Do you really know who your customers are? When it comes to selling wine, it is easy to think that your customer is anyone who drinks wine. But, that’s not necessarily the case. Wine can actually be a pretty personal choice – some buy for cost, others it’s loyalty to a certain region, grape or winery, sometimes a decision is based solely on the label design. See where I am going with this?
To successfully sell your wine and build a following, you must first take time to define your customer. This allows you to created tailored messaging and content that will not only reach your target, but also resonate with them. How? It all starts by defining your ideal customer.
The importance of narrowing down your audience
Plain and simple, there is no way to create a message about your brand that will speak to everyone. Anyone that drinks wine makes up a massive audience. Think about it for a second, it includes everyone from the freshly turned 21 who want to go wine tasting to celebrate, to the seasoned wine drinker. These two audiences alone are so vastly different, it is almost impossible to create one message that will get both of them interested in your wine.
Taking the time to drill down and define your ideal customer helps you create a message that will resonate with your customers. The first step into getting to know your ideal customer is by creating a customer persona.
What is a customer persona?
A customer persona is a generalized description of your ideal customer. Now this will take a little work, but you basically need to sit down and write out every detail about the audience you are trying to reach.
The Forbes article, How To Identify And Speak To Your Customer Personas, offers a great list of questions you should ask yourself when creating your ideal customer, things like age, marital status, how they spend their money, and everything in between.
Detailing out this information will help you with everything from what you should put on your website, how you should set up your eStore (if you have one) and what marketing channels you should use.
Ready to get started?
It can seem overwhelming at first, but taking the time to really outline who your customer is will pay off in the long run. I find it works best to work with another person when create a customer persona, whether it be a coworker, spouse, friend, marketer (like me!), etc. Having a sounding board and getting another perspective goes a long way into really getting to know who will not only buy your wine but become loyal to your brand.
The Splendid Grape 