E-Mail blasts & Newsletters ?

How often do you send out E-mail blasts, Newsletters, special offers ?

We usually do an e-mail blast quarterly with new product and occasionally do 1 or 2 special offers in between, both are usually personalized. Even though doing it that way is really time consuming, we get better response when we don’t list a bunch of wines we know certain customers aren’t interested in and for our regular customers I like to add a personal note.

Most people seem to get tired of e-mail offers, we’ve made the choice less is better. I usually receive an average of 5-10 a day from retailers.

How about you ?

A close friend’s shop does them weekly. They’re used to note new arrivals, remind people of the free tasting on the upcoming Saturday, etc.

Note that with email marketing products you can segment people into lists and substitute in names as variables. So, for example, you could put the people who are into a certain wine or type of wine in one list while keeping them in the general list. Now, is “hey Carrie…” as personal as an actual note to each person? No. But are you writing these as a social activity or to drive business?

Other things to consider - how often do you get new stock in? Do you have regular events like weekly tastings to promote? Are the people on your list local or remote (by remote I mean not in Cali).

My gut feeling is that a quarterly email isn’t often enough to do much good. Do you use a place like Constant Contact? If so, what are the open and clickthrough rates? How many people are on your email list? When you say fewer is better I don’t agree. Better is better. What I mean is that emails are a way to drive business. The frequency is a function of the shop and its customers - some places do the 5x/day thing because they want to drive sales now on very limited quantities of specific wines. Other shops aren’t interested in that, they want a way to keep in touch with regular customers and to keep their shop in front of those customers. My friend has done weekly free tastings for 20+ years… a weekly email to remind people of those and to let them know what this week’s tasting is makes sense… but it makes sense because most of the people on the list are local. There is no one better in other words.

I actually don’t mind receiving emails, though admittedly I probably only order based on 1/10 of 1% of the emails that I get…that said, I receive approximately 200 wine related emails per week so an email really has to stand out to based on the wine or price in order to get noticed. Newly released wines and wines at special pricing are two good excuses for emails and I’ve always thought that in a crowded marketplace, the more you can be in front of your customers the better - even if I don’t place an order, I do take mental note for the future of which stores are offering what and how good their pricing/availability is.

Since most of what I buy is from just a few key sources and most of what I buy I am specifically looking for at the time (whether from known sources or wine-searcher on an ad hoc basis), most emails don’t mean a whole lot. Only when there is a price that is too good to pass up or it is an “unusual” wine that I didn’t realize that I wanted to buy until I saw the email, does the email make a difference. Three recent examples from the last month or so of wines that I purchased just because I saw them in an email…case of 2003 Jadot Beze at $100 per, a 3-pack of Mr. K 2006 at $269 and a handful of bottles of 1959 Ferrari Solaria Jonica‏ at $100 - the first two being offers combining a great wine at a steal of a price (in both cases a wine that I had previously purchased in the past and wasn’t necessarily looking for at all) and the third being an offer of a wine I wouldn’t have thought of if I hadn’t seen the email but was excited to buy.

I also like theme focused emails focusing on a particular producer, particular vintage from a region, etc…those get me thinking as well. I also like emails focused on brand new releases from specific areas.

At any rate, I do agree with Rick that it may make sense to send out more emails than you currently do given the frequency of your competitor’s emails.

Rick,
When I said add a note, I will ask how they enjoyed a wine I recommended, did XYZ enjoy the wine gift they sent, how was their vacation they had mentioned, things along those lines. I enjoy building relationships with our customers, more than just “buy my wine, give me your Cc” . It has made for many long lasting customers and then we have the customers that buy product and aren’t interested in small talk. It’s knowing the difference that has worked for us.

We do have customers categorized into wine groups that have specific interests. We get new inventory in pretty much every week, I’m sure that doing e-mails more often would be helpful but part of it is also time constraints with doing all our own shipping, shipping for a couple wineries and also tending to our retail store, wine lounge & cigar lounge. We don’t function solely as an internet business.

I’m sure each retailer has their own way of doing business that works best for them, I do understand what you & Dan are saying.

Carrie,

What about mixing the styles? Do what you do now, but add weekly, 2x monthly etc emails with “here’s what’s happening at the store” type emails - new arrivals, a bit of news about the shop, etc. The friend’s shop I mentioned doesn’t try to sell from the email (they dont do online sales, actually) but they use it as a reminder for the weekly tasting. Of course, that’s specific to their situation.

I think there’s a middle ground between the very personal style that is a lot of work and the impersonal “here’s what we have, click to buy” style. You guys are situated so that you have interesting stories to tell - how the vines are looking, etc et - and can mix in things like “Great stuff we’ve tried this month” and new arrival news.

I hear you on the time thing - it might not be the right way to spend some of your time given your business and what you want. It’s also very dependent on your list, who they are, what they want from you, etc. That said, I could imagine a weekly email done in an hour a week - do “New & Notable” (arrivals), “Our Picks” (things you’ve tried that made you go wow wrapped in a quick introduction that can remind them about any events that are upcoming and a conclusion.

It really just depends on if you want what is in the blast. I would think that if shops can manually or systematically profile their list for wine likes they could do everyone a service.

I don’t mind email, but when I get endless strings of offers for wines I’ve never shown any interest in, I ignore. Say, for instance, you’re a retailer who builds their online persona as bashing Parker and high alcohol / extract / oak wines, then turns around and tries to sell those wines via email every day, then I just delete / unsubscribe / mark as SPAM / etc…

Other folks run really intelligent lists and I am psyched to receive the emails…

Rick,

All good ideas and I know Carrie is trying to find a middle road, (efficiency/sales). We know we are behind the curve on a lot of the new programs, services, etc., hell, we’re still using html and FrontPage for our website and Carrie sends out individual or group emails on Outlook express. Miva Merchant provides us with data related to visits/sales on the internet, but we have to manually glean info on newsletters and in store sales. All thoughts, examples and ideas are good.

This thread is also providing some ideas on business operation, such as events, event types, frequency, etc. Of course, promotion and events would cut into the time we have to post on the board and worse yet, our nightly tasting/posting routine from OUR table in the bar.

What I find funny is the amount of requests for newsletters we get from cigar customers versus wine customers, about 20 to 1 respectively. You would be amazed at how many cigar customers we’ve had that didn’t realize we sold wine & beer or had a bar. They only see “CIGAR” on the sign.

I’m on too many lists that send out email once a day or close to it. I’ve dropped off a lot, but not enough.

I would really like to see only what’s new.

A couple of my favorite stores send out emails with a title like “Brand new cellar”, but I see many wines with the exact same bottle conditions and/or quantities as the last 10 emails. I think "Really, every cellar you get in has 7 bottles of 2002 Gagliardi Lavoro and 2 mags? :wink:

Once a week is nice.

The two big names, AFAIK, are Constant Contact or Vertical Response for email marketing / list management. Both charge per email essentially. We use Vertical Response. A bit of a learning curve but not TOO bad, and works as well as you could hope. I haven’t used Constant Contact in a LONG time but I imagine it’s just the same.

That said, I too would be open ears if there is a FAR better email company out there.

I’ve used Constant Contact. Easy to use, pricing is list-size based. Mailchimp is another option. Constant Contact has a free trial, VR and Mailchimp might too.

Randy/Carrie - one of the things I do is consult on this sort of thing. I’m happy to chat (gratis) if you want to bounce ideas or get feedback on something.

Rick
Thank you, that’s a very kind offer. flirtysmile

doesn’t yours?

I wish I sent them more frequently, but I always wait until the wines are dry and full malo. Then they’re all shocked from bottling and the next thing you know it’s harvest. Which makes me try to pimp them out in November. The facebook is helpful and we do well on direct orders from the website, but I know I could do a much better job.

No. 13 bottles. No mags.

For my winery business, I’m going with Mail Chimp. Free for up to 3000 deliveries a month to lists under 500 addresses, which we still are. Seems hard to beat.

I’d go with weekly emails if I were a wine shop, and yes, always highlighting what’s new. If I didn’t have anything new, I’d still send…after I made sure I had something new every week.

We use mail chimp and send out on average two e-mails a week - one detailing what we are pouring for our Thursday free tasting and one detailing what our saturday tasting will be about…

We then drop in e-mails depending on if we have special deals going etc. If they are a high value client we e-mail them personally.

We then link the newsletter with our twitter and facebook accounts as well as our blog…

My take is that e-mail only when you have something to say - but try to have something to say every week…

One more thing from a customer point of view, if you’re going to send out a lot of emails about in-person events at the store, it would be nice to have 2 separate lists, one for locals and one for Internet. It’s kind of annoying to get lots of emails about an in-store tasting that’s 2000 or 3000 miles away just because I buy wine over the Internet from you.

At my old store we sent out one email a week on Thursday evening. It had information about our Friday night tasting (and Sat if we were doing that too), plus a deal of some sort. Wine, beer, or spirits on discount or special buys on a particular wine. And then we had a list of 5-6 new products.

I am signed up on probably 70 lists, and try to sign up for as many as I can just to see whats going on around the business and who is selling what. Its a good way to learn about different wines I may not be exposed to otherwise.

This is a key point. Segment the list. More importantly, think about who you’re sending the email to. Email blasts that tout local tastings to a list with remote customers are implicitly saying “you’re just a bunch of faceless email addresses to us…we’re not even going to take the time to figure out if you’re local or not.”

You can only segment people that wish to be classified - we offer people options, but if the do not “opt-in” by either choosing a list to be on or giving us their home state there is nothing the store can do about it…