A One Picture Summary Of Wine Marketing

Put yourself in a consumer's shoes. Then have those shoes walk into a supermarket wine aisle. This is what people are up against when they try and decide what wine to buy. It's daunting - the single most confusing, cluttered, over-stocked, multi-branded aisle in the grocery store. They defer to shortcuts of price, hazy word of mouth recollections, labels, name recognition, and all sorts of unreliable methods to make their pick. And they may be very disappointed at the result.

In higher end/price brands sold via different channels, there may be a little more help at a boutique wine shop or direct from the winery. But things aren't much better in these channels, or in the average wine list either.

As wine marketers and website designers, its our job to figure out how to make this choice easier for them. Like all industries, wine has its own language of segmentation, categories, price points, and other artificial ways of classifying product. In the end, what consumers want is something that tastes good, doesn't embarrass them when they bring it to parties, and only costs a lot if by costing a lot they get something special on the taste or perception front.

When you think about marketing wine or building top winery websites, think about this picture and remember what shoes you're wearing.

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