Email Marketing For Wineries: One Message Emails
Winery Email Nurturing
The holy grail for any business is a mailing list full of dedicated fans waiting anxiously for the next update. Unfortunately, the reality is that no matter how dedicated your fans might be, they don't have time to read a short novel detailing your upcoming sales and wine tastings. When the average amount of time spent per Email is 51 seconds, you can't afford to be anything less than clear and concise. Lengthy newsletters are the number one pet-peeve of subscribers. Follow these tips to prevent them from becoming EX subscribers!
Choose One Message
As already discussed, people do not have time to read anything long or in-depth. In fact, they have so little time that if they open your email and see a wall of text, they're likely to simply delete it (or even mark it as SPAM, which is worse). This fact can be very inconvenient when you have more than one thing to say. So what's the answer?
It's simple: segment your list, then choose one message per segment. Categorize your updates- promotions, events, award announcements, etc.- and allow your subscribers to pick what kind of messages they're interested in. This way, you can send all of your updates separately and be certain they'll only get to the inboxes of people who are interested in that type of update. This will increase your ratio of opened emails to unopened. At the same time, because each email is focused on one specific message, it will remain short and sweet and fit into your subscribers' busy lives.
Tell Them What To Do
Whatever message you're focusing on, you can't just impart information. The entire purpose of your list is to get your subscribers to do something: register for a wine tasting, join your wine club, attend a party at your vineyard. So don't just tell them about your wine tasting, wine club or party. Tell them what to do with that information in the form of a Call To Action. This is exactly what it sounds like, an imperative to do what you want them to do. You're not just telling them about your wine tasting, you're telling them to "Register Now!"
Learn From This Example
This is an excellent example of a winery newsletter with one message and a call to action. Notice how there's no wall of text, just a vivid and relevant image with a few easy to absorb sentences. Remember, because it has just one message, the only people getting this Email are those who are interested in events of this type in the first place, so naturally they'll open the email.
The information about the party is all at the top, including what will be served on what date at what time. There are more details further down, but even if your subscriber skims over that, they still know everything they need to know to want to attend your event. Finally, at the very bottom we have the Call To Action: Click Here to purchase your tickets. With any luck, your subscriber will choose to do just that!
Your mailing list can be a huge asset if used properly. Don't negate the positive potential of your list by sending dense Emails no one reads with no clear goal. If you stick to your one message, target your most interested subscribers and tell them what you want them to do, you'll reap all the benefits of a dedicated following.