3 Ways to Reinvigorate Your Mailing List

Consumer email fatigue is real, and 2020 is the main culprit.

It’s not difficult to understand why. Stuck at home, glued to our screens, managing boredom and anxiety with an extra glass or two of wine every night.

The decimation of wine tourism coupled with the marked increase in wine consumption made it irresistible (understandably) for wine marketers to double their number of email sends.

Yes, double.

Napa-based WineGlass Marketing, in their just-released and excellent Wine Industry 2020 Email Benchmark Report, paints the picture:

“The average number of campaigns sent per winery in our 2017-2019 report was 1.88 per month, equating to a little less than 23 emails a year or a frequency of one email every 2-3 weeks for sales, events, or wine club communications. The average number of campaigns sent per winery in 2020 is double this at 3.63 per month, which means that on average, we sent one email a week to communicate with our customers this year.”

Sending more emails isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if the strategy behind the increase is sound, but WineGlass also measured a decline in open rates as the year dragged on. (Their study ended on Sept. 30.) Another interesting insight is that while number of total orders per campaign grew in 2020, average order value plunged 24%.

With 2021 now upon us – and it doesn’t yet feel any different from 2020 – wine marketers must figure out how to undo this fatigue and keep their customers engaged. Here are 3 tips that will help reinvigorate your list.

1 – Send an inspirational or aspirational piece of content to set the tone for the year, without a sales pitch.

Your mailing list might be fatigued, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to keeping hearing from you.

Rather than sending an email that pitches “the best wine to help you get through the winter doldrums” alongside a promo code for free shipping on 6 or more bottles, why not send an unexpected piece of content that creates an atmosphere of comfort and hope?

The email could contain a link to a virtual tour of the winery in winter, an inspirational quote that the owner cherishes combined with a rich visual, or a “comfort food” recipe that gets the winery owner through a stressful or difficult time.

If you’ve used the same email template for several months, another idea is to send this piece of content with a refreshed email template that symbolizes the “fresh start” that a new year represents.

The point is that it isn’t a waste of effort to send an occasional email with an engagement focus, not a hard or even soft sales focus.

The WineGlass report states that 55% of all emails sent in 2020 asked for a sale, and though it is possible to build rapport and forge a connection with customers while selling, it’s entirely possible that the email fatigue was due to customers wanting more of the former and less of the latter.

2 – Send a message of thanks to those who purchased from you in 2020.

2020 was a tough year for most people. Opening their doors to see a case of your wine waiting was likely one of the salves that helped your customers through it.

If it’s been a while since you’ve thanked your paying customers for their support in good times and bad, one of the first emails you send in 2021 should be a simple but heartfelt message of gratitude.

Does showing gratitude have a calculable ROI? Perhaps, but the more important point is that it’s simply the right thing to do.

The expression of gratitude can be a block of text in the email, but a more effective tactic would be to send the email recipients to a website landing page containing a video in which the owner expresses her or his sentiments. That would forge a much stronger connection to those being thanked.

You could also follow up the email by sending your top buyers a simple but meaningful gift of thanks. (Again, in this context, don’t make the gift a promo code for 10% off a case of wine.)

3 – Ask your customers to help you support a worthy cause.

This might sound too intrusive at face value. The reality, though, is that many of your customers expect you and the other brands they patronize to have a role in making the world a better place. Whether the environment (obvious for a winery) or a social cause, many of your customers want you to care about something other than selling your wine to them.

If there is a cause about which you care deeply and have supported in the past, it is perfectly legitimate to ask your customers to join you in the effort.

Here are some steps you can take:

• Create a campaign in which you will match customer donations to your charitable organization up to a certain amount.

• Contact the organization first and figure out a way to track the donations sent by your customers. (It’s better for your customers to donate to the organizations itself, rather than to you.) Perhaps the organization can set up a dedicated donation link for your list.

• Your email to your customers should contain a thorough explanation why you care about the cause. Make it as easy as possible for your customers to donate.

• Once the campaign is over, make sure you thank the customers who donated and make sure they get a donation form to include with their 2021 tax documents (if applicable).

This campaign will obviously take a bit of work, but a successful execution will both humanize your brand and help you build a community around it.

The email fatigue that 2020 perpetuated doesn’t mean that email marketing is on the way out in 2021. It simply signals to wine marketers that 2020’s strategies might not be as effective in 2021. Emails with a sales focus must obviously still be sent, but they must be complimented by emails that help you connect with your customers as people, not simply buyers.