The Wine Sales Symposium has a great lineup of speakers with knowledge to share across a wide spectrum of wine sales and marketing topics, but the conference sessions are only one part of the insights available at the symposium; just as valuable is the chance to meet and have one-on-one conversations with the experts and vendors at the symposium. It’s an opportunity to dive deeper, to learn how others are seeing and dealing with the challenges that you share, and to learn about the newest solutions and best practices being developed.

Here are a few suggestions for topics to explore and people to engage in conversation at the Wine Sales Symposium.

Optimizing Your eCommerce, POS and WineClub

The software you chose to run your eCommerce, club and other sales through can have a big impact on how those channels perform, how you can engage your customers, and what it costs you in time and money. Not every winery has the same needs; there are many solutions on offer, and it’s worth exploring which best fulfills your business needs.

There will be eight vendors at the symposium offering solutions in this space, which presents an excellent opportunity to get an understanding of what sets them apart from one another, but also to learn about what sales approaches their clients are having the most success with and how you might adopt them too.

These vendors have built up a lot of expertise in their specialized field and are using it to support their clients. For example, Tracy McArdle COO/eCellar writes about what you can do to reduce friction and close the sale, meanwhile vinSuite has developed a predictive analytics platform that forecasts club churn and allows wineries to act in time pre-empt it, and at a webinar last month Wix showcased how wineries can grow their revenue by adding multiple revenue streams.

Exhibitors:
Active Club Solutions, Bottle360, Corksy, OrderPort, Vinoshipper, vinSuite, Vintiga, Wix

Implementing New AI Solutions to Sell More Wine

The speed of development in this space can make it daunting to start implementing, which is why two of the sessions at the symposium focus on AI, addressing both how your customers’ use of AI impacts your marketing, and case studies on how wineries are adopting AI solutions to improve their marketing.

AI tools and capabilities are being built into most modern software solutions, and in addition to the cross purpose AI chatbots, there are wine industry specific tools being built to help with specialized winery challenges like WineSpot’s customer experience platform that can reduce communications workloads by up to 60%.

The vendors in AI tend to be passionate and deeply knowledgeable. If you want to achieve more with the help of AI, do yourself a favor, sit in on the sessions, and go have a conversion with these exhibitors.

Exhibitors:
PolyAI, VinterActive, WineSpeak.ai, WineSpot

Next Level Shipping and Fulfillment 

The bar has been raised when it comes to consumer expectations of product delivery, speed, reliability and flexibility. Check out WineShipping’s session on how leading wineries are intentionally designing the post-purchase experience to drive repeat business, and then talk to the four shipping and fulfillment specialists at the symposium to see who would be the best partner for you.

Exhibitors:
Copper Peak Logistics, Via.Delivery, WineCare Logistics, WineDirect Fulfillment, Wineshipping

Cutting-Edge Marketing, Analytics and Communications

When you want to sell more wine; what is the right message at the right time? What’s the best channel or media for different types of messages? How do you find out who you should be targeting, and what can be automated or AI enhanced? There is a broad range of answers and solutions to address these questions, and many of them stack and enhance each other.

RedChirp, the leader in winery text message marketing, will share their insight on The Future of Winery Messaging at the symposium, and they also integrate with various other solutions to enhance your communications like how texting and AI can improve your winery customer support.

Bodie Paden, the founder and CEO of Digimatic, shared his insights in an article on how to Supercharge Your Abandoned Carts and will be presenting a session on improving the ROI on your email marketing.

Exhibitors:
Enolytics, Hipmaps, PolyAI, RedChirp, VinterActive, WineSpeak.ai, WineSpot

Elevate the Experience Through Hospitality, Merchandize and Gifting

Some of the most powerful tools for creating lasting relationships with your consumers are through in-person experiences, personalized engagement and tangible things. That’s why tasting rooms have long been the biggest source of loyal club members, but the traditional hospitality model is challenged by shifting consumer behavior. Two of the symposium sessions focus on understanding the new consumer preferences around hospitality and how to design experiences that attract them.

Evgeny Bazhutov, Founder & CEO / WineSpot AI, draws on his experience in the restaurant business shared advice for wineries on how to shape the customer journey and experience to bring in more people and make them into loyal consumers. Meanwhile, RedChirp and WISE have partnered to help wineries capture guest data, so you don’t miss the opportunity to follow up on the personal experience to make a lasting connection.

Gifting and merchandize can also be powerful ways for your brand to be part of your customers’ lives and reach new customers. In another symposium session, Jackson Family Wines shares practical steps on creating a successful corporate gifting program, like they have done in partnership with WineDirect Fulfillment.

Exhibitors:
Almaden, Embzone, High Camp, League and Legacy by L2 Brands, Torn Ranch, Zest

The Business of Wine from CRM to ERP

The symposium is about selling wine, it’s not easy in the current market, and your business depends on it, but you also need to have a broader understanding of business operations to understand what’s truly working, what’s profitable, what’s too costly, and where the risks are. There will be a handful of vendors at the symposium that can help you get clarity and improve your business operations.

Exhibitors:
360Winery, Azmera, Claret, Heffernan Insurance Brokers, Wix

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See a full list of the speakers, experts and vendors you can meet at the Wine Sales Symposium.
The symposium is one day only, and we hope you will make the most of it.