Industries — Wine & Spirits Retailers
Cheapest ways to get more customers for wine & spirits retailers
The cheapest way for a wine and spirits retailer to get more customers is almost always to stop losing the ones it already earns — retention and referral cost a fraction of acquisition and are usually unmanaged.
8 min read · Reviewed by both partners
Everything below is ordered by cost per additional customer, cheapest first. None of the first three require a media budget.
That order is not a preference. In this category the store can only legally serve certain customers in certain places, so growth means depth in a fixed geography rather than reach beyond it which means the leaks are worth more than the taps.
Step by step
Ask every existing customer for a referral, systematically
Not a campaign — a habit with a trigger and an owner. Most wine and spirits retailer operators get referrals accidentally and have never counted them by source.
Reactivate the people who already bought once
A lapsed customer is the warmest list available and the cheapest to reach. Almost nobody in this category works it deliberately.
Complete and maintain the local business profile
Free, immediate, and roughly half-finished at most competitors. Every field, real photos, accurate hours, correct primary category.
Build a review habit rather than a review campaign
Ask everyone, every time, without incentives. Depth and recency both count, and a steady trickle beats a burst after a good month.
Then, and only then, buy attention
Once the model holds and the free channels are running, paid demand is worth funding — usually starting with a trade-area demand system with depth rather than reach.
Common mistakes
Discounting to fill the gap
A discount buys volume once and trains the buyer to wait. For a wine and spirits retailer it also resets the price expectation for everyone they tell.
Measuring cost per lead instead of cost per customer
Cheap leads that never convert are the most expensive marketing there is, and they look excellent on a dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cheapest ways to get more customers for wine & spirits retailers?
Everything below is ordered by cost per additional customer, cheapest first. None of the first three require a media budget.
Where does this fit in the Growth Scaling Method, and what should a business owner do next?
It sits under Wine & Spirits Retailers in the Growth Scaling Method. The next step for an owner is the $1,500 Assessment, which reads your own numbers against everything described above.
What would this cost us?
Start at $4,500 for the diagnosis, standard, and route. Ongoing engagement is optional, quoted by the Plan, and floored at $5,000 monthly.
Do partners stay involved after the sale?
They are the only people involved. There is no handoff, because there is nobody to hand it to.
References
- www.federalreserve.gov — primary source
- www.bls.gov — primary source
- www.uspto.gov — primary source
Start with the free ones
Most wine and spirits retailer operators are one system away from the growth they are currently trying to buy.
Growth-Scaling is a marketing and business-scaling firm. It is not a licensed practitioner in any client vertical and does not provide medical, legal, financial, or contracting services; all industry content on this site is marketing and growth guidance for owners in those fields. Figures describing past engagements refer to specific businesses under specific conditions and are not a prediction of any future result. No outcome is promised.
Written by Steven Lockhart, reviewed by David Mitroff, Ph.D. Figures and regulatory details reflect the cited public sources; requirements vary by state and situation. Growth-Scaling is a marketing and business-scaling firm, not a licensed practitioner in any client vertical.