Email Changed. But Did Your Strategy?
Winery email marketing has changed a LOT in the last few years.
We have better ecommerce data. Better integrations. AI can help us produce marketing content faster than ever.
So while rebuilding PRESS SEND Advanced, I had to ask myself a slightly terrifying question: Is the winery email marketing methodology I created several years ago still right?
I went back through it lesson by lesson. And the answer delighted (and relieved) me.
The fundamentals haven’t changed nearly as much as what we can DO with them has.
That’s the perfect place to kick off PRESS SEND Sessions, where we take the methodology we use to build winery email programs and put it to work on the problems you’re actually trying to solve.
So which winery email marketing trends deserve your attention? Here are the three biggest shifts I’ve seen, and what I’d do differently because of them.
1. Winery Email List Growth Has Gotten Way More Interesting
Growing your email list has always mattered. And if you’ve been hanging around Email Mavens for any length of time, you’ve heard me preach that “join our newsletter” isn’t a compelling reason to give you an email address.
That’s not new.
For a long time, the wine industry conversation was mostly about putting a signup form on your website, asking for email addresses in the tasting room, and giving people a compelling reason to subscribe.
All still true. But today, I want to know a whole lot more.
Where did this subscriber come from? What did we promise them in exchange for their email address? Should someone joining from the tasting room get the same invitation as someone discovering us through a blog post?
Consider what we might already know about each person:
- A tasting room guest: They visited your winery. You may know when they came and what they tasted.
- A blog visitor: They found specific content. That gives you a clue about what interested them.
- A checkout buyer: They’ve already purchased. You know what they bought.
Those are different starting points for a relationship. Your invitation to subscribe, and what you send afterward, should account for that.
A Big List Isn’t Automatically a Valuable List
Are you giving reservation guests a reason to subscribe? What about event attendees? Are you capturing subscribers through checkout or partnerships?
And maybe most importantly: Which of those sources are actually giving you subscribers who become customers?
Our goal is to build a valuable email list. A bigger subscriber count doesn’t tell us whether we’re doing that.
So the question goes beyond “How do we get more subscribers?”
Where do our best subscribers come from, and how do we intentionally get more of them?
The principle hasn’t changed. You need to intentionally build an audience worth emailing. But the questions we’re able to ask about that audience now? That’s where things have gotten WAY more interesting.
Once you start connecting subscriber sources to what those people ultimately do, list growth becomes a customer acquisition strategy.
2. The Technology Finally Caught Up to the Customer Journey
I’ve been preaching customer journeys for YEARS.
The idea that email marketing should respond to what a customer is actually doing? Not new.
What’s changed is our ability to build that experience. Depending on your platforms and integrations, purchase history and club status can inform your emails. Customer behavior and preferences can give you even more to work with.
But having that information doesn’t mean we’re using it.
We’re still leaving some of the most important moments in the customer journey almost completely untouched. Post-purchase is one of my favorite examples.
Someone just bought wine from you. What does your winery’s email marketing do next?
For a lot of wineries: Great! Send them an order confirmation. Done.
Think about the actual human on the other side of that transaction. They’ve just given you money. They’re excited about what they bought. Maybe they’re waiting for it to arrive. Maybe they’ve never purchased from you before.
And what do we send them?
A receipt. Womp womp.
Build a Post-Purchase Journey With an Emotional Arc
What if we thought about everything that customer experiences AFTER the purchase as one journey?
- Relief: “My order worked.” Confirm the purchase and make the next steps clear.
- Anticipation: “I’m excited for it to arrive.” Give them something to look forward to while they wait.
- Guidance: “I know how to enjoy what I bought.” Help them decide when to open the wine or what to serve with it.
- Expansion: “Oooh, what should I try next?” Introduce a relevant next purchase based on what they’ve already enjoyed.
- Advocacy: “I want to tell someone about this.” Give them a reason to share their experience, come back, visit, or explore the club.
We’re creating one emotional arc. That doesn’t automatically mean five separate emails. It means each message has a job in the experience you’re building.
And THAT is a much more sophisticated way to think about automation.
What Does This Person Need From You Now?
The same thinking applies throughout your winery’s customer journey.
A new subscriber doesn’t just need “a welcome email.” They need a welcome that makes sense for why they subscribed. If yours leads with the winery’s entire life story, revisit what your first welcome email should accomplish.
A tasting room visitor isn’t finished interacting with you when they walk out the door.
A first-time buyer shouldn’t disappear into your general newsletter list.
A new wine club member shouldn’t hear from you next when their credit card gets charged.
We’ve always asked:
- What just happened?
- What does this person need from us now?
- What do we want to happen next?
That’s lifecycle email marketing. That part isn’t new. What’s changed is our ability to execute it.
If your technology can see more of the customer journey, your email marketing should reflect more of the customer journey.
3. AI Makes Marketing Execution Easier. Judgment Matters More.
With AI entering the chat, there’s never been an easier time to make marketing stuff.
You can ask it to write an email or give you 25 subject lines. It can help brainstorm campaigns. With the right data and review, it can help you analyze performance and decide what to test.
And I LOVE that for you (and frequently, admittedly, for me).
Execution used to be one of our biggest constraints. It took time to come up with ideas. Time to write. Time to analyze. Time to build and test.
Increasingly, technology can make those things faster. Which is AMAZING, if we’re doing the right things.
Because AI can also help you make a LOT more mediocre marketing, much more efficiently.
“Write Me an Email Selling Chardonnay” Isn’t a Strategy
Before you ask AI to write that email, you still need to know:
- Who you’re talking to.
- What you’re trying to accomplish.
- Why this particular email deserves to exist.
- Where it fits in the customer journey.
- What you’re going to measure afterward.
Without those answers, “write me an email selling Chardonnay” doesn’t solve the problem. It just removes one of the friction points that might have slowed you down before you made it.
This is where strategy comes in.
The more execution gets commoditized, the more valuable judgment becomes.
“Can we make this?” is getting easier to answer.
“Should we make this?” still needs your attention.
The PRESS SEND Method Still Holds
This was my favorite discovery when I went back through PRESS SEND.
The technology changed. The data got better. Integrations got better. AI showed up. HELLO!
And our framework still held.
We built PRESS SEND around the phases of winemaking, with each phase doing a specific job in your email program:
- Planting + Harvest: Build the audience.
- Sorting + Crushing: Get the right message to the right people and establish the strategy.
- Fermentation: Build the automated journeys that work behind the scenes.
- Clarification: Plan and execute campaigns that drive sales.
- Aging + Bottling: Build relationships with your wine club members that keep them around and help the club grow.
The fundamentals haven’t changed. My expectations for what a great winery email marketing program can do have.
That’s the PRESS SEND Advanced we’ve been rebuilding. Same methodology, rebuilt around everything we’ve learned actually doing this work with wineries and what’s possible now.
PRESS SEND Advanced is coming back in early October, and I’m SO freaking excited for you to see it.
Start With the Fundamentals
If you’re sitting here thinking, “Cool, Erica. But I’m not even sure we’re doing the fundamentals particularly well yet…”
Good! You don’t have to wait for Advanced.
My free masterclass, How Wineries Build 6- and 7-Figure Ecommerce Revenue with Email, walks you through the PRESS SEND methodology and helps you figure out where the biggest opportunities are in your own email marketing program.
Start with the free masterclass.
Winery Email Marketing Trends FAQs
Which winery email marketing trends matter most?
The biggest shifts are what wineries can learn about their subscribers, how they can respond to customer behavior, and how quickly they can produce marketing content. The fundamentals still apply. You need an audience worth emailing and messages with a clear job. Better tools give you more ways to put that strategy to work.
How can wineries build a more valuable email list?
Track where subscribers come from and what they do after joining. Compare sources such as tasting room visits, blog content, and checkout to see which bring in people who purchase or build an ongoing relationship with your winery. Then use what you learn to improve your signup invitations and follow-up emails.
What should a winery send after someone buys wine?
Start with a clear order confirmation, then consider what the buyer needs as they wait for and enjoy their wine. Helpful messages might explain what happens next or offer serving guidance. Later, you can introduce a relevant next purchase or invitation. Build the sequence around the customer’s experience, rather than filling a predetermined number of emails.
How should wineries use AI for email marketing?
Use AI to help execute a strategy you’ve already thought through. Give it the audience, the purpose of the message, and relevant context about the wine and customer journey. Review its output for accuracy and your winery’s voice. A polished draft still needs a good reason to land in someone’s inbox.
