Mistakes People Make When Opening a Winery

Having your own winery sounds romantic, but the business side of wine can easily overwhelm people. While it’s important to create sustainable wine labels, remember that having a keen business sense will help people hear your message. Discover a few mistakes people make when opening a winery so you can avoid them.

Not Focusing Enough on Marketing

If you love wine, owning your own vineyard might sound like a dream. Who wouldn’t want their name on a wine label? However, a lot of new winery owners get too excited about the wine itself and forget about branding. If no one knows who you are, you’ll have trouble selling wine, and money is what keeps your winery’s doors open.

As you make your winery business plan, be sure to budget for things like branding and marketing. Bring in professionals to design a winning logo that tells people who you are and what you stand for. Make your ethics and vision part of the story you tell on social media. Give out customized winery swag to visitors.

Forgetting To Sell Wine in Stores

When most people decide to open a winery, they imagine spending their days talking about wine with patrons in their tasting room. However, that’s not where most of your sales will come from. If you want to make more money, you need to get your wine into local stores. Talk to the grocery stores, boutiques, and local mom-and-pop stores in your area that sell alcohol.

If you don’t sell your wine in stores, you’ll only make money when people come all the way out to your tasting room. If you haven’t invested in a good marketing plan, people may never hear about you.

Trying To Appeal to Everyone

There are many types of wine drinkers, and they all want different things. Even your price point could make some people avoid you—you’ll always be too expensive for some and too cheap for others. If you try to be everything for everyone, you’ll find it much harder to sell to a particular audience. Think about what you want to focus on with your wine, and determine your target demographic from there.

If you avoid these mistakes people make when opening a winery, you’ll already be ahead of the competition. Find a target audience, tell your story, and you’ll take the wine world by storm.