But if you aren't using email marketing to support your website you may be missing out on a key ingredient to online winery marketing success.

Here's how.

In the early days, your website became an extension of your brochures. It was full of information. Which is good, because information is often what people are looking for online. The quest for information is what made Google big.

Over time, smart wineries learned they could put up an online store using ecommerce software and make actual orders from their website. Often not enough attention was paid to this channel and shipping restrictions made ecommerce tricky but again, many wineries have done a nice job.

In my industry research, though, I have found one thing to be surprisingly true. After reviewing over 500 winery sites, most are not taking advantage of email as a means to promote their product.

Imagine only being able to describe wine in relation only to itself. There is so much more richness being able to pair wine to food and have the flavors of each assist the other.

Email winery marketing is like adding a food pairing.

A website visitor who finds your site, likes what they see, and reads enough to become interested in placing an order becomes a customer. However, over 98% of visitors leave your site . . . and never return.

The first step to successful email winery marketing is to collect an email address - called an 'optin' from a visitor. In order to do that you have to have a reason for a person to leave an email address. You have to use that email address with respect and build a relationship over time with the subscriber. What would it mean to you if 10% of all of your website visitors left you with an email address? Ten people you now know for every 100 website visitors.

Over time you would have quite a list of subscribers.

Once you have that list, you have to communicate with them about the things that THEY would find interesting. What do they want from you?

You'll soon find that this list of subscribers slowly starts to buy product from you and they too become customers.

And really, a growing customer list is a key asset no winery can ignore. If you are not doing email marketing well, you are missing out on a key marketing channel that will grow your profits.