You’ve got the sales data and the email platform… but do you actually know if the two are talking to each other?
I recently spent an hour talking email marketing with a room full of wine club professionals. And you know what I learned?
Y’all have QUESTIONS. Like, really good questions.
How do I know if email is actually driving sales? What do I send somebody who gave me their email address but hasn’t bought anything? How do I keep members engaged when they live 2,000 miles away? Are referral programs actually worth doing?
And what email platform am I supposed to use when I have 500 club members and approximately twelve dollars?
Okay, that last part is my editorial addition.
But these are the kinds of questions wine club professionals are trying to solve right now. So, let’s answer them.
Wine Club Marketing Is Changing
Earlier this month, I had the chance to speak to the Wine Club Professionals Network about how email can help wineries recover revenue, acquire new members and keep the members they already have.
We walked through that entire customer journey using our PRESS SEND methodology, and I asked everybody to bring their questions.
GOOD LORD, did they bring questions.
The session was hosted by Megan Currie, AKA The Wine Lass, who leads the Wine Club Professionals Network. The whole point of WCPN is to give wine club professionals a place to exchange ideas and solve shared problems. Basically, it’s a room full of other people who GET IT.
Megan pointed out that the game is changing, but the old idea of what a wine club department looks like hasn’t changed with it. Club teams are still expected to be “small but mighty,” even though the work required to acquire, engage, and retain members has gotten much bigger and more sophisticated.
THAT.
You can see that evolution in the questions people asked me. These aren’t just, “What should my subject line be?”
They’re asking about data. Customer journeys. Retention. Technology. Acquisition.
I pulled out the questions I thought would be useful whether you manage a wine club, market one, or just want your winery’s email program to do a better job of turning customers into long-term relationships.
How Are You Actually Connecting Sales Data to Email Campaigns?
First, this was described to me as a “rookie question.”
It’s NOT a rookie question.
When we say something like, “Email marketing generated $42,000 last month,” there are actually a few different things that could mean.
Start With the Connection Between Your Platforms
The first place I want you to look is the connection between your ecommerce platform and your email platform.
If somebody buys wine, joins the club, abandons a cart, or buys Chardonnay every summer, we want as much of that customer behavior as possible available inside the email platform.
That data doesn’t just help us REPORT on email.
It helps us send better email.
- If Erica bought three times in the last year, that’s useful.
- Or if Erica hasn’t purchased in 18 months, that’s useful.
- Or even if I know Erica’s a club member, lives in Washington, and buys Cabernet, that’s useful.
That’s where the real value of connecting these systems starts showing up.
Understand What Attributed Revenue Actually Means
When you’re trying to determine whether a specific email generated revenue, your email platform will usually report attributed revenue based on its own attribution settings.
I want you to understand what those settings ARE before you start putting that number on a PowerPoint slide and declaring victory.
Platform-reported revenue doesn’t necessarily mean, “This person opened my email, immediately clicked BUY and handed me $312.”
It means the purchase met whatever attribution rules your platform uses.
That’s why I also like using consistent UTM parameters on our email links and looking at what happens in Google Analytics. We’re giving ourselves multiple ways to understand what email is doing.
But, and this is important, I don’t want you so obsessed with perfectly proving which email gets credit for every bottle that you miss the much bigger opportunity.
Your sales data should be helping you decide who gets what email in the first place.
That’s the good stuff.
What Do You Send Someone Who Hasn’t Bought Anything?
I LOVE this question.
Someone gave you their email address and hasn’t purchased yet.
That’s not necessarily a problem.
They just raised their hand.
Ask Where They Raised Their Hand
My first question is, where did they raise it?
- Did they subscribe to your newsletter?
- Make a tasting reservation?
- Download something?
- Enter a giveaway?
- Read an article and join your list?
- Come to an event?
Because “subscriber who hasn’t purchased” describes what they HAVEN’T done.
I’m much more interested in what they DID do.
That’s where I would start the email strategy.
If they found you through a piece of content about Cabernet, we know something. A tasting reservation for next month tells us something else. When they signed up because you promised first access to new releases, WE KNOW SOMETHING.
Even if all they did was sign up for “winery news,” you still have a brand-new person who has invited you into their inbox.
Side note, this is one reason I’m always telling wineries to give people a more compelling reason to subscribe.
Don’t Start the Relationship by Yelling
Don’t immediately hammer them with:
BUY WINE.
BUY WINE.
10% OFF WINE?
DID YOU FORGET TO BUY THE WINE?
Introduce yourself. Give them a reason to care. Help them understand what makes your winery interesting.
Show them something. Teach them something. Tell them what they’ll get by sticking around.
And yes, give them opportunities to buy.
But this is a relationship you’re starting, not an abandoned-cart emergency.
How Do You Keep Out-of-Region Members Connected?
Ooooooh, this one matters.
If the primary value of your wine club membership is, “Come visit us and get cool stuff,” your membership gets less valuable with every mile somebody lives away from the winery.
That doesn’t mean you need to ship every member in Walla Walla a charcuterie board.
Please don’t email me your shipping bill.
It means we need to think harder about what membership actually gives them ACCESS to.
Create Benefits Members Can Access From Anywhere
That could include:
- Access to the winemaker
- Behind-the-scenes information
- First dibs on a wine
- Stories you don’t tell everybody else
- Education that helps members enjoy the wine they’re already receiving
- Member-only virtual experiences
- Recognition
- Surprises
- Little rituals around shipments
Even something as simple as an email from the winemaker saying, “Your spring shipment is heading out, and here’s the bottle I’d open first and what I’d eat with it.”
That’s different from, “YOUR CLUB SHIPMENT HAS PROCESSED.”
One is logistics.
The other gives me something to DO with this membership I’m paying for from 2,000 miles away.
This is where email has such an important role in wine club retention. The shipment might happen three or four times a year.
The relationship doesn’t have to.
Do Wine Club Referral Programs Actually Work?
Okay. We got SO MANY questions about referrals.
- Should we incentivize referrals?
- What should the incentive be?
- Do member-get-member programs work?
- How do you track them?
- How often should you promote them?
There were enough questions that Megan and I basically looked at each other and said, “This might need its own session.”
I think it needs its own episode, too.
I’m not going to try to cram an entire referral strategy into a three minute read, but here’s what I want you thinking about in the meantime.
Your best club members probably already talk about you. The question is whether you’ve made it natural and easy for them to bring somebody else into the fold, and whether the experience on the OTHER side of that referral is actually good.
A referral program isn’t just:
GIVE BOB $20. GIVE SUSAN $20. EVERYBODY WINS.
There’s the offer. The ask. The mechanism. The experience for the person being referred. The follow-up. The tracking.
Then there’s the question of whether any of this actually makes sense for YOUR membership.
We’re coming back to this one. Apparently the Wine Club Professionals Network has volunteered to give me approximately 47 questions to answer.
What Email Platform Is Worth the Investment for a Small Winery?
This particular question came from someone with fewer than 500 club members using OrderPort.
I want to answer it without turning this into ERICA’S FAVORITE EMAIL SOFTWARE: THE MOVIE.
Your first question shouldn’t be, “What email platform does Erica like?”
It should be, “What do I need my email platform to DO?”
Evaluate the Platform Based on Your Winery
Here’s what I’m looking at:
- Can it access the customer and purchase data I need?
- Can I actually segment people using that data?
- Can I build the automations I need?
- Can my team reasonably use it?
- Can I understand what’s working?
- Does it integrate with the rest of our tech stack?
- Will we outgrow it six months after we finally get everything set up?
That’s the evaluation.
Integration is a BIG one.
You can buy the fanciest email platform on earth, but if it has no idea who’s buying your wine, who’s in your club, or what your customers are doing, we’ve got problems.
I’d rather see a small winery on a platform that gives them useful customer data and that they can actually USE than paying for seventeen bells, twelve whistles, and an AI-powered hamster wheel they don’t need.
Don’t Choose a Platform Because Someone on YouTube Told You To
You all know we work in Klaviyo a lot at Email Mavens. There are reasons for that.
The segmentation, automation, and ecommerce capabilities can be extremely powerful.
But I don’t recommend choosing ANY platform just because somebody on YouTube told you to.
Including me.
Look at your ecommerce platform. Consider the integrations available to you. Pay attention to your list size and the sophistication of the program you’re trying to build.
Most importantly, look at who’s actually going to run the thing.
Then choose the tool that supports THAT.
Better technology is only useful when it helps you execute a better strategy.
The Wine Club Job Is Bigger Than It Used to Be
That’s my biggest takeaway from spending time with this group.
Wine club is changing.
The questions wine club professionals are asking are changing with it.
We’re talking about acquisition. Lifecycle marketing. Customer data. Personalization. Retention. Technology.
The job is bigger than “process the club shipment and send the club email.”
And yet, as Megan pointed out, a lot of wine club professionals are still being asked to do all of that as a very small team, or a team of ONE.
That’s exactly why communities like the Wine Club Professionals Network matter.
You don’t have to independently invent every solution to every wine club problem your winery has.
Someone else is probably trying to solve it too.
Keep the Wine Club Conversation Going
Megan isn’t done helping wine club professionals survive the busy season. And honestly, neither am I.
The SOND Survival Series
Megan’s putting out one useful email a week through December 31. She’s covering shipment prep, corporate gifting, segmentation, outbound, and the other things trying to eat your calendar alive right now.
Then she stops.
Temporary by design.
The whole thing is totally informal. Come as you are, add the series to your calendar, and make a game-time decision when the notification pops up. Join if you need it. Ignore it and keep working if you don’t.
Get the SOND Survival Series details >>
Where in the Wine World…
This conversation is also getting a bigger stage. Megan and I are both speaking at the VinSuite Wine Club Symposium, September 15 and 16, 2026, from 9AM-12PM Pacific.
It’s free. It’s virtual. And it’s recorded if you can’t make it live.
My session is Your Next Club Member Is Already on Your List.
They are. You just haven’t invited them yet.
Megan’s session is The Generational Shift in Your Wine Club.
Save your free seat for the Wine Club Symposium >>
Wine Club Email Marketing FAQs
How can wineries improve their wine club email marketing?
Connect your ecommerce and email platforms so purchase behavior and club status can inform who receives each message. Then use email to build an ongoing relationship, not just announce shipments or ask for another purchase. The goal is to send something relevant based on what each customer has already shown you they care about.
What should I email a winery subscriber who hasn’t purchased yet?
Start by looking at why the person joined your list. A newsletter signup, tasting reservation, giveaway entry, or request for release access each tells you something different. Introduce the winery, explain what makes it interesting, and show subscribers what they’ll get by sticking around. Give them opportunities to buy without treating them like an abandoned cart.
How do I choose an email marketing platform for my winery?
Choose a platform based on what your winery needs it to do. Look at whether it connects with your ecommerce system, gives you useful customer data, supports the segments and automations you need, and can be managed by the person running it. Better technology only helps when your team can actually use it to execute the strategy.
