Data Driven Marketing In the Wine Industry

We now know that pandemic has launched a revolution in the way fine wine is being marketed and sold.

But just as chance favors the prepared mind, wineries who had already been pursuing digital technology and analysis of their customer data (obtained legally in customer interactions and from social media channels) were more equipped than others to, forgive me, zoom down the online sales path.

I pitched this story on data to Wine Business back in October, after writing a big article on POS providers and moderating the magazine's IT conference's panel on the same subject. It was obvious then that winery POS systems were collecting mountains of data. But what were these wineries doing with their data? That was the story I wanted to tell.

I interviewed the wineries and industry experts in Feb. before the pandemic arose (to meet print issue deadlines). Suddenly now it is even more relevant to the health and wellbeing of the industry.

I am grateful to all of the interviewees in this piece (and to all those whose comments I couldn't fit in due to lack of space) who so graciously shared their time and their insights. My hope is that this article will help wineries small and large prosper during these challenging times and in the future.

Consumers are loving the chance to get closer online to winemakers and wines, through online tastings. May it continue - and grow.

And wineries are finding it isn't hard as they thought to use digital channels, once they focused on them.

Hopefully this two way connectivity will spark more wine love and appreciation.

• Read the article in the magazine (starting on page 78) - free with registration (view online or download100 page pdf)

• Read just the article here (5 page pdf - no registration)