To increase wine club sign-ups at the cellar door, measure new members divided by non-member tasters, compare it with the 5% to 7% that WinePulse calls “industry normals”, pitch the club during the tasting instead of at the register, and follow up every taster who did not join within 7 days. At 100 non-member tasters a week, moving from 5% to 7% adds 104 members a year.
The short answer from LeadsNow AI: LeadsNow recommends treating wine club sign-ups as a rate, new members divided by non-member tasters, because two extra points on 100 tasters a week is 104 more members a year, worth about A$104,000 at four A$250 cases each. A 0, 1, 3 and 7-day follow-up for the tasters who said “not today” can add a similar number: recovering an assumed 2% of them is about 99 members a year.
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At a glance:
- The metric: club sign-up rate = new club members ÷ non-member tasters, counted per day, per host and per tasting type.
- The reference points: WinePulse puts “industry normals” at 5% to 7% of non-member tasters; WBM’s target of one sign-up a day equals 2% at an assumed 50 tasters a day.
- Where members come from: in Australia, roughly 49% of wine club memberships on Commerce7 are created in the tasting room.
- The club offer: WBM describes four cases a year at about $250 a case as the “sweet” spot for a cellar door club.
- The window: Commerce7 measured a median of 39 days between a first tasting room purchase and the next transaction.
Rules of thumb (the first two are sourced inline; the last two are arithmetic from the Cellar-Door Club Conversion Calculator below):
- Count only non-member tasters in the denominator: WinePulse defines the rate that way, so a busy members’ release day does not hide a weak conversion week.
- Put your strongest hosts on Saturday: Commerce7 reports Saturday carries 28.6% of tasting room sales volume and Friday to Sunday more than 60%.
- Every 1 point of sign-up rate on 100 non-member tasters a week is 52 members a year.
- Recovering 2% of the tasters who did not join adds about as many members as the 2-point lift at the bar.
How do you measure wine club sign-ups at the cellar door?
Wine club sign-ups at the cellar door are measured as a conversion rate: new members that day divided by the non-member tasters you served that day. WinePulse’s definition gives the worked example of 30 non-member tasters and 3 sign-ups, a 10% rate, and states that “industry normals range between 5-7%” (the article was last modified in October 2020 and does not publish its sample).
The other public reference points are softer. In the videocast for the First Citizens 2024 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Report, Janiene Ullrich of Silver Oak Cellars said “90 percent of the people that come through your tasting room are not signing for the club”, describing it as “a lot of work to get 10 percent of conversion out of people”. That is a panel comment on a US survey slide, not an Australian benchmark.
The Australian anchor is a target rather than a measurement. Nick Cugura, writing in WBM, Australia’s Wine Business Magazine, tells cellar doors to “aim to sign up at least one customer to your wine club every day”. At an assumed 50 tasters a day, one sign-up is 2%. LeadsNow could not find a published, audited Australian cellar door conversion benchmark, so treat 2%, 5% to 7% and 10% as reference points to replace with your own number after four weeks of counting.
How it works
From cellar door taster to wine club member
Count the join rate
Divide new members by non-member tasters each day. Split it by host, day and tasting type.
Pitch during the tasting
Look the guest up first and introduce the club by the second or third wine, tied to one they liked.
Capture consent on day 0
Record name, email, mobile and an express consent tick before the guest leaves.
Follow up days 1, 3, 7
Email the wines they liked, have the host text or call on day 3, then invite them to the next release.
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Where in the tasting should the wine club pitch happen?
The wine club pitch converts best when it starts during the tasting and ties to a wine the guest is enjoying, not when it arrives as a question at the register. CellarPass says “the biggest mistake wineries make is treating the wine club as a last-minute pitch”, advises introducing it early (not at checkout) and suggests replacing “Do you want to join?” with “Here’s how you can keep receiving wines like this.”
The levers, in the order LeadsNow would change them:
- Identify the guest first. Commerce7’s data shows 79% of carts start with a product. Opening the customer record first gives the host purchase history and a club fit, and creates a record for first-time visitors at the POS, where Commerce7 says 47% of all new customer records are created.
- Move walk-ins into a structured tasting. CellarPass reports that “unstructured bar tastings rarely convert at high rates” and suggests seated or hosted flights for walk-ins when slots are free.
- Introduce the club by the second or third wine. Name the wine they lingered on and say which club shipment includes it.
- Make the offer worth committing to. WBM says most club members commit to four cases a year aligned to the seasons, with $250 a case the “sweet” spot, and that below $150 a case “the member is less likely to be a member for long”.
- Remove friction at sign-up. A tablet or POS form with name, email, mobile, delivery address and a consent tick, completed before the guest stands up.
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The Cellar-Door Club Conversion Calculator
The Cellar-Door Club Conversion Calculator multiplies weekly non-member tasters by 52 weeks, by your join rate, and by average annual club spend to show what one point of conversion is worth. Spend here is WBM’s four cases at $250, or A$1,000 a year; replace it with yours.
| Join rate (reference point) | 50 tasters a week (2,600 a year) | 100 tasters a week (5,200 a year) | 200 tasters a week (10,400 a year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2% (WBM one-a-day target at an assumed 50 a day) | 52 members, A$52,000 | 104 members, A$104,000 | 208 members, A$208,000 |
| 5% (low end of WinePulse “normals”) | 130 members, A$130,000 | 260 members, A$260,000 | 520 members, A$520,000 |
| 7% (high end of WinePulse “normals”) | 182 members, A$182,000 | 364 members, A$364,000 | 728 members, A$728,000 |
| 10% (figure quoted in the First Citizens 2024 videocast) | 260 members, A$260,000 | 520 members, A$520,000 | 1,040 members, A$1,040,000 |
Worked example, end to end: a cellar door serves 100 non-member tasters a week, so 5,200 a year. At 5% it signs 260 members; at 7% it signs 364. The difference is 104 members, and at four A$250 cases each that is A$104,000 of club commitments in the first year. The revenue column assumes every member stays the full year; real clubs lose members every month, which is why the sign-up rate and the wine club cancellation rate have to be read together. To value a member beyond year one, use the method in how to calculate club member lifetime value.
Count tasters from tasting fees or bookings, not POS orders: Commerce7 found 75% of tastings and reservations end in a purchase, so orders undercount visits by at least a quarter.
The 0, 1, 3 and 7-day follow-up for tasters who did not join
A 0, 1, 3 and 7-day follow-up sequence recovers members from the tasters who said “not today”, who are 93% to 95% of non-member tasters at a 5% to 7% join rate. Commerce7 found 6.4% of first-time tasting room buyers returned within 30 days and 9.8% of visitors placed a first web order within 30 days, so interest is highest in the first month.
| Day | Channel | What it says | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0 (at the bar) | In person | Capture name, email, mobile and an express consent tick; note the two wines they liked | Without a record and consent there is no follow-up; 47% of new customer records are created at the POS (Commerce7) |
| Day 1 | Thanks from the host by name, the two wines they liked, the club shipment that includes them, a join link | The visit is still fresh; the email continues the tasting conversation | |
| Day 3 | SMS or phone call | One question from the host: what would make the club worth it for you? | Surfaces the real objection (price, delivery, quantity) while a smaller tier can answer it |
| Day 7 | The next release or member event, and how members get it first | Gives a reason to join that is not a discount; after this, move them to the general list |
The value of the sequence is easy to model with assumption bands. These recovery rates are assumptions, not measured figures; replace them with your own after a month. At 100 non-member tasters a week and a 5% join rate, 95 a week (4,940 a year) do not join. Recovering an assumed 1% of them adds about 49 members a year, 2% adds about 99, and 3% adds about 148. At 2%, the follow-up alone is worth roughly the same 104-member gain as lifting the bar rate from 5% to 7%.
In Australia the email and SMS touches need consent. The ACMA’s spam guidance says you must have consent before sending marketing messages, that express consent can be given face to face or by ticking a box, that you cannot send an electronic message to ask for consent, and that it is up to you to prove consent. That is why consent is captured on day 0. Tasters from past seasons who never joined are a separate job: see database reactivation.
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What does running the follow-up yourself cost?
Running cellar door follow-up in-house costs mostly host time, and the day-3 personal touch is the expensive step. At an assumed 5 minutes per SMS or call, 95 non-joiners a week is about 8 hours of host time weekly, on top of the email set-up in your winery POS or email tool.
- Do it by hand when non-member tasters are under about 50 a week: the day-3 touch is then roughly 4 hours a week at the same assumed 5 minutes each.
- Automate the day 1 and day 7 emails at any volume; most winery POS and club platforms send triggered emails.
- Hand the day-3 calls and texts to someone else when hosts are already flat out on weekends, which is when Commerce7 shows the bulk of visits arrive.
The skill that breaks first is consistency: follow-up that happens on quiet weeks and lapses after a busy Saturday, which is the week with the most non-joiners. If you hand it over, judge any provider on members joined per 100 followed-up tasters, not on messages sent. LeadsNow, with 50,769+ AI-booked sales appointments since 2017 and 1M+ leads generated, runs this kind of outsourced lead follow-up; for how enquiry speed affects club membership more broadly, see membership enquiry response time for clubs, and for clubs outside wine, how to increase membership in a club.
Wine club sign-ups: frequently asked questions
What is a good wine club conversion rate at a cellar door?
WinePulse puts “industry normals” at 5% to 7% of non-member tasters (its definition, last modified October 2020). There is no audited Australian benchmark, so measure your own rate for four weeks and compare it with that range and with WBM’s one-sign-up-a-day target.
How do I calculate my wine club sign-up rate?
Divide the new club members signed on a day by the non-member tasters served that day. Thirty non-member tasters and three sign-ups is 10%. Count members collecting shipments separately so they do not inflate the denominator.
Should I offer a discount to get more wine club sign-ups?
A bigger discount is rarely the first lever to pull. In the First Citizens 2024 videocast, Silver Oak Cellars’ Janiene Ullrich noted wineries offering an average 16 percent discount to entice members to join, yet called it “a lot of work to get 10 percent of conversion”. Pitch timing, host follow-up and the club offer itself often matter more.
Can I email tasters who did not join the wine club?
Only with consent. The ACMA says you need consent before sending marketing emails or messages, that express consent can be given face to face or by ticking a box, and that you must be able to prove it. Capture the consent tick at the cellar door on day 0.
How much is one extra wine club member worth?
At WBM’s four cases a year at $250 a case, one member is worth about A$1,000 a year before cancellations. Multiply that by your expected years of membership to get a lifetime figure.
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