Wines & Vines

AUGUST NEWS Oregon sets rules for winery events  Modeling Membership Behavior Benchmarking 75% 50% 25% 0% Average wine club 0 10 20 Membership time (months) 30 40 Hanging on to Wine Club Members SONOMA RESEARCH ASSOCIATES Probability of remaining a member 100% Process established for local approval S alem, Ore.—Oregon lawmakers passed legislation that clarifies what kind of winery events are allowed in the state and what approvals are required. The new legislation appears likely to curb instances of wineries butting heads with their local officials regarding what's permitted on farmland as the state's wine industry has grown and wine country become more popular. Once Customer data can help identify drop-out trends signed into law by Oregon Gov. John Kitzha- R the state complete freedom to host marketing ohnert Park, Calif.—If you have a good idea of who your average wine club member is (age, gender and buying habits), then you'll have a better chance of convincing him or her not to leave your club. That was the key message from direct-to-consumer sales experts at a forum held June 20 at Sonoma State University. Understanding more about your existing customers can also help you target new wine buyers as well. Richard Kline, founder and CEO of eWinery Solutions, said winery staff need to keep tabs on who is joining wine clubs and collect as much information as possible about those customers. Kline said a club manager should also track members to see winesandvines.com what typically preLearn more: Search keywords cedes someone drop"Club tracking." ping out of a wine club. Such hints could include when club members haven't visited the winery for six months or haven't made any recent purchases. When a manager sees such warning signs, that should prompt him or her to make a call or send out a special email offer and try to retain those customers. "You can predict the future by looking at the past," he said. "The data is in your hands." He said club managers should also be looking at the characteristics of their new members for proactive marketing. "You've got to have an open mind to go find those patterns," he said, adding that wineries should be acquiring information about their customers through their tast18 W in e s & V i ne s AU G U ST 20 13 ing room, website, social media and periodic surveys. Joining Kline at the forum was Ahin Thomas, co-founder and president of Vintners Alliance, which manages and builds ecommerce for its winery clients. Thomas and Kline both mentioned companies that help other businesses with customer-relations management. Rapleaf will take a company's email list and, using public data, find as much information about each person as possible. It will then run that data through algorithms and validate it for 90% accuracy. Xobni (that's inbox spelled backwards) will comb through your email to find everyone you've contacted to build a "smart" email list that draws on public information such as social media feeds. Thomas said the consumer that purchases wine through a club or direct from the website is a rare breed and something to be coveted. "It's really hard to find them, and when you do, you don't want to let them go," he said. Dr. Steven Cuellar, a Sonoma State economics professor who studies consumer behavior in the wine industry, said he's developed an analytical model that he thinks the industry could use to understand club behavior and eventually optimize member lifetime and value. Cuellar used "survival analytics" to develop the model and said he's had some preliminary discussions with eWinery Solutions to use their data to glean some wine club benchmarks for the industry. —Andrew Adams ber, the legislation will give wineries across events while limiting "agri-tourism or other commercial events" to just 18 days per year. Willamette Valley wineries, popular destinations for special events, require a renewable five-year license from local governments for the first six event days. Special approval—and administrative review—applies for seven or more event days to ensure wineries have addressed local concerns ranging from attendance to traffic, noise and waste management. "It's more restrictive, but it creates a clear line of what's involved and establishes a process for wineries to go through to get approval," explained attorney Elaine Albrich, an associate of Stoel Rives LLP in Portland, Ore. "You have to be a lot more aware of the people around you and the other activities going on around you," said Harry Peterson-Nedry, founder of Chehalem Wines in Newberg, Ore., and president of the Willamette Valley Wineries Association. The association championed the state Senate bill together with the Oregon Wine Growers Association, the Southern Oregon Winery Association and the Winegrowers Association of Central Oregon, with members giving the final bill 85% approval. —Peter Mitham

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