WFA Wine Industry Tourism Toolkit

Business and Marketing Plan Template

The information in this template acts as a starting point for the development of a business and
marketing plan for your cellar door and winery tourism operations.

It is not exhaustive by any measure, but provides a framework and reference point for your own
business planning purposes. You will also need to take into account things like Human Resource
planning, Product Development and Risk Management.
Examples are provided throughout the document in italics to guide you in forming your own
responses. Before completing your final document, remove all “explanatory” text and replace with a
succinct overview for the section.

This information was prepared by Dig + Fish Marketing Group. www.digandfish.com

Business Name

Address:

Contact Details:

Document Date: Next Review Date:

Document Author:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section Description Page

1 Business Details

1.1 Business Outline

2 Vision & Objectives

3 Situation Analysis

3.1 SWOT Analysis

3.2 Competitor Analysis

4 Key Challenges & Objectives

5 The Action Plan

5.1 Timeline

6 Financial Considerations
1 Business Details

Registered Business Name

& Trading Name:

ACN: Date of Issue:

ABN: Date of Issue:

Proprietors Name &

Contact Details:

Managers Name & Contact

Details:

Document Date: Next Review:

Document Author:

1.1 Business Outline

What is the business? The business is a direct-to-customer sales facility through which we offer
visitor services, provide an opportunity to taste wines, sell wine by the glass, bottle and case and
develop a face-to-face relationship with our customers. It also provides a method of attracting
customers to become direct mail clients who buy wine regularly throughout the year.
Why does the business succeed? Personal attention to our customers through the cellar door
builds loyalty. The operation of the cellar door is conducted primarily by members of our family, close
friends and others who are passionate about our wine. The overheads are relatively low and each
sale returns our highest possible margin on our product.

What is the image we portray at our cellar door? Our cellar door is the opportunity to put a face
and personality to our wine. This personality must be one of warmth and friendliness underpinned by
a professional approach to our business operation. We wish to convey a fun and welcoming
environment which is supported by happy staff with a ‘nothing is a problem ’attitude.

What is the experience we offer? We offer a complete wine tourism experience where guests can
follow our wine from the vineyard to the glass via out estate tours. We also provide a food and wine
experience with our regional tasting plates, local roasted coffee and regional preserves.

Who are our customers? Our primary audience is regional travellers seeking a high-end wine
experience. They are knowledgeable about wine, know what they like and appreciate a direct
relationship with the cellar door and are seeking exclusivity. The second is a tourism audience
seeking an entertainment experience. They will go on our tour, have a regional tasting plate and take
a little something home, spending more on the day but less likely to be case buyers or join wine club.

[NB: a word on target marketing – Traditional demographics and psychographics don’t really hold because a
high-income professional living in the inner city is no more likely to be an interested wine consumer than a lower-
income person from the outer suburbs. How people behave and what interests them is what we want to know
about, not just what they do or how much they earn!
2 Vision & Objectives
What is your vision for Cellar Door?

Is it to be the best, biggest, most respected, most visited? You need to articulate the vision for your
site so your team know what they are helping to bring to life – it’s why they come to work every day.
What objectives do you have for your cellar door? Remember: all objectives need to be measureable
and actionable. If you can’t see a pathway to deliver on the objective then re-write it! Generally, you
cannot have more than 5-6 high level business objectives. If you do they are not strategic enough, so
consider whether they are actually a subset of another objective.

Vision

 Be recognised nationally as the pre-eminent cellar door destination in our region

Objectives

 Build a strong brand that delivers a real consumer experience and makes a genuine, authentic
connection with its consumers. A brand that is seen as a regional leader.
 Develop a diverse, interesting product offer that encourages repeat visitation and differentiates us
from our neighbours.
 Build cellar door and direct sales to a level equal to or better than 60% of total sales.
 Attract and retain a high performance team with a strong business culture and defined way of
doing business.
 Lead the way with environmental initiatives and minimise our carbon footprint.
3 Situation Analysis

Total Current Plantings in Total volume of wine produced to Total volume of wine sold via direct
Acres/Hectares bottle channels

Varieties: Varieties: 9L cases Varieties: 9L cases

Chardonnay – ha Chardonnay – 0000 Chardonnay – 0000

Pinot Noir – ha Pinot Noir – 0000 Pinot Noir – 0000

Shiraz – ha Shiraz – 0000 Shiraz – 0000

Riesling – ha Riesling – 0000 Riesling – 0000

% of total sales:

Total volume sold at Cellar Door Total volume sold via Direct Mail Total volume sold via online channels

Varieties: 9L cases Varieties: 9L cases Varieties: 9L cases

Chardonnay – 0000 Chardonnay – 0000 Chardonnay – 0000

Pinot Noir – 0000 Pinot Noir – 0000 Pinot Noir – 0000

Shiraz – 0000 Shiraz – 0000 Shiraz – 0000

Riesling – 0000 Riesling – 0000 Riesling – 0000

% of total direct sales: % of total direct sales: % of total direct sales:

NB: You may wish to also split out your wine club or standing order sales. You can replace this whole table with your
own sales reports.

Cellar Door Performance:

Opening Hours

Number of Staff fulltime casual

Number of Visitors to Cellar Door - 0000 p/a (approximately)

Visitor Distribution Weekends Weekdays

Total Revenue from Cellar Door Sales - $ p/a

Services, facilities and attractions at cellar door Memberships

Wine Tasting Regional Tourism Association

Light Lunches Regional Vignerons Association

Winery Tours Tourism Industry Organisations

Regional Visitation Current Industry Trends

Number of Visitors to Region

Origin of Visitors

Purpose of Visit

Length of Stay
Regional Attractions

Significant Restaurant

Golf Courses

Accommodation

Cellar Doors

Galleries

Festivals and Events

Etc.
3.1 SWOT Analysis

STRENGTHS - Internal WEAKNESSES - Internal

 Brand Profile  Reliance on casual staff
 Appealing ambience  Seasonality (variable visitor numbers)
 Longest established winery in region  Low production in previous two seasons
 Well trained and friendly staff  Distance from capital city
 Proximity to main traffic flow  Limited space to cope with growth
 Reputation of Restaurant  Lack of group management facility
 Seen as a desirable employer  No private tasting room
 Hands on winemaker who participates in marketing  Etc.
initiatives
 Owners on site full time and available at cellar door
 Etc.

OPPORTUNITIES - External THREATS - External

 Gourmet Food Trail under development  Vignerons Association lacks a tourism focus
 New Council CEO  Increasing profile of other regions
 State Government funding scheme  Lack of other tourism attractions in region
 Co-operative regional wine and food marketing group  Poor regional winery signage
 Co-op marketing opportunities with other tourism  Road maintenance required
product  Limited pool of skilled staff
 Quality of regional accommodation and produce  Changes to planning / licensing
 National Wine Tourism Strategy development  Etc.
 Etc.

Implications

The most important aspect of any SWOT analysis is thinking through and clearly articulating the implications of the
SWOT. What does all this mean for your business? How do you play to your strengths and/or work to convert your
weaknesses to strengths? How do you maximise the external opportunities and mitigate the threats? Based on the
SWOT above, these are some of the implications you could draw out:
 How do we maintain our brand profile and continue to be seen as a leader in the region?
 There is a need to rethink our product offer to ensure we can cope with demand in our limited facilities.
 We may need to look at grower contracts or a broader regional wine offer at CD to help manage low yielding
vintages
 How do we ensure we have a compelling offer so we are a “must stop” venue in the gourmet food trail?
 There is a need to influence the strategic direction of the vignerons association and increase its tourism focus
 Etc.
3.2 Competitor Analysis
Individuals will have differing views about who their competitors are. Local tourism attractions and
cellar doors are competing for your visitors but regional co-operation can also result in more
customers. Other wine regions and other major tourism attractions are also competing for business –
but equally, they can be business allies.

Lifestyle activities such as health and beauty pursuits may take potential customers away or can be
viewed as complementary. Retail wine stores may challenge you on price, but alternatively may
introduce new customers to your wines. Think about who your real competitors are, and after careful
analysis, consider whether they are also potential partners to attract more visitors and “grow the pie”.
Benchmarking is a term used to ascertain how you’re faring against your competitors. By analysing
what your competitors do, you can make decisions about how to improve your product or service by
adapting what you have, creating a new offering or discontinuing something altogether. This relates to
advertising, marketing, experiences and customer service as well as your core product offerings.
Learning from your competition makes good business sense and is also known as “investing in your
threats”. Also consider using external “mystery shopper” programs for an objective analysis.

Choose your top 2-4 competitors and plan to conduct the analysis over time. In particular, look at
areas that differentiate you from your competitors – especially the weaknesses. View each aspect
from the perspective of what is important to your customers and visitors and collate as much
information as possible.

Details You Competitor 1 Competitor 2

Location and proximity

Key products and services

Key features and benefits

Pricing policy

Product / service quality

Target market/s

Customer service quality

Marketing initiatives

Website effectiveness

Strengths

Weaknesses

Key point of difference

4 Key Challenges and Objectives
Once you have completed the situation analysis, you can then define the key challenges for your
business. These should draw a line between the implications from your SWOT, the starting point of
where you are today, and the objectives – where you want to be.

Then each key challenge has a series of strategic responses and actions that relate to them which
form the action section of your marketing plan.

KEY CHALLENGE BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

5 The Action Plan

This is where the rubber starts to hit the road and you are working on the actions that address each
objective.

Objective 1: Build a strong brand that delivers a real consumer experience and makes a genuine,
authentic connection with its consumers. A brand that is seen as a regional leader.

Strategic Responses Recommended Actions

Complete a brand definition exercise to ensure  Brand definition

we thoroughly understand our brand  Brand audit
 Gap analysis
 Action plan

Benchmark our consumer experience and  Conduct a mystery shopper exercise

understand where we are at.  Review all CD procedures and training
standards

Objective 2: Develop a diverse, interesting product offer that encourages repeat visitation and
differentiates us from our neighbours

Strategic Responses Recommended Actions

Define the current product offer Articulate the current customer experience

Seek external feedback on that experience

Conduct a competitor product review

Clearly articulate the desired product offer

Objective 3:

Strategic Responses Recommended Actions

5.1 Timeline

Once you’ve documented your strategic responses and actions, you can apply them to a table like the one
below or an Excel spreadsheet set out as a 12-month calendar. The important thing is that the activities
have ownership, deadlines and budgets to make sure action really happens!

The following activities are just examples to illustrate the point – you need to ensure yours reflect the
content of your strategy and deliver on your objectives.

Activity Purpose By when Who Budget /

Cost

Review product sales to Fine tune product mix

consider performance

Review packaging and Maintain market acceptance

measure against selected and incorporate new
benchmarks concepts

Identify a hero product and Link other opportunities, use

hero personality for the cellar as a press hook, have
door focused promotional material
produced

Establish data base collection Build mail order sales

process and data management
system

Develop website and establish Refer queries to / act as an

system to maintain currency electronic brochure

(might be e-commerce linked)

Create new contemporary To represent our image in a

brochure consistent and modern way

Commission photographer for To use on website and in

seasonal file photos brochure

Send three great photos to For photo file usage in

State Tourism Office publications and media

Create a monthly networking Familiarise other regional

event wineries and attractions with
our product

Visit Visitor Information Centre Retain front-of-mind

every six weeks positioning, build relationship

Events/activities

Participate in regional food and Support local association,

wine festival reinforce presence within
region, attract people out to
cellar door
 Increase exposure of our
brand and get people to taste
wines
Demonstrate regional
commitment

Positioning opportunity,
chance to increase profile
with staff and provide an
event for our mail list

Create a signature food and Create profile as a leading

wine event at the winery destination on the gourmet
food trail.

Establish a ‘fun in wine’

attitude

Generate media attention

Media/Public Relations Bring attention to our wineries

through story in XYZ
Develop four key themes to
magazine
build media release around

Join with ABC & XYZ to bring Have presence and build
Joe Bloggs (journo) to the profile through participating in
region events and activities

Write editorial for local Build a sense of being the

publications / including photo region’s most prominent
cellar door

Send Media releases to State Remain front of mind

Tourism Organisation
6 Financial considerations
Your business and marketing plan should include an overview of your cellar door’s financial position,
its projected performance and your allocation of funds to cellar door activities and marketing.

A profit and loss schedule could be attached, along with a cash flow spreadsheet and operations
statement (just a few words about how you intend to operate, i.e. overdraft, trade from earnings etc. If
you do not have financial statements, complete the simple table below, using your actual figures at
cellar door.

You should also note if you intend to make a capital investment back into the cellar door and how that
will be funded and evaluate what your anticipated return on investment will be.

FY 1 FY2 FY3 FY4

Income

Income from wine sales

Income from other

Total Income

Less Expenses

Wine @ cost
Marketing
Wages
Utilities (power/phone
etc.)
Training
IT / Web / CRM
Freight
Promotions
Credit card charges
License fees
Staff amenities
WET tax liability
GST liability
Etc.

Total Expenses

Net Profit/Loss