VinterActive Generates 17% Click-Through Rates For Its Winery Clients

20 years ago, Bryan St. Amant founded VinterActive, LLC to help wineries profit from direct marketing best practices. 

His time in Silicon Valley taught him the value of preference-based marketing, and he put those principles to work helping wineries.

Although Bryan and VinterActive started out using email marketing to reach their clients and help them communicate with customers, he recognized the potential in text marketing early and took action.

The Changing World of Wine Marketing

The wine industry’s go-to sales model changed drastically after the pandemic. Pre-COVID, the majority of all wine selling was done in-person, with tastings and events held on site at each winery.

Most wineries didn’t focus on online marketing until there was no other option. 

Fast forward twelve months and the wine industry has embraced digital marketing. Most wine sellers started with virtual tastings and, after growing their contact lists, began to look for better ways to reach out.

That’s where VinterActive and SMS marketing came into play.

How VinterActive Got Started With Text Marketing

As a marketer, Bryan says he’s agnostic when it comes to communication methods. His priority is what’s going to work best for the clients he’s working with. 

After doing research, Bryan realized that texting is the future. As much as he and the VinterActive team love email, the low conversion rates weren’t going to cut it. 

Partnering With SimpleTexting

After adopting SimpleTexting for themselves and seeing how powerful texting can be, the VinterActive team decided to join SimpleTexting’s Partner Program so they could drive results for their customers and receive a 15% commission on all referrals. 

"When I reached out to SimpleTexting, you reached back, and you’ve got…people that are committed to the success of partners."

Bryan St. Amant

Founder

Their main mission as a SimpleTexting partner is to help their customers text and take advantage of convenient features like automations. 

According to Bryan, “We saw an opportunity to move from concept to implementation quickly. There’s some partnerships that were never able to do this successfully…With SimpleTexting, we’ve got the benefit of world class developers that are moving quickly at a faster rate than a company that focuses only on the wine industry.”

So, the big question is, how are VinterActive’s clients putting SMS to work?

The Result: Sky-High Conversion and Click-Through Rates

VinterActive’s first customers since the launch of their customized process are seeing impressive results with texting. 

One winery in South Dakota has a list of 130,000 contacts. Not only do they send transactional messages like online sales confirmations and shipping updates, they’ve reported back that customer communication is now easy and effective.

Another client, a large Napa Valley winery, started out with one-on-one texting. They added eight sales reps onto their account and now use texting to reach out to wine club members to build a concierge-like relationship with them.

Other clients are generating click-through rates as high as 17% and 10% conversion rates on their texts, and for VinterActive, text marketing has been responsible for driving sales in the last half of 2021.

As far as bringing new wine industry clients into the text marketing world, Bryan often answers the same three easy questions:

• Is it affordable?
• Does it work for the wine industry?
• Can I use it with wine industry ecommerce platforms like WineDirect and Commerce7?

Once the client hears a “yes” to each question, they’re sold. 

Want To See The Same Results?

Partnering with SimpleTexting was a game-changer for Bryan and the VinterActive team.  The best part is that when you partner with us, we’re there every step of the way to help you build the tools you need to succeed in your unique business and industry.

We love to see creativity and we’re excited to customize our partnership to make your vision a reality. Ready to get started? Reach out to partner@simpletexting.net and tell us about your organization.