“If you know your customer, you will sell more,” said Andrew Kamphuis, founder of Commerce7, as he opened his session to almost 200 wine professionals at the Wine Sales Symposium in Santa Rosa this week. Today’s wine customers expect you to know them. They want you to remember their last visit, their last order, their anniversary, their wine preferences, or even their dog’s name can go a long way toward building meaningful connections.
A system that captures this information and data from various sources and channels becomes incredibly valuable for DTC sales and customer relationships. In his presentation, Kamphuis emphasized the importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, not just as a tool, but also as a strategy for personalizing the winery experience and driving DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) sales.
His session outlined five core CRM strategies every winery should embrace:
Defining CRM and Its Importance
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a software system designed to manage an organization’s interactions with current and potential customers. For wineries, personalization is a key driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty, often leading to increased DTC sales. CRM systems make personalization possible on a larger scale, allowing wineries to track customer preferences and deliver tailored experiences across multiple touchpoints from the website and marketing emails to phone calls and tasting room interactions. CRM systems are the foundation for building personalized experiences.
The Power of 360-Degree Consumer Profiles
“How do we get out of your data being stuck in silos?” Kamphuis asked. Too often, wineries have reservation systems, e-commerce, wine club management, and email marketing platforms that don’t talk to each other. This fragmentation leads to incomplete customer profiles, creating missed opportunities to connect, upsell, and retain customers. Andrew said a single customer profile should include purchase history, club membership status, online behavior, frequency of visits, wine preferences, event attendance, and tasting notes. This creates metrics like lifetime value, average spend, and repeat purchase rates, enabling personalized offers and more meaningful engagement.
Smarter Segmentation
Segmentation allows you to group customers based on meaningful criteria, improving response rates and increasing relevance. Kamphuis shared examples of effective segmentation, including offering pickup promotions to local customers, sending special discounts to loyal patrons, and promoting vintage releases to club members. Segmentation can be as simple as offering a Chardonnay special to those who’ve previously bought Chardonnay. You can segment based on purchase behavior, membership status, geography, or engagement level. As Andrew put it, “It’s really about smarter communication.”
Personalized Automation
CRM systems allow for the automation of tasks without human intervention. This means wineries can scale their personalization without losing authenticity. The key is setting up systems that deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Examples include a welcome email series for new members, cart abandonment reminders, club shipment updates, and birthday or anniversary greetings. It’s about providing the perfect message when a customer takes a particular action. Set it up once, and it continues working to deliver consistent, timely, and personal communication that builds loyalty and drives sales.
Measuring What Matters
“Measuring gives us visibility into what’s working – and what is not,” emphasized Andrew. It provides insight into how to turn random marketing acts into intentional growth strategies. Some key metrics include email open and click-through rates, campaign-driven sales, average order value, club retention, and customer lifetime value. It’s not about doing more, but it’s about doing better. You want to ensure you measure the right things, such as engagement, sales, retention, lifetime value, and the impact of automation. A CRM provides visibility into what’s working and what is not and allows one to improve customer experience across every channel.
Kamphuis emphasized that wineries that embrace CRM as a strategic asset, not just a piece of software, will see higher engagement, improved customer experiences, and increased DTC sales.
