Lead scoring your wine club and non-club members (DTC) will enable your sales team to target the customers with the highest potential to purchase. 

When I think about what we do – what drives us to sell wine, it comes from a place that’s like an itch that needs to be scratched. It’s not random nor is it ever based on luck. Success is achieved by diligently researching the customer, committing to outbound with vigor, and consistently updating the CRM.

Our job as sales managers is to define the sales team’s goals and give the sales team purpose. When your sales strategy lacks shape, results tend to be insipid. What we’ve found is lead scoring not only helps us define our goals but constantly offers the salesperson a purpose call after call.

Request and Evaluation and Forecast From Chatterbox

Lead scoring is the process of grading your customers based on KPI’s vital to the sale. Wine clubs and DTC databases tend to have two vital criteria used to develop the grading system. Spend and order recency. All we are looking to do is assign a value of the customer to the salesperson. Not if they are good people or not.

At Chatterbox, our team is regularly trained on converting C level buyers into B buyers. And B’s into A’s. The opportunity is endless and there’s greater room to actually shine while delivering phenomenal results for our winery clients.

If you want to do this yourself for your customers – use A – D as the grades. We’d recommend using 18 months recent as the cut off for a customer that is still engaged. It’s up to you – but, we’d go no more than 24 months out. If you haven’t heard from someone in two or more years – there’s a reason.

Take the list that deemed ‘recent and engaged’. And then sort by LTV or spend history. There should be very clear levels to the buyers spending habits.

For Example:

$500 or less = D

$501 or more = C

$1000 – $1999 = B

$2000+ = A

D’s tend to be grazers and gift givers.

They aren’t necessarily collecting your wines – but you sure love them at the end of the year. You’ll pick up sales by keeping them on the mailing list – but, trim them if they fall below your predefined spend or recency threshold. Quantity is not quality.

C’s bought a case or a six pack.

They are clearly interested. Maybe they visited the winery and shipped samples home. Maybe they responded to an offer that resonated. They did tell you two things however, what they like and how much they can spend. Target them with wine club opportunities – call them twice a year. You never know if that C level buyer just needs a nudge to move up to a B.

B’s by virtue of spending power alone are very enticing.

They bought a case of Cabernet and joined the wine club. B’s tend to be the most engaged as they tend to be newer to your brand and aspire to be A’s. They’ve shown they have the spending capability to purchase your best stuff and deserve a high level of outreach. Email if they prefer, but, a quick call when allocations or tiny production wines are being released will always net the biggest sales. B’s are your favorite because by the time they become A’s – they are closer to being distracted by another brand.

A’s in a hospitality setting – they are your regulars.

In a consumer buying cycle. – a sales setting, A’s know your brand and are less susceptible to your marketing. A’s have been around long enough to have built up quite a buying history and LTV – yet inevitably A’s find other things, have enough of your wine in the cellar or sometimes just stop buying.

As it pertains to effort and opportunity. Focus on moving your C buyers to B buyers and your B buyers to A’s. To that point, A’s at times can be classified as house accounts, they are often a guaranteed buyer and don’t warrant paying a commission.

You want your sales team to stay focused on the goal at hand. Lead scoring a very simple way to make your numbers and keep your sales team moving in the right direction. The satisfaction of upgrading your customers in the pipeline will bring focus to your sales team and more revenue to your wine club & DTC programs.