Marketing for a wine brand is both an art and a science. It requires a deep understanding of your product, your audience, and the competitive landscape, along with a creative approach to storytelling and promotion–not to mention a keen grasp of the most recent wine marketing trends. In this guide, we’ll share some of the most recent universal marketing trends as well as trends specific to the wine industry so you can generate more brand awareness, increase sales, and gain a competitive edge in this highly saturated market.

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What's New in Marketing?

The marketing world is known for being in constant flux, riding the waves of emerging trends and cutting-edge technologies. While many of these trends prove to be one-hit wonders, some of them take hold and become staples of the marketing world. Here are some marketing trends that we anticipate won’t be going away any time soon.

Artificial Intelligence

One of the hottest trends in marketing right now is not a strategy but a tool: artificial intelligence. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November of 2022, marketers have been increasingly utilizing generative AI to make their marketing strategies more robust. 

Generative AI can be used in a wide variety of applications, from content creation to user personalization, chatbots, and more. Though AI still has a long way to go, marketers are leveraging this advanced tool to help them automate processes and stretch their marketing dollars further. We recommend that brands look into generative AI as a support tool in their wine marketing strategies.

Social Responsibility

In the past few years, consumers have become incredibly conscious of who they buy from. Millennial and Gen Z consumers especially want to see companies take a stance on current social issues and be transparent about their efforts to remain accountable to the public. Alcohol brands aren’t exempt from this expectation, though they should consider the values of their base audience when taking this route.

Mobile Optimization

As of May 2023, mobile traffic accounted for 67.81% of all internet traffic. Mobile optimization remains crucial as more consumers access websites and make purchases via mobile devices, especially millennials and Gen Z consumers. With the growing disparity between mobile and desktop traffic, brands cannot afford to neglect mobile optimization for their websites any longer. Smart wine brands should make mobile optimization priority number one if they haven’t already done so.

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5 Wine Marketing Trends to Try Right Now

The wine industry is highly saturated, but there are wine marketing strategies at your fingertips to help you gain a competitive edge. Here are some of the hottest wine marketing trends to try right now.

1. Micro-Influencer Marketing

Brands partnering with social media influencers isn’t a new concept. Influencer marketing is essentially word-of-mouth marketing amplified to a much wider, engaged audience. Though partnering with macro influencers (accounts with up to 1 million followers) can be difficult and expensive, micro-influencers present a much more lucrative opportunity for small to medium-sized wine businesses.

Micro-influencers tend to have 1,000-10,000 followers, owning a much smaller audience than macro-influencers. However, micro-influencers tend to have a much more engaged audience than macro-influencers, not to mention charge far less for sponsored content. Research shows that micro-influencers generate up to 60% more engagement for brands than macro-influencers. If your brand hasn’t yet partnered with influencers as part of your wine marketing strategy, consider starting with micro-influencers first and watch for the payoff.

2. Shoppable Product Pages

The wine industry is growing more and more within the e-commerce sphere. The share of e-commerce wine sales in the U.S. grew from 0.3% in 2018 to nearly 3% in 2022 and shows no signs of slowing. In light of the changing landscape, wine brands need to outfit their websites to support online purchases.

Creating shoppable product pages is key for an e-commerce website and a fantastic wine marketing strategy. Product pages are designed to provide information about a specific product, including product photos, reviews, and creative copy describing the product in detail. The aim of a product page is to prompt customers to make a purchase, which is why customers should be able to purchase products directly from these pages.

Learn more: 7 Must-Haves of a Successful Product Landing Page (+ Examples) 

3. Product Locators

Unless your wine brand is 100% online, don’t neglect to promote in-store sales with your wine marketing efforts. A product locator is a simple yet highly effective way to drive in-store sales at both proprietary and retail locations. 

Incorporating a product locator is a customer-centric approach that can improve user experience, increase sales, and strengthen the brand's presence in the market. It is especially valuable for wine brands with a broad distribution network or those looking to expand their reach. 

A product locator provides a convenient way for customers to find where a specific product is available for purchase, which improves their overall experience with the brand. Customers can quickly and easily identify nearby retailers or distributors. By helping customers find the nearest location to purchase their products, wine brands can potentially increase sales. When customers know where to find a specific wine, they are more likely to make a purchase.

A product locator can also serve as a valuable tool for collecting data on customer preferences and location-based trends. Brands can analyze this data to make informed marketing and distribution decisions. Wine brands can use the product locator to target specific geographic areas for promotions or marketing campaigns. It allows them to direct customers to stores or restaurants that carry their products in those areas.

The Grappos Product Locator carries all the above benefits–and more. Best of all, our team takes full responsibility for managing data updates and customization, which means you don’t have to learn any new software. Consider it an easy win for your marketing team.

Request a Product Locator demo →

4. Video Content

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube shorts have become increasingly popular platforms for marketers as a large number of Millennial and Gen Z consumers spend a considerable amount of time on these apps. Most of these platforms have also adopted an algorithmic feed that circulates content to users who don’t follow your account, extending your brand’s reach far beyond your owned audience.

The challenge? User attention spans are growing shorter and shorter, especially when it comes to branded content. Alcohol brands have the additional challenge of content restrictions on these platforms. The good news is that this massive audience can be reached with the right video content strategies.

Alcohol brands should keep video content short, fast-paced, humorous, and informative. TikTok allows accounts to reply to comments with videos, which means you can knock out engagement and new content with one video. In short, don’t leave out videos in your wine marketing strategy.

Check out JoeTheWinemaker on TikTok for inspiration.

5. Creative and Informative Blog Content

Google has long been the authority on search, prompting websites to engage in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in order to appear higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). In a rather recent change, Google has eliminated page-based results and is instead focusing on an endless scrolling option. While this presents more opportunities for brands who struggled to reach page one of SERPs, the changes don’t end there.

Most SERPs now include a featured result and People Also Asked (PAA) section at the very top of results that includes snippets of high-performing content. Brands are now clamoring to be featured in these categories, though doing so requires EEAT content–content that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. 

Now is a great time for wine brands to lean into content marketing. With tools like generative AI at their disposal, wine brands can quickly generate content ideas and outlines that they can then use as springboards to create informative content that can potentially be featured in PAA and featured results.

Final Thoughts on Wine Marketing Trends

By staying agile and utilizing wine marketing trends to your advantage, your brand should see positive results. Don’t forget to stay true to your brand values and stay focused on your target audience along the way. Consistency, authenticity, and a commitment to quality are key to building a successful wine brand in the long term–these wine marketing trends are the tools you’ll use to get there.

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