5forests

The wine industry is the focus of 5forests, a marketing agency whose early clients were independent lifestyle and luxury brands, and which now reports ten years of work with wineries. Its aim is to help wineries grow direct-to-consumer sales, and it works through three offers: wine marketing, winery websites and growth strategy.

The usual problems in a winery's sales

The firm's work starts from common symptoms. A website gets visits but few bookings, club joins or purchases. Tasting room reservations fall and calendars have gaps. Wine club tenure shrinks while quarterly churn creeps up. Direct-to-consumer revenue levels off, a site is not accessible to every visitor, or the marketing budget is not paying back. Some wineries come to the firm after one of these problems appears, and others come because they want to grow faster than they can alone.

Winery websites that guide visitors to action

On websites, the firm optimizes sites around actual customer journeys, removes friction from the purchase process and designs experiences that lead visitors toward a booking, a club join or a purchase. Accessibility work makes a winery's site usable by more visitors. Commerce7 is a particular area of skill, and the firm handles website development and upkeep on that platform.

Tasting room and wine club work

Tasting room marketing aims to bring in qualified visitors who book ahead, understand the wines and go on to join the club or buy by the case. Club work looks at why members leave and works on the member experience to keep them.

Growth strategy tied to revenue

Growth strategy is tied to revenue rather than activity for its own sake. The firm says it starts by understanding what is actually happening in a business, then builds systems designed to grow with it, and it stays on as a long-term partner. Channels are chosen for the way wine consumers discover and book, rather than for every marketing channel on offer.

Experts who lead the work

The firm says it brings more than ten years of wine expertise and keeps that expertise in-house, running each project itself rather than handing it to outside contractors. It works for wine brands across North America, Europe and Australasia, from long-established estates to newer wineries.