring increased overall volume for their orders.
4. Use Location
You can also personalize your email campaigns with location, making things super relevant and piquing curiosity. “Now shipping to Tacoma” lands differently than “Now shipping.”
5. Use Dates and Purchase Volume
Personalizing your email campaign by date (member since, last order, birthday) or the volume of your customer’s purchases can also be highly effective in inspiring action and increasing retention.
Every single one of your 257 subscribers is a unique snowflake with wonderful levels of information, motivation, and aspirations. The concepts you’ve learned today are an excellent starting point. To go further, learn to read the customer signals your subscribers are already sending, and put the best of this data to work in your subject lines.
Take Action
Take the next 10 minutes to jot down as many ideas as you can based on the personalization tactics shared today for things you could do at your winery to create a more tailored experience for your wine enthusiasts.
Commit to trying your favorite three ideas on your next three email campaigns and track your results.
Get the Data Flowing First
Every tactic above depends on one thing: your purchase data reaching your email platform. If you’re on Commerce7 and it isn’t there yet, the Digimatic Starter’s Bootcamp walks you through connecting Commerce7 to Klaviyo or Mailchimp so product blocks, loyalty banners, and purchase-based sends actually work.
Until next week, keep pressing send on your next best (more personalized) email.
Winery Email Personalization FAQs
What’s the difference between segmentation and personalization?
Segmentation changes the message for a group (club members get a club email). Personalization changes the message for a person (this member has been with you since 2019 and bought these three wines). Segmentation comes first; personalization sits on top of it.
What data does a winery need to personalize emails?
Name, purchase history, club or loyalty status, location, and key dates (join date, last order, birthday). Most of it already lives in your point of sale. The work is getting it into your email platform, which is what an integration like Digimatic does for Commerce7 users.
Is first-name personalization enough?
No. It’s the baseline, and subscribers barely notice it anymore. Naming the wine they bought, their club tier, or their city does far more to make someone feel seen.
Can small wineries personalize without a big tech stack?
Yes. Klaviyo and Mailchimp both support dynamic product blocks and merge fields out of the box. With a connected point of sale, a list of 257 can be personalized as well as a list of 25,000.
