Direct to Consumer CRM vs Trade CRM for Wineries

We were recently interviewed and asked about the differences between Direct to Consumer CRM and Trade CRM, particularly for wine producers.  Wine producers are unique in the Alcoholic Beverage space in that they are allowed to sell directly to some of their consumers through e-commerce, wine clubs and their equivalent of a factory outlet store – the tasting room.  These efforts are labeled “Direct to Consumer.” We at GreatVines are often asked to be involved in Direct to Consumer CRM opportunities, but our focus is on Trade CRM, Analytics, and Order Entry for producers and distributors.

Here are the high level observations I came up with when asked about the differences between Direct to Consumer (DTC) CRM activities and Direct to Trade (DTT) CRM activities.

• DTC CRM focuses on consumers. DTT CRM is not as “flat” in that you focus on Retailer, on-Premise accounts, Distributors, National Accounts. DTC marketers need to convince customer to buy product.  DTT efforts need to convince Distributor to take and support product, retailer to bring it in and promote it, AND consumer to buy it!
• DTC CRM relies on consumer purchase and demographic information, DTT CRM relies on trade sales data from syndicated sources like Nielsen/BDN
• DTC CRM marketing efforts can result directly in a sale, DTT CRM requires more complex tools to provide visibility into actions and measure results from activities
• DTT CRM involves the three tier system directly, tools used need to address the added complexity and lack of visibility that comes from the Winery not controlling the entire process.

Naturally we at GreatVines think our system contains a set of tools ideal for navigating this complex space, focusing on visibility of both efforts and results.