Episode Transcription

Ramin: All right everybody. Welcome back to another live episode of the E-Commerce Revolution podcast. This is episode number 27. I can't believe that we've gone 27. This is fantastic. I think we started this time last year, so it's awesome that we've come this far. Hopefully you all are enjoying the content and now that we're live, we're on the hot seat, right?

We can't, uh, we can't mess up. We gotta tell you things live on the spot. We are coming to you live on LinkedIn. YouTube, and now we're even doing. Uh, so after the end of the podcast, we will have replays available on all of those, uh, networks as well as some clips that we'll be pushing out through social media.

So, lots of information and especially this topic, we are really excited about this topic. Uh, thank you for tuning in. My name is Ramin. I'm one of the managing partners here at SKU Agency, and I am your host. And I might look a little different today. I've got, uh, got a beard going, uh, but let's see how long that.

All right, and before we get started, I just wanna let you know that we have a special webinar that we are doing in conjunction with Commerce seven this Wednesday, December 7th at TW at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, 12:00 PM Central Time, and 1:00 PM Eastern Time. It is all on the topic of how email marketing

all right, so lemme ask you a question. Who likes wine out there? I know, I do. I, I love wine. I think it's, uh, an amazing, amazing libation and enjoy it, uh, responsibly, of course. Uh, but, uh, what, let me tell you that today's episode is, All about wine, and specifically how wineries across the United States and even across around the world, uh, can be using the power of email marketing automation to skyrocket their direct consumer businesses.

From winery tasting rooms to wine clubs, email marketing is providing the most important retention and sales growth tool that wineries can use. Today's guest joins us from the top email marketing platform, Klaviyo. We love Klaviyo. We've had a lot of guests on from Klaviyo. It is awesome. We are big fans of what can be done with Klaviyo.

Our guest is an account executive at Klaviyo and is part of the team focused on the direct consumer email marketing initiatives for wineries and wine retailers. So I can't think of. Anybody else who's better to dig deeper with into this topic. So without any further ado, please welcome Michael Kon to the E-Commerce Revolution podcast.

Michael, awesome to have you here today.

Michael Kurson: Awesome. Thanks for having me on Ramin.

Ramin: Excited to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So what, what part of the world are you calling in? Same place. Everybody else from Klaviyo calls in.

Michael Kurson: We are right outside of Boston. Uh, yeah, so headquarters is in Boston. Uh, we've got team now, uh, in London, Australia, uh, west Coast as well.

So we've kind of got all the, the different, uh, hemispheres covered at

Ramin: this point. I love it. I love it. And, uh, as I mentioned, uh, we've had. Some really good guests from Klaviyo on. And, uh, every, you guys have always been very generous with your time coming on, talking about email marketing, SMS marketing, depending.

But today I'm really excited to talk to you about, uh, wine and how email marketing can really help wineries grow. And I think you and I met maybe two, three months ago and it's been a fast, fast process to get to this place. And we are, we are really excited to be talking about it. Just before we jump in, I, I'm curious what brought you to Klaviyo?

Tell me about your background in the, the alcohol beverage industry, you know, the, the progress that eventually led you to Klaviyo.

Michael Kurson: Sure. Uh, so, uh, back in 2016, I started a hard seltzer company, uh, so right around the time that White Claw and, and truly launched, uh, have had some experience in the beverage space and teamed up with one of my childhood friends to start that company.

And we ran that company for about three and a half, four years. Um, and so it was an awesome experience, right? I learned so much about the alcohol industry and, uh, the business model behind it. It became something that, you know, I was passionate about. And throughout that process, we kind of watched the evolution of how alcohol could be sold online, right.

With newer age products. Uh, and even looking at like wineries, uh, and things like that, right? And so when we finally decided like, Hey, we're gonna wind this down. There was a lot of competition. We had some. Operational challenges, but, uh mm-hmm. ultimately, you know, I was very passionate about the ability to, uh, personalize at scale and really understand different customers in their different parts of the journey.

And, you know, for that three and a half years, like the data that I was able to see and the, the things that I was able to learn and understand about my customers was very much person to person, right? Sitting in an alcohol store, giving out samples, meeting with the distributor, what locations or areas might.

Uh, but Klaviyo kind of takes the hood off of that and allows you to see really on another scale and level how are people engaging with you online. And so once we've gone down, uh, the hard seltzer company, it was kind of a natural evolution into working in Klaviyo and being able to understand personalization at scale and be able to communicate with people, you know, based on where they're at in that customer journey.

And so that's what really attracted me. Klaviyo is a company. Um, you know, since I've been here, we've grown pretty considerably over the last mm-hmm. , uh, couple years and yeah. Um, you know, ultimately that's what got me into this, uh, this winery project was because of my previous experience, uh, in the alcohol space and kind of marrying the two together.

Ramin: So, and, and wine, as we, as we've discussed, is a very, and wineries, uh, specifically are very important, uh, to Klaviyo. Klaviyo seems to be very focused, uh, in this market in a, in a lot of other markets as well. But this is, uh, and, and, and we love that passion in there. Uh, just how did that, you know, is how big is that team, uh, focused on, on the, the winery?

Michael Kurson: small team, uh, but it's a focus team. So we've got our strategic partnership team behind it. We've got, uh, me as an account executive, so I actually work. Customer facing with a lot of these brands. And then we have some third parties as well. So, um, SKU Agency is a great agency that's working specifically with wineries, thank you to, you know, build up their platforms.

We also have our systems integrator and, uh, big shout out to Bodie from Digimatic, who several of the wineries and I'm sure are going to watch this or are watching this are familiar with. So he's from Digimatic uh, and built out the integration between Commerce seven, which is a popular wine. Uh, and Klaviyo and it's an awesome integration.

Um, you know, we've seen a ton of brands have success on it, but, uh, Bodie's been an integral partner. With us on the technical side and really kind of set all of this up for success.

Why Email Marketing Is Important For Wineries

Ramin: So yeah, no, we, we, we love, love Bodie. He's the one who led us to you, uh, and has been so helpful in us, you know, really getting, you know, up to speed, bringing our expertise in the email marketing side of things and really applying it to the winery, uh, the winery world.

So that's, that's awesome. And, uh, appreciate you giving a plug. And we just put up a, uh, screenshot of his, uh, his site, um, and obvious. , a very important component in is having that integration, uh, specifically with platforms like Commerce Seven and making sure Klaviyo works and is integrated tightly, and that is what his software does.

So that, that's great. So tell me, you know, uh, you know, tell us, you know, why a, uh, winery, why does it, why is it so, why is email marketing so important to winery? Why should they really put that If they're not doing it, why should they make it very, I. . Yeah.

Michael Kurson: I, I think it's a good question, and I think I'm gonna take a half a step backward, and that I think will help us get to a, a strong answer there, which is, I think that the first piece of this, right, is understanding and unifying customer data.

Mm-hmm. , so wineries have so many different channels that they're engaging with and interacting with their customers on, right? So someone might go to a winery and visit that winery and do a tour. They might go into the tasting room and buy product. They might buy that product at their local liquor store.

Uh, they might order that product directly off of the website. There's so many different channels that people can engage on. Mm-hmm. . And so I think, you know, to have a really strong and effective email marketing, um, strategy, which I'd really like to call like a communication strategy, you have to understand where and when all of these customers are engaging.

Right. And so that's the first piece of Klaviyo that's super important, which is through Bodie's integration, we pull over all of the relevant metrics in a very easy and seamless way so that you can understand as a winery, like how are people engaging, right? And so you can see things like how much money has a customer spent with you?

How frequently do they shop with you? , are they a member of the wine club where they once a member of the wine club and all of these really important metrics that help you determine what bucket or what stage that, uh, customer or uh, wine club member is in. And then you can use all of that information, right?

Partnering with a team like yours at sku, um, or some of the ones that we have on the platform.

Ramin: Oh, looks like we

Michael Kurson: got a little, I actually built this there themselves as well. Mm-hmm. , quick pause there. You want, do you want me to read that last piece? . No, no. Keep going. We're roll with it. Okay. We're good. Cool. Uh, sweet. So, uh, being able to use that information to communicate in a personal way at scale mm-hmm.

right? So you can say, Hey look, we wanna reach out to everyone who's on our wine club. We wanna set up automated customer journeys to engage with people after they've visited our tasting room or gone on a winery tour. And these are the types of journeys and communications that have really helped wine.

Understand and leverage that data and communicate with it. Yeah,

How Wineries Can Get Started With Email Marketing

Ramin: no, that, that's great. Well, tell me if I, if I'm new, if I'm a winery and I'm very new to the email marketing world, maybe I've sent out a blast here and there, uh, but I'm really not using it. What do you suggest? Where do I start? And, and I've heard this name Klaviyo.

It's starting to pop up in my, in my world. What would you suggest to, for me to just get started so I can take advantage of what's happening? Yeah,

Michael Kurson: good question. So may, maybe I can give a little bit of an overview about Klaviyo. Mm-hmm. . So Klaviyo, uh, has been around for about eight years now and, uh, we have over a hundred thousand brands on the Klaviyo platform, combination of Shopify and Big Commerce and WooCommerce, and now Commerce Seven, which we've had an integration with for a little bit over a year now.

Um, and basically, um, the reason that we exist and the reason that so many brands use our. Is because of the return on investment that they see on this channel, right? Email marketing typically makes up about 30% of overall revenue online and can typically increase total online revenue by 15 to 29% when moving from a basic platform that maybe sends out campaigns to a platform like ours where you can use things like segmentation, automated customer journey.

And targeted campaigns. Uh, again, kind of scaling out that content in a more personal way that matches the stage and the journey that these people are at. So I think those are some light numbers and a light overview of what Klaviyo is, why we exist, and how we help, uh, you know, our customers really generate.

Additional revenue and help them communicate at scale with their customers.

Ramin: Hmm. Okay. Um, you know, a as we've started, you know, into this, uh, into this world and really started help, uh, helping wineries, uh, get up and running with email marketing, you know, admittedly, and, and, you know, listen, we, we love Klaviyo.

We're, you know, Klaviyo shop. That's how we always been. But admittedly, We find a lot of wineries are using MailChimp and some are using Constant Contact and they're not even integrated in some situations. Uh, like that, you know what, what, at the end of the day, you know, what makes you know the transition?

You know, if I, if I'm a winery and using another platform, I potentially may be intimidated to make this happen. Make this jump over to Klaviyo. What can you tell the audience out there that would make them, you know, help them underst. , it's not that big of a, you know, it, it's not a huge jump. Right. It it, you're just moving to another place and really taking advantage.

I'd love to elaborate on that a little bit.

Michael Kurson: Yeah, absolutely. So, I, I think it starts with the integration and the way that Klaviyo is set up. Mm-hmm. . So we've built our platform at scale to allow small and large teams like to operate and leverage the, the platform fully. So the first piece of the. . It is super easy if you're in Commerce seven.

It's in the app store. It's a one click integration, and with that one click, you're gonna pull over all of your customer data into Klaviyo. Mm-hmm. . It's also gonna bring over your full product catalog, which is gonna allow you to make your email shoppable. Right. So let's talk a little bit about that piece right there.

Yeah. Bring over the data. Mailchimp is a list based system, and for sending out a campaign to your full. . It's actually a pretty effective tool. But when you want to take it a step further from sending out just campaigns to your full audience and you want to start to understand that data and create pockets of value and pockets of your different customer base that are engaging in different ways, Klaviyo's gonna allow you to do this because rather than being a list based system, we are a profile based system.

Mm-hmm. . So for example, if Ramin is a customer of your winery and he's in the wine club and he's visited in the last three, And he is purchased a pinot, a syrah and a chardonnay. Ramin is gonna have his own profile in Klaviyo. That on a timeline basis, is gonna show you what Ramin has done and when, what Ramin has engaged with and what he's opened and clicked from an email perspective when he's actively on the site and what products he might be interested in based on what he's viewing.

And this all happens. , you don't need to have any technical prowess or resources to be able to do this or understand how that looks. Mm-hmm. , um, as mentioned, a lot of the brands that are on the Clay Deal platform today have built a lot of this out themselves, but I think the SKU Agency is an awesome resource that can help these brands connect everything together, find those pockets of value, and identify the strategy that's gonna create a really strong return on, in.

but I know that I'm getting a little ahead of the game. Very simple answer here is, yeah, pretty standard campaigns. Mm-hmm. , uh, Klaviyo's gonna allow you to really, you know, level up, uh, and, and reach out and communicate at scale in a more personal

Email Automation And Core Flows

Ramin: way. Yeah. You know, we always refer to it as modern day, uh, you know, email marketing.

Really at the end of the day, what Klaviyo brings to the table is that ability to have that, you know, leverage that modern day email marketing. Gone are the days where you just send out that blast to the whole list and. See what happens, right? That's not what, you know, that is definitely far from what Klaviyo Klaviyo does.

So, so much more, uh, than that. Uh, and we, we love it. And listen, we, we, we run across this all the time. You know, people give it a start on, on their own. They get started, they, you know, connect and they start building out. But what will we find? And you know, this is just, you know, from our, from our experience is that, uh, so much of Klaviyo's not leveraged in those scenarios.

And that's where, you know, an agency comes in and, you know, gets in there and really starts optimizing and testing and, and building out new flows. And so let, let's talk about flows a little bit cuz you know, this is really ultimately, you know, the, the world of. You know, aka a flows, uh, this is where the power is.

This is where I in, in our, from our experience. You know, one, one of the ways, and we'll talk about the, the other way in just a second, but just, you know, for those people who don't know what email automation is, I'll just give you a nice definition, okay. Is a way to create emails that reach the right.

People with the right message at the right moment without doing the work of setting up and sending an email every single time that blast, if you will. So from your perspective, you know, uh, talk, let's talk about these flows. What are some of the essential flows a winery should put in place immediately after connecting Klaviyo?

Yeah,

Michael Kurson: so I'll, I'll start at the top and then we can go into maybe some more winery specific. Typically the number one flow for any online business that's selling products direct to consumer is gonna be cart abandonment. Right. And that's when someone goes into the the store online. Mm-hmm. adds a product to their cart and doesn't end up checking out and buying that product.

And this would be an automated reminder that dynamically pulls in that product that was abandoned, sends them that email after a couple hours. Right. So you can set the timing on this and that's really important, right? You don't want that to go out immediate. Right. If someone makes a purchase within that first couple hours, the email actually won't be set.

Mm-hmm. . Um, but if they don't make that purchase, uh, typically we'll see about 11% conversion on a card abandonment email. And this would be a flow. So it'd be a first email that comes in dynamic product. And then if they don't make a purchase after 24 hours, we can actually send another follow up email that says, Hey, you've left this in your cart.

Come check it out. Mm-hmm. . Um, and people will then click on that button in the email. It will rebuild their. On their website through Commerce seven, and they'll be able to very quickly and easily make that purchase. That's great. Yeah. Uh, another excellent flow, uh, and this is a winery specific flow, um, is a replenishment flow.

Mm-hmm. so, so many of these awesome wineries, rather they'd be in California or Oregon or, um, you know, Washington state. They're, they're seeing like high traffic of people coming to their, their winery Right. Visiting, having that awesome experience, and then they go home from their vacation and there really isn't any communication to keep these people engaged.

Right, right. But for example, um, I went to Napa, uh, about four weeks ago and visited a couple of the wineries that are on Klaviyo and made a couple purchases at those tasting rooms. And now that I've been back for a couple weeks, I've gotten a couple emails that say, Hey, how did you like that Syra that you brought home or that you shipped home?

Nice. Would you like to reorder that product? Right? Yeah. This is a super effective way to turn that one-time visitor or two-time visitor into a repeat customer, which can then parlay into a potential wine club. .

Ramin: Yeah. I mean, it's almost outta sight outta mind. Like you may just forget about it. You may have enjoyed that wine.

Right? And then life happened and they're now reminding you about that experience. That's great. Great.

Michael Kurson: Um, so yeah, I'd say those are two of the core flows that the brands are using, uh, wineries are using. Uh, and then you have some other core ones as well, like a welcome series, right? Someone signs up for emails and they wanna learn more about the winery.

And this is a place where you can tell your winery story and then also promote some of maybe your new vintages. Mm-hmm. . So, yeah, I think there's a few core flows that brands are using, but I think there's so much more that can be unpacked. Mm-hmm. , um, whether it be testing out messaging, whether it be figuring out, uh, more intricate ways to communicate, whether it be breaking this down, uh, sure.

By cart value. Right. There's a lot that you can do here. Uh,

Ramin: In the crypto platform. No, that's great. And I, I appreciate those. And those are, you know, spot on. And you know, when we come into a scenario like this, yeah. We focus on the core flows immediately, uh, especially if they don't have anything at all.

And then from there, you know, as time goes on, you know, one, we're obviously optimizing those flows, trying to. You know, squeeze more out of those, uh, as much as possible. And then we get into a scenario where we're starting to look at the other flows. We're starting to bring other flows into the mix, but you have to have that core, that core can take you quite, you know, can take you pretty far, uh, for quite a while.

Uh, so that's great. We'll, let's talk campaigns because. You know, again, I, I, I don't like using the word blast out there because I think that's a very old school term. Uh, that's, you know, the old way of doing email marketing. Uh, you know, we taught campaigns and, you know, in, in some sense, campaigns are, you know, you, you can send to the entire list, but more so these days, campaigns, you know, these are.

What you're creating, you're creating these campaigns, sending 'em out, but you can send 'em out to segment segments, uh, and we'll talk about segmentation in a moment. You know, what's your take on, on the world of campaigns and some best practices that maybe wineries should be aware of when creating their campaigns.

Michael Kurson: Yep. Um, I think this is a really important topic, and I think, like you mentioned, campaigns and segments are kind of one and the same, right? Mm-hmm. similar to how, you know, Klaviyo using customer data to be able to personalize its scale. So, Um, when we look at campaigns, you know, a lot of brands are sending, a lot of wineries are sending full list campaigns, sending out a campaign to everyone who's on their list, you know, uh, happy Holidays, or it's Black Friday.

Cyber Monday could be a good example of maybe a message that you would want to send to everyone. Mm-hmm. . But then if you look at how you're messaging with people at scale, you typically want to break it down, right? You might wanna say, Hey, we wanna send out just an email. to the people that have spent a specific amount of money or more over the past year, but are not actively on our wine club.

Hmm. Or maybe we wanna send out an email to everyone who lives within 50 miles of the winery to invite them into a tasting event. Or perhaps we want to send, uh, an email to everyone who is on the wine club last year, but it's no longer on the wine club this year. To get them to try to reengage. Right. And to be able to do that, you have to be able to leverage all of that data that you're collecting very quickly and,

The way that we do this is through segmentation, right? It's click and point. There's no code involved. Uh, and it extrapolates out the results within a matter of minutes. Mm-hmm. , and then you can use these segments to actually message. and send campaigns to these different types of customers that you have.

Mm-hmm. . Right. And so when we look at campaigns in Klaviyo, uh, our most successful customers, our most successful wineries, are building out these segments of the different pockets of value and the different customers and the stages that they're in. Mm-hmm. . And then they're communicating with them with a little bit different messaging between.

Right. For example, you probably wanna send a different campaign to someone who's never shopped with you, compared to someone who's been in your wine club for three years and you're trying to promote your new vintage or to reserve a vintage of previous. Hmm. Yeah,

Ramin: that's good. Uh, what about, uh, and, and we get this question a lot.

I mean, you know that what you speak to, you're speaking to is very important. Uh, and, you know, some of the tech, the, the backend technicalities that you sh uh, every winery should be aware of when it comes to campaigns, but we. The question about what about the design? How important is design? How important is the look and feel of, of a, you know, how, what do I need to do there?

And, and what do you recommend? So what, what are your thoughts on design and, and, uh, what to do, um, uh, to make your design spot on for your brand? .

Michael Kurson: So I think there's a couple really great pieces here, which is Klaviyo's new template editor, which we released just a couple months ago, has global features. So for example, if you bring in your logo and your coloring and your design scheme, you can actually have that format perfectly and automatically to all of the flows and campaigns that are being set down, right?

So from a brand field stand, We give you those tools to be able to do that very successfully. Um, but then on top of that, and I think this is a core difference between, uh, you know, for example, a MailChimp or concept contact and clay deal, which is because of that integration, your whole product catalog is also going to sit in the email template editor.

So you can actually bring products right from your product catalog specifically into an. Which allows these brands, uh, which allows these customers rather to shop your emails and provide relevant information to them. Nice. Nice.

Email Campaign Frequency

Ramin: Um, and and what, what about, uh, uh, what about frequency? We get that question a lot too, and our answer always is, listen, we have to build out a campaign calendar.

We should know everything that your winery is doing. Is there, you know, just best practice, you know, on frequency of campaigns going out. Is there, is there a number that Klaviyo likes to. .

Michael Kurson: It's a good question. So, um, I wouldn't say there's a specific number, but I think that we build into our platform some parameters that make sure that you're not spamming people.

Right. Because that's always a big concern. Like, Hey, we don't want someone to receive three or four emails in the same day. Yeah. Right? And so what Klaviyo allows you to do, and we have a feature called Smart Send Time, which if you have a campaign that you want to reach everyone and you need it to reach everyone, you turn smart.

Send time. Same thing goes with flows. So you can actually rank which flows have the highest priority. For example, a card abandonment email typically has very high priority cuz it's a high conversion revenue type metric. Mm-hmm. . But, uh, there may be flows that aren't as important for people to get. And if they've already received a campaign within the last 12 or 18 hours, you actually don't want them to receive that message.

And so we build these parameters into the platform that make sure that you can control the message. , uh, and make sure that you're not overcommunicating, uh, with your customer.

SMS Wine Compliance

Ramin: Uh, that's Graham. I'm glad you mentioned the overcommunicating because that question also comes up a lot to you. I don't wanna send, I want to be, you know, very careful that we're not oversend and, and you know, the, our attitude always is, yes, we, we wanna be, you know, we wanna be careful.

But at the same time, you know, when you're sending, you know, the right message to the right person at the right time, you're not as concerned about, uh, that, you know, they're not, everybody's getting the same message and they're not all getting it at the same time. And again, If they wanna be on your list and you're giving them, you know, value, then there's something to be said about communicating with them.

Let's not be afraid to communicate with the customer. I think it's a, you know, very, very important rule to remember. Um, lemme talk about, uh, just, you know, our background, uh, you know, what led us ultimately to the, the winery world. There's a lot of research in the world of compliance, shipping, compliance, and all the rules that go along with it.

Is there anything that wineries need to be aware of or be concerned about when it comes to, you know, all, you know, the specific rules that certain states have as it relates to email, or is that just not really a, a, a concern? It's more on a shipping side. ,

Michael Kurson: it's, it's mostly on the shipping side. Mm-hmm. , and I think Congress seven does a phenomenal job of, of baking that into their platform and helping their customers and wineries, you know, manage that on the communication side.

Um, with email, there really isn't restrictions. Uh, with SMS though, there is a higher level of compliance required. Mm-hmm. , uh, and I can kind of speak towards this a little bit, but basically the carriers have determined that you need to have, uh, certain benchmarks to be able to send a text message to customers.

And what they've determined right now, and again, this is pretty fluid because SMS is a little bit of a newer channel than email, but what they've determined is that brands need to have age gating beyond just are you 21. To enter the site, you actually have to have an. SMS that goes out when someone signs up that asks if they're 21 and makes them provide their birthdate, that then gets synced into their profile.

Um, so currently, uh, brands are actually not able to use SMS on Klaviyo at the moment. However, we are working on that feature and expected to be out at some point in 2023. Um, so it's something that we're working on. Again, we don't have a definitive timeline, so I can't give you an exact answer on when that's.

But I would imagine that eventually we will have, uh, a feature offering to allow brands to use SMS and leverage all of that awesome data that's being leveraged on the email side and adding another communication channel there as well. , I think you

Email Segmentation

Ramin: just got a round of applause from everybody out there because s m s just keeps popping up, obviously outside of the wine, the winery world, you know, we get a lot of, a lot of questions.

We offer it as a service. Um, you know, we manage s m s for a number of clients, and especially now as we get into the winery world, that, that younger audience, right, the one that will probably communicate more via text message than they will via. That's who wineries really want to build that, start that relationship with right.

People who are over, over 21 years of old, 21 years of age, but that are, you know, yeah. They like their phones, , they're on their phones all the time and it's great to hear that you guys are working on a solution and that solution is, is around the corner, so to speak, and, uh, we can't wait. To get our hands on it and help wineries really leverage the power of, of email and SMS together, cuz that's where that power is.

It's not one or the other. It's working. It's for, you know, them working together in tandem, uh, is where we see a lot of, a lot of power. Um, Let's just ba go back to, to segmentation because, you know, we feel like, um, you know, there are two elements that we feel are, are, you know, incredibly important to email marketing, working really well.

One is email capture, right? You gotta capture, you gotta capture, uh, uh, you know, whether you're doing it at the tasting room, uh, in person or you're doing it on the site. So once you're, once you're done capturing, then comes, you know, these, the beautiful world of of segmentation, what recommendations would you give some, uh, give a winery?

Uh, to ask on that capture form or at in the tasting room that would help with segmentation. Is there anything that you would, uh, uh, you know, speak to? Yeah,

Michael Kurson: so we have native signup forms on Klaviyo. Mm-hmm. . These can either be popups that pop up when someone enters your site. Um, and because we have onsite tracking and because our integration with commerce seven is so deep, we could.

Understand. Is this person visiting your site, someone new, or is this someone who's already in your profile base? And therefore they won't see that pop up. So we make it a much more seamless process rather than pop up coming up every single time you visit. We also have embedded forms, which would be a capture form at the bottom of the website if someone wanted to sign up there.

I think the, uh, secondary piece to this, and a really important one is how do you capture at the actual winery mm-hmm. , and there's a couple ways you can do this, right? Someone places an order at the winery to send a shipment of wine home. They're gonna provide their email address for receipt. . Uh, but we also recommend using QR codes in the tasting room so that if someone wants to sign up for communications, they can do that.

And we have a couple, uh, QR code providers that natively integrate with cla. So if someone were to use that QR code, that profile would automatically come into our system. And not to go on too much of a tangent here, cause I think the collection piece is super important, but that integration partner piece is really important.

We have over 200 one-click integrations similar to what we have with Commerce seven across the technology stack. So whether it be reviews, loyalty, uh, you know, leave capture, like QR codes. Mm-hmm. , um, We have so many of these partners that have built awesome technology, and that data automatically gets added to the profile level like we showed you a little bit before, right?

Mm-hmm. , um, that can then be used for segmentation, right? Yeah, fantastic. It can also be used for Facebook or social media marketing, like Google Ads, right? So if you're running social campaigns on Facebook or Instagram and you're using the megapixel for lookalike audiences, It's pretty good. But the megapixel has kind of, uh, become a little bit less accurate since they changed some of their policies.

And you can actually use a free Facebook integration through Klaviyo, where you can make a live segment of your customer base and automatically pull those people into Facebook to market to them and use look like audiences of your actual customer base. So something that maybe we could talk a little bit about.

Um, an awesome feature that a lot of wineries are using to enhance their social media strategy as well.

How Much Revenue Can A Winery Make With Email Marketing?

Ramin: Yeah, that's fantastic. And, and I mean, maybe to speak to this, that they don't have to integrate, uh, that part doesn't have to integrate directly with Commerce Seven. Essentially, Klaviyo sits in the middle and is the, you know, is the, the data hub.

Um, and it allows that connection to happen. It allows you to leverage these other pieces of technology outside of the world of Commerce Seven, potentially that can help your sales within Commerce seven. So I, I love, you know, I, I think if, if anybody, you know, is catching onto this, you know, this is, this is powerful, powerful marketing.

This is, but not complicated. It doesn't, you know, it's not a complicated Yes. You know, an agency can, like ours can come in and really, you know, Expand this and grow this, but you know, you can get started with it as, as a, as a winery if you want to just get your feet in there and build a couple of simple flows, uh, out there and start sending your campaigns and then, you know, start seeing the effects.

Now let's talk about those. , the, the, the, maybe the ultimate question that gets asked, how much money am I gonna make using, uh, email marketing? What's, what's my revenue lift gonna be, you know, uh, can I afford your services SKU agency because of, uh, what you're doing? What are you seeing in general out there in terms of, of revenue lift?

Yep.

Michael Kurson: Uh, so to preface that we have, uh, a little bit over 30 brands from Commerce Seven now using gladio. That's up from two at the beginning of this year. Amazing. So it's really starting to gain some traction in the winery space. We're really excited about where the potential, um, you know, opportunity is here for wine brands to really leverage this.

Of the data, uh, set that we've, you know, collected so far. And again, it's not huge right? But it's impactful. Sure. Um, we're seeing about a 41%, uh, gladio attributed value, which means kios is generating about 40% of the online revenue for the wineries on our platform. And they are seeing on average a 58 x return on investment.

So that means for every dollar spent on Klaviyo, they're seeing about a $58 return

Ramin: on that investment. Which is amazing because I know there's a stat out there for that. You know, the general stat that for every dollar y uh, brands, just general brands outside of are making $42. But in the wine, in the winery, 58.

I mean, I, let's underline that. That is a, that is an amazing, if you just think about that, you just put in a dollar and you made $58, where are you gonna see that kind of return on investment? I, I. Not nowhere that I know of . So I think that's, it's just a strong return. Yeah.

Michael Kurson: Yeah. , absolutely. I think there's a couple reasons too, Ramin, right?

Like Yeah. Uh, wine wineries and wine in general is a little bit of a premium, more expensive good than you might find, you know, typically online. And so the cost of acquiring that purchase mm-hmm. Right. Has a massive return if you're selling really expensive goods. Yeah. And so a case of wine or a bottle of wine is typically going to yield a really strong return on Klaviyo, cuz the cost to use Klaviyo is still the same if you were selling a $5 product compared to Sure.

A hundred, 200

Ramin: product. . Yeah. Yeah. And just think of the, the customer lifetime value that can be gained utilizing email marketing and eventually down the road s m s marketing and being able to see that, uh, you know, C L T V grow and, you know, you're really building that relationship, growing that relationship, uh, with your customer and.

if they don't hear from you, they're not gonna come back. They're, they will forget about you potentially. Right? They'll get, you know, you gotta be there, you gotta be talking to them. There's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, noise out there and, you know, you gotta rise above that. So we love email marketing for that purposes and can't wait for the SMS marketing side to come in.

But make no mistake, email is, is not dead. It is thriving. It is thriving in this industry. and, you know, we love what it, what it can do. And we are, we're so appreciative that, uh, you know, Klaviyo is continuing to invest in the technology side, making, you know, our world, uh, you know, Better and better, and ultimately making the, the world of a winery even better so they can, uh, you know, they can grow, uh, which is the most important element.

So I appreciate it. Um, is there anything else specific to this that, you know, you'd like to mention just as we wrap up and before we move into the rapid fire, uh, side of things, maybe the more the lighthearted side of the questions. Anything

Michael Kurson: else you can pick? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I, I think to the piece about, you know, return on investment and mm-hmm.

you know, clay deal attributed. I think our cost structure is a really important thing to note as well. So we're month to month. We don't have any base fees in Klaviyo. You can actually go on your computer right now and sign up for a Klaviyo account for free and integrate commerce. Seven. Uh, the cost of the Commerce seven integration, at least at the time of this recording, is through Boi.

It's $50 the same as MailChimp, right? So from a cost perspective, you don't have to make a massive in. To be able to see your data in Klaviyo and see if it's gonna make sense for your winery right? On top of that, uh, we're month to month so there's no contracts involved, uh, to pay through a credit card.

This is an easy product to try out and see if it's gonna work for you. I will note, and this is probably the number that I'm most happy and proud of. Of the 30 plus wineries that have joined KLA over the past year, zero of them have left. Beautiful. Um, we're seeing a really strong return here. We're seeing brands really leverage the platform in a successful way.

Um, and I think that piece of data right there is a really important one. Yeah. Because it shows that brands. Don't wanna leave, even though they have an opportunity to leave every month.

Ramin: Sure. Yeah. No, that, that's, that speaks volumes and you know, all, you know, good, good to remember, you know, that, uh, you know, when retention is there, when, when a platform is doing what it says it's going to do, uh, that that's, you know, that, that is an.

Important element. Uh, so, you know, we'd love to see that too. And I think, you know what, you know, our clients get excited, you know, they look at the numbers when we have reporting calls, you know, every month, and we're showing, you know, continuous increase and we're showing all the ab testing that we've been able to do.

I mean, these are all things that matter to, to a brand and, you know, clients, they learn, they start to understand like, oh, okay, that's why that makes sense. And then they start comparing it to their other marketing platforms, which we're not saying stop anything else to do email marketing. In fact, you still need that top of the funnel, uh, traffic to come in.

So you still need to do other forms of marketing to drive traffic to the site, obviously to the, to the winery itself. You know, we just, uh, you know, we're very, we're very excited, uh, you know, to work with brands in the winery space to really see and, you know, bring that, uh, that uh, level of expertise and excitement.

Rapid Fire Questions

I think at the end of the day, I think that's, uh, you know, if I was a winery brand, I'd be very excited to see those kind of numbers. I'd wanna see 'em right away. Um, alright, so you ready to jump in and do a little, uh, a rapid fire, uh, as we wind this, uh, podcast down? Let's do it. All right. So what gets you excited to wake up and tackle the day each and every.

Michael Kurson: So, you know, I think, um, for me personally, I love to build things. So starting back in the hard seltzer space and now being at Klaviyo and having the opportunity to help build out this go to market for the wine. Mm-hmm. , uh, the winery space. Super exciting. Right? I love watching these brands grow. I love watching these new and innovative strategies that they're using.

And I love being able to make an impact on that too, right? Like being able to meet with these brands and um, speak with them and talk to them about their marketing strategy where things can be optimized, um, definitely gets me pretty excited. And, um, it's something that, you know, going into 23 I think is gonna be an, an awesome opportunity to keep growing on.

Ramin: Yeah. No, I love it. So what's your drink of choice to get you up in the morning?

Michael Kurson: Coffee. Hundred percent. Hundred percent? Oh yeah. Black hundred percent. Black. Black.

Ramin: Yep. Yeah, man. Yep. I think the stats, I mean, we should run stats. I think literally we're at 98% black coffee. Everybody . Really? Yeah. I think one, one person said a little oat milk, uh, and that was

That's when they went with that. So now I, and, and this is a, here's a question. I don't, I don't ever ask, uh, what's your favorite wine, but I may as well ask it now. ,

Michael Kurson: that's a tough question. Uh, wow. . So, um, my wife and I got engaged last year, uh, in Napa. Nice, nice. And the winery that we got engaged in, it's a very small winery car called Trace Perla.

So really delicious wine. Uh, highly recommend, but I think also very special, uh, place to us. So I'm gonna go with Trace Perlas.

Ramin: Okay. Very nice. I love it. I love it. And uh, anything specific over there or everything that they have is amazing.

Michael Kurson: Everything's really good. Their cabernet is awesome. Um, so you're able to get your hands on some cabernet from Perlas?

Definitely, definitely a good one.

Ramin: All right. Very cool. And we just put up a screen, uh, their, their website up on the screen, you can see. And a good example, uh, do you know if they're using Klaviyo?

Michael Kurson: They're not. They actually don't sell, uh, their products outside of the winery, so it's small. Interesting. Ok. I, yeah, I, uh, There's some other wineries that I love as well that are maybe a little bit larger, um, and would be a little bit more accessible.

Uh, good one that I, I think is really nice. Um, especially their, their, um, like premium vintages. The Hass person, um, vintages are really great. We were there a few weeks ago and they are Accio customer as well. Nice.

Ramin: Very cool. Very good. Yeah. Um, so besides the job that you're doing today at Klaviyo, what else would you do if you weren't doing that?

Michael Kurson: Um, love playing golf. I'm a big golfer, uh, and in the winter here in Boston cuz we, uh, we definitely have a heavy winter season, five months of the year, uh, snowboarding. So I go up to, uh, JP right up in Vermont and try to get at least 20 days, uh, up there winter. So like, love it. Stay active.

Ramin: I love it. Um, what's your go-to, uh, SaaS, software or app on your phone?

The one you cannot live?

Michael Kurson: Probably LinkedIn . Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Instead of constantly scrolling LinkedIn. So yeah, if you're watching this, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or feel free to shoot me an email. Um, you know, we would be happy to connect with you and, and chat about. Yeah. Um, All things wine.

Ramin: So we'll, uh, we'll put those in the show notes for sure. Yeah. Um, I think it's, uh, if I go in order, it's email, um, slack and LinkedIn. Those are the three we get all the time. . Oh yeah,

Michael Kurson: yeah. Okay. I thought you were like social. Okay. Yeah, I mean email for sure. Slack for sure. Yeah. I think it's one of

Ramin: on LinkedIn.

Yeah, I think, you know, I, I love, I love LinkedIn. We love, obviously we're, we're live on there right now, so yeah, it's a great, great platform. Um, nice. So if you give, give yourself one superpower, uh, that you don't, you know, well, I dunno, unless you have some superpowers that we don't know about, what superpower would you give yourself?

Michael Kurson: Oh man, I didn't prepare for this. Uh, if I had to have one superpower, it'd probably be the ability to t. Wow. Nice. Yeah, I, yeah. Travel is something that love to do would be awesome. If we could just do it at the snap of a finger. Oh yes. Teleportation.

Ramin: Yeah. I'd be back in New York right now, just, uh, walking, walking the streets in New York.

Love it. Um, what's your favorite online store and why?

Michael Kurson: Favorite online store. Ooh. Hmm. That's a good

Ramin: question. Uh, we, we do get Amazon, by the way. We, people do say Amazon. It's okay if that's, that

Michael Kurson: is not Amazon for me. I'm gonna buy a lot of stuff on Amazon. I, so I just recently bought some boots from Crell, so maybe it's a little recency bias, but just got some awesome winter boots and.

Um, thought they had a pretty great experience there too.

Ramin: Nice. Did you go for the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale? I did, I did. Nice . Yeah. Very nice. Very nice. I love it. Well, this is awesome. Uh, Michael, thank you so much for coming on and, and talking all things wine, all things email marketing. Uh, you know, we're, as I said, super excited about, uh, you know, our.

Partnership and, you know, working with Commerce seven and working with Klaviyo and, and working with Digimatic and really just helping wineries out there grow their business. And, uh, nothing better than seeing a big smile on their face after every reporting call when they see those numbers starting to happen and they see their business just growing and flourishing because of this.

So appreciate you coming on and, uh, and sharing all your insight today. Thank you very. Absolutely.

Michael Kurson: Thank you for having me, Ramin. Yeah. And excited for the Commerce seven webinar that you guys are running. I think that's gonna be great. Yeah. For a lot of these Commerce 7 brands to kind of take a look under the hood and see what everything looks like, so Yeah.

Yeah.

Ramin: Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, and anything you'd like to plug, I know we're gonna put in, uh, your LinkedIn, uh, profile link in the, in the show notes. If you want us, we can put your email address, any, anything else, maybe where they can learn about Klaviyo. I think we've put Klaviyo up on the screen 20 times during this presentation, but, or during this, uh, podcast.

But, uh, anything else you'd like to plug, feel free.

Michael Kurson: That'd be great. Yeah, please feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to chat about your winery in Klaviyo. Again, you can always make a free account in a great convers seven for just, just the monthly cost, so you can really see what this looks like before making a decision.

Um, if you want to see what the, the Klaviyo platform looks like in a little abbreviated demo. Bodie from Digimatic actually has, uh, a little demo recorded on his website, which can give you a look at what things, um, in the platform actually look like with the Commerce 7 integration. So would recommend checking that out and, um, yeah, yeah, excited for the future of, uh, what Commerce 7 and Klaviyo are gonna do together.

Ramin: Yeah, absolutely. So thank you very much. I hope you have a great, uh, it's a great start to your week and I hope the rest of the week is fantastic for you as well. Thank you very much for coming. . Thanks. All right. Alright, that brings us to the end of another episode of the E-Commerce Revolution podcast.

This was great. We love talking all things wine and, and email marketing. Don't forget to check out our past episodes, which were all up on YouTube, on demand. Uh, we will. Put the recorded version of this, uh, on, uh, up on all the channels, uh, shortly. And as always, if you need help, if you're a winery that needs help with your email marketing and specifically maybe a transition to, uh, Klaviyo.

Uh, reach out to us. You can go to SKU agency, s k u in the word agency.com/wine, and you can book a 15 minute complimentary call. We'll talk to you all about what it looks like and, uh, make sure that, uh, you're on the road to success. So thank you very much everybody for tuning in today. See ya.

Conclusion

No matter what size your winery is, email marketing should be a key part of your marketing strategy. It's an important way to stay in touch with your customers and continue building relationships with them. And it doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming to get started with email marketing. Klaviyo makes it easy to create beautiful emails that will engage your customers and help you boost sales. If you're not sure where to start or need help putting together an email marketing plan, reach out to SKU Agency. We specialize in working with wineries and can help you craft an email marketing strategy that meets your goals and fits seamlessly into your overall marketing plan.

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