Wine Marketing Podcast · Heather Daenitz

Winery Emails that Don't Suck with Erica Walter of Email Mavens

·57 min·3 clips

Wineries email so rarely that when they finally do, customers think 'Why are they only calling when they need something?'

Heather opens the conversation by introducing Erika Walter and noting that listeners may have seen her workshops at DTC Symposium. Erika gives her usual stage intro and says email marketing is more than her bread and butter; it is a jam. She says she has worked in winery email marketing for almost 20 years. Erika says email is still underused in the winery industry. Her favorite part is making emails that sell wine online, and she wants wineries to handle more of it in-house instead of leaning on a big agency budget. The discussion stays grounded in day-to-day winery work. Heather and Erika focus on what makes email feel worth opening. Erika says wineries should remind people why they joined the list in the first place. If a winery used a lead magnet or offer to get the sign-up, she says it should deliver that promise right away. Her examples include member pricing on a first online order or a two-for-one tasting. She says the email should spell out how to claim the offer and include a link that makes it easy to act. She also pushes for clear expectations about frequency. Her example is telling subscribers they will hear from the winery every other Tuesday or every Friday. Erika even describes her own weekly email party on Thursday so people know what is coming. She says a winery should give readers something to look forward to and, when possible, something to do. She also encourages whitelisting, but she notes that many customers do not know what that means. A simple fix is telling people to drag the message from Promotions into Primary if that is where it lands. The conversation also gets into how inbox providers now sort mail into categories. Erika points out that those changes are part of why open rates are falling. Heather and Erika keep the tone casual, but the advice stays concrete. The episode ends with Erika sharing where people can find her online, and Heather promising to put those links in the show notes.

As heard by us

Practical email tactics for wineries that want subscribers to take action.

This review keeps its focus on the basics, and that is why it works. Heather Dainitz and Erika Walter make a plain case for a welcome flow that does what it promises, sets clear expectations about cadence, and uses language that moves a subscriber from sign-up to action without…

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Why you'd press play

Make your winery welcome emails harder to miss and easier to act on.

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