Are you putting your money where your mouth is?
Posted by Jennifer Warrington on December 5th, 2007If you believe that the Direct Sale Channel is the most profitable and growing, what are you doing to make sure you’re making the most of this?
Most wineries spend a majority of their budget furthering the wholesale channel and few funds are allocated to the Direct Channel. What a different place the wine industry would be if budgets were adjusted to allow for hiring more high-powered marketing managers to oversee the wine club, tasting room and ecommerce. Imagine if the ideology that the Direct Channel is second best (and thus does not deserve the same resources) was changed and now winery staff is not tasked with wearing multiple hats to try and do the work of three people or more!
A traditional industry is slow to change, but you can make the most of what you have to work with. Think by and for individual channels – ecommerce, tasting room, wine club, and telephone – and leverage the nuances of each. Create goals and plans to reach those goals for each DIRECT sales channel. Plan, monitor, and reassess your goals as necessary. Have a plan in place on a monthly basis for the entire year, but continue to reassess and reschedule. Plan down to the detail – not only plot out what wines will go in the club shipments for the year, but what emails will you send, when you’ll send it, and what you’ll feature; plan your emails as far in advance as possible to coincide with events, wine releases, accolades, etc. If you have a solid plan with tactics and resources in place, you can take the stress out of the day-to-day.
If you believe that the Direct Sale Channel is the most profitable and growing, then plan, monitor, and reassess your methodology and tactics to grow this channel. Put your resources behind the channel in the most effective and efficient way possible to make the most return on your investment into the Direct Channel.
