Wineries that are finding traction aren't just grinding harder. They're leaning on better tools. Tools, that is, that do the heavy lifting so that the wineries can focus on what they do best: making great wine and building real relationships with their customers. That's what this free webinar is all about, on Thursday, April 9 at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST. We'll walk you through the specific tools and strategies that are helping wineries grow — even in a down market. Here's a preview of what we'll cover: AI-driven sales suggestions. Our machine learning algorithms look at your customer data and tell you exactly who to call, what wine to pitch them, and when. These are smart, predictive tools for both sales and customer retention that lead directly to increased revenue. Marketing automation that actually works. Set up a highly targeted campaign in about five minutes (minus writing the actual message), with built-in safeguards so you don't overserve your

The weather is shifting, trip-planning season is underway, and tasting room traffic is about to pick up. This is the good news. The bad news? If you're reading this and thinking "we'll get to our spring marketing when spring gets here," you're behind. The tasting rooms that stay full from April through June aren't the ones with the best wine or the prettiest views. They're the ones that showed up in someone's planning process three weeks before the trip happened. People don't stumble into wine country on a whim and wander from door to door the way they did fifteen years ago. They research. They scroll. They book. And if your winery isn't visible and compelling during that research window, you're invisible when it counts. The hotel industry figured this out years ago. Marriott doesn't wait until summer to market beach properties. They start running "book your getaway" campaigns in late winter, because they know the booking win

Why Wineries Need Influencer Marketing Now Here's a number that should reshape how you think about marketing: 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations more than information coming directly from a brand That's not a slight edge. That's a fundamental shift in how people decide what to buy. For wineries, this matters more than it does for most industries. Wine is a considered purchase wrapped in uncertainty. Your potential customer is standing in a tasting room or scrolling through an online store, wondering: Will I like this? Is it worth the price? Am I making the right choice? Influencer content answers those questions in ways traditional marketing cannot. When a trusted voice says "I tried this Pinot and it's incredible with grilled salmon," that carries weight. It's a peer recommendation disguised as content. Instagram and TikTok now drive wine discovery among younger audiences, and 87% of Gen Z consumers say they're willing to buy products

As wineries navigate shifting consumer behavior, rising costs, and increasing compliance complexity, one thing is clear. The gap between average and top performing direct to consumer programs is widening. At eCELLAR, we see this play out every day across our winery clients. The difference is not just better wine or stronger brand recognition. It is operational. Top performing wineries are taking a more intentional approach to customer relationships, internal workflows, and conversion. Increasingly, success comes down to how well technology supports those efforts behind the scenes 1. They Personalize the Club Purchase Experience Wine clubs continue to be one of the most important drivers of long-term revenue. Managing them effectively requires more than basic functionality. Wineries seeing the most success are: Offering more flexible club structures Automating recurring processes Creating a seamless member experience across channels As club models evolve, the systems supporting them ne

A few years ago at the DTC Wine Symposium, a panelist joked about the modern winery website formula: the guy, the dog, the truck, and the vineyard. Beautiful backdrop, strong lifestyle photography, a thoughtful founder story. Polished, absolutely. Strategically distinct, rarely. The critique wasn’t about branding. It was about structure. Most winery websites aren’t broken, but they aren’t built as decision environments either. Calls to action are unclear, revenue pathways are buried, shipping surprises appear late, and wine club often lives in isolation instead of throughout the buying journey. After auditing winery sites across regions and production sizes, the pattern is consistent: performance is constrained by friction, not effort. Most wineries don’t have a traffic problem. They have a conversion architecture problem. Before increasing ad spend or launching another promotion, run a winery website audit — on your phone. Start at the homepage and move t

As wineries across the country face softening tasting room conversion rates and increasing pressure on direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, a new episode of Expert Talks: Wine Industry Insights highlights practical strategies from one of the industry’s leading DTC educators. InnoVint recently sat down with Liz Mercer, Partner and Winery Coach at WISE Academy, to examine what the top 10% of tasting rooms are doing differently to consistently convert guests into wine club members and drive higher-margin sales. Drawing on more than 25 years of wine industry experience, Mercer outlines the operational disciplines, team training strategies, and guest experience enhancements that set apart high-performing tasting rooms from the rest. Rather than relying on aggressive sales tactics, the discussion focuses on intentional hospitality, empowered front-of-house (FOH) teams, and structured yet authentic club conversations. The episode offers actionable guidance for wineries looking to: Grow their

Most wineries don’t have a promotion volume problem. They have a promotion design problem. When you look closely at wineries delivering strong margins alongside steady consumer sales growth, patterns start to appear. Not because those promotions are trendy or copied from competitors, but because they are intentionally designed to drive revenue while protecting long-term customer behavior and brand value. Modern promotion strategy is not about running more campaigns. It is about structuring incentives that influence how, when, and why customers buy. Across the strongest performing wineries, promotions are increasingly treated as part of the revenue model rather than just part of the marketing calendar. They shape demand, influence order composition, and support long-term customer value. Why Promotion Strategy Is Really Revenue Strategy Promotions are no longer just marketing tactics. They are one of the most controllable levers inside a winery’s DTC P&L. For most wineri

When the Super Bowl and Olympics approach, we celebrate the performance we see on the field. What we don’t see is the year-round conditioning, repetition, and skill-building that made that performance possible. Winning teams don’t train only when the lights are brightest. They train all year long. The same principle applies to winery DTC teams. Downtime Is Where Advantage Is Built Periods of slower visitation or economic uncertainty can feel like a signal to pause. But research shows that the opposite approach separates leaders from laggards. A landmark study published by Harvard Business Review analyzed more than 4,700 companies across multiple recessions. The findings were striking: “Only 9% of companies emerged from recession stronger than before.” Even more telling: “Companies that balanced cost discipline with continued investment in people and capabilities recovered faster and gained market share.” Training Is a Growth Strategy,

“Peer to peer.” What are my neighbors doing? How are my neighbors doing, in relation to my winery? I’m all for running your own race, and doing what’s right for your own brand and your own business. I also understand that we live in a tight, relational ecosystem of wine. What’s happening with your peers matters and it can provide important perspective and context for what’s happening with you. This week I’d like to hover over two peer-to-peer perspectives. First up, our latest “snapshot” from January, highlighting key metrics across our entire dataset. For the first time we’re also including the WISE Triple Score, thanks to our newest partnership with the WISE team. Important takeaways from this community snapshot: Wineries gathered more customer data this January than last January, successfully building their databases for future marketing efforts. Winning wineries convert improved data capture and club conversion

The 2026 State of the U.S. Wine Industry Report, published by Silicon Valley Bank and authored by Rob McMillan, provides a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of current conditions in the U.S. wine market. Built on more than 25 years of industry research, the report combines results from SVB’s annual winery survey, its Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) survey, demographic and cohort consumption modeling, and a wide range of third-party wholesale, retail, and population datasets. The conclusion is clear: while the industry continues to face structural headwinds, wineries are not experiencing these conditions equally. A widening performance gap has emerged between those adapting to changing demand and those struggling to do so. 2025 Performance: A Difficult Year for Many By nearly every measure, 2025 was a challenging year for the U.S. wine industry. Roughly half of the surveyed wineries rated the year negatively, citing slowing demand, rising costs, margin pressure, and inventory ch