Taking Your Wine Club on the Road: What “Decentralizing” DTC Looks Like

The past few weeks we’ve been focusing on wine + data by selling DTC – how to start a data project of your own, for example, and how to calm your nerves about the wine slump by maximizing your own data.

A few days ago, this conversation took I turn I totally didn’t see coming.

Let me explain.

I’d been invited to present at B.E.V. NY in Rochester, on the topic of harnessing big data for your individual wine business. It was a very cool opportunity, and I was psyched to do it.

Here was a topic causing lots of buzz, that added a new dimension to the conversation: “decentralizing” the tasting room.

What does this mean?

In general, it means expanding the number of channels beyond the winery where your wines are available and sold DTC.

In New York, “decentralizing” could mean that your winery is in Long Island while your new tasting room is in, say, Brooklyn. Because that’s where your customers are.

It could also mean that, as tourism to the region increases, your wines are increasingly recognizable outside of the local area. You may not be able to build all new tasting rooms to cover the extent of that reach, but you may decide to boost the number of in-person sales events you do within that area – in homes, for example, or private tasting groups for consumers and even graduate students at universities.

I love this idea, and I love that it’s so front-of-mind for New York state wineries.

What does this mean for you, and how you utilize your wine + data?

Let’s say you want to decentralize your tasting room experience and take it on the road. Here are some examples of what we can discern from the DTC data you already own.

• Identify your top ten DTC markets and also the top three varietals or wines in those markets, respectively.

• What is the demographic breakdown of your audience in those markets, respectively? Boomers versus Millennials vs GenX, for example; how much each has purchased; and how often.

It’s decentralizing, certainly, and it’s also customizing at a very granular and very exciting level.

This is happening, and the train is leaving the station. Are you on board?

We’d love to give you a hand up. Please be in touch.

Thank you, as always, for reading –

Cathy