5 tips to boost summer wine sales

Posted by jackrileyau on July 15th, 2021

During the summer, most people relax a bit more, take summer holidays, eat ice cream, have barbecues, and generally spend more time outside. When planning sales in your winery, keep this in mind to boost sales this summer. Even though the Covid-19 still threatens us in 2021, it doesn't mean you can't boost wine sales. Use these tips to ensure good wine sales this summer, while taking all safety precautions to protect you, your employees, and your customers.

1. Use social media

Again, we are putting social media on a pedestal. The use of social media is key to making and increasing sales, whether you like it or not. Namely, 42% of all people use the Internet, while about 1,75 billion people use mobile social networks, which represent a huge sales potential.

Millennials or Gen Y, people between the ages of 25 and 40, are most likely to be reached via social media. In this generation, the largest in history, people like to drink wine, but they have unique consumption standards. Sustainability and environmental responsibility, double-checking information online, and valuing aesthetics, creativity, and diversity are values they share. This will help you increase brand awareness and boost sales when preparing content for social media. Providing food pairing advice, informing consumers on viticulture and winemaking techniques, and encouraging participation are great ways to share the stories behind wines.

How can you use winery social media to boost summer sales?

Summer months are busy in the vineyards, so writing content about grape growing open-door events, and winery tours should not be a problem. During the summer, consumers prefer lighter wines; highlighting whites, rosés, or orange wines is a great way to showcase them. Through social media, you can help consumers decide which wines to serve at BBQs, take to the beach or camping, or even what ice cream to pair with your wines. A summer contest on social media can also be created to encourage your customers to share their favorite moments with the wine and win an attractive reward (summer wine package, winery tour, beach umbrella, etc.) in return (summer hat, beach umbrella, etc.).

If you want to promote your wine and events online, you can also pay digital influencers, but this one is likely to be more expensive. Reach out to food or wine bloggers, Instagrammers, or celebrities. Suppose you are an organic and sustainable winery that wants to gain more customers in this area. It is possible to pay influencers who promote a healthy lifestyle and organic/sustainable/natural products to promote your gift box wine.

2. Plan summer email marketing campaigns

Despite all the different social media platforms, email marketing remains a key marketing tool and the number one source of online wine sales. The easiest way to boost sales is to promote wines, events, etc., to existing (or past) customers. Using email marketing to build relationships with your customers is a great idea.

Create summer email campaigns to promote winery tours, events, summer wine sales, online store, or promotional packages for this summer and invite your existing customer base to participate in summer sweepstakes. You may wish to include in your email marketing strategy emails that provide interesting information about wine-growing, or congratulate subscribers on special occasions (first day of summer, birthdays, 4th of July, etc.).

3. Organize tours and events

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, not all online will be able to host tours. Nevertheless, if that is not possible, it makes sense to organize different events in accordance with all safety measures. After months of lockdown, people all over the world are eager to socialize and enjoy outdoor events.

Winery tours are a fantastic way to gain more customers and build a closer relationship between the winery and the customer since they let customers get to know the winery and its people. On the other hand, it allows online to understand their customers better and improve the offer based on what they like and dislike. While classical vineyard tours with wine tasting are still popular, a new and different program will allow you to gain more customers and visitors.

As a result of this year's gathering restriction, you may want to consider outdoor events. Organize tours and events with different topics to attract a variety of people. Plan summer wine tasting events that include live music, a movie night on the winery grounds, food pairing events, or educational tours about organic wine growing. Tours and events can be tailored to fit your winery's value.

 4. Join open-air events

There are a lot of outdoor events during the summer. Both locals and tourists attend these events, which provides an excellent opportunity to gain new customers and increase sales. Online participating in local festivals, markets, wine tasting events, and street food events. Participate in stand-up comedy days or concerts as well? Winery events and tours can be used to boost sales and upsell.
Before taking part in an open-air event, make sure the crowd is your target audience. Do not stand there and wait for people to approach you. Prepare winemaking workshops, panel discussions, and food-wine pairing classes instead. With your brand, you want to share with your audience your story and your values. You can use balloons, wallpaper, fortune wheels, photo booths, etc., to address this.

A joint event with a restaurant, a food truck "restaurant", a swimming pool, or a theater can boost sales this summer. Adapting your wine offer and presence based on an event will allow you to attract clients with different values, such as at a swimming pool party or after a theater performance. As a result, wine presentation should differ.

5. Offer special summer packages to increase online sales

In the summer months, online sales typically drop as people go on vacation or buy gift box wine at online, but that won't be the case this summer. Several travel restrictions still exist in most of the world, so most people will not go on summer vacations, but instead stay home and go on daily excursions. This offers you a great opportunity to sell your wines online as well as at winery events.

You can also sell gift cards and tickets for winery summer tours and events on your online store. You can now offer summer packages containing a selection of your wines in addition to holiday gift sets. Provide nicely packaged wines with suggestions for food pairings, or include summer-themed items. For summer pool and barbecue parties, a package of recipes for wine cocktails would be ideal. Summer is a good time to offer wine packages in cans. Join this trend this year if you haven't already.

Despite the fact that the summer of 2021 will not be an ordinary summer due to the Covid-19 pandemic, good sales are still possible. Below are five tips for boosting summer wine sales that can serve as guidelines for you. If you want to tell your story and share your values, you need to be proactive and creative. That way, you will be more likely to connect with like-minded people and maintain strong bonds with your existing clients.