Insights From the Community Benchmark & WISE Academy Webinar
July 31, 2025
Oregon tasting rooms are navigating a uniquely challenging year—declining visitation across nearly every region paired with rising pressure to sustain revenue and club performance. Yet, as highlighted in the Oregon Top Performers Webinar: Strategies for Success
Many top-performing wineries are not only adapting but excelling.
This session—led by Community Benchmark Founder John Keleher, WISE Academy Chairman Lesley Berglund, and Community Benchmark Member Executive Ben Lemoine—brought together real data, real panelists, and real strategies from tasting rooms outperforming the market.
Below is a full breakdown of trends, best practices, and actionable insights to help Oregon wineries grow in today’s shifting environment.
Industry Trends: What the Oregon Data Shows
According to the year-to-date (June 2025) metrics shared in the webinar, Oregon wineries are experiencing:
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-7.8% visitation on average, with even deeper declines in Southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley
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-5.1% tasting room revenue, despite fewer visitors.
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+2.9% revenue-per-visitor, showing that when guests do arrive, they’re spending more.
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Club conversion rates that outperform many competing regions.
Top performers, however, are growing DTC +12.5% year over year—a powerful reminder that winning strategies matter even more in a down year
Downloadable Copy of OR Top Performers Presentation
Introducing the Goal Positioning System (GPS)
A highlight of the webinar was the debut of Community Benchmark’s Goal Positioning System (GPS)—a simple, yet transformative new performance-management tool that helps tasting room teams stay motivated, aligned, and consistently hitting goals.
Early results are already compelling. Sweet Cheeks Winery reported using GPS to coach their tasting room team to a +10.5% increase in average order value.
Community Benchmark New Product – Goal Positioning System (GPS)
GPS turns benchmark data into actionable coaching tools, weekly progress reports, and clear visual goal-tracking. As the presenters emphasized:
Benchmarks → Goals → Results.
Hot Topic #1: How to Attract the Right Visitors
Even with visitation down statewide, the top-performing Oregon wineries shared three strategies helping them attract more—and better—visitors
Downloadable Copy of OR Top Performers Presentation
1. Be Flexible & Welcoming
The era of “reservation only” is fading. Top wineries now:
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Create intentionally welcoming spaces for walk-ins
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Train teams to greet warmly and quickly
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Use flexible seating or micro-tasting areas to capture spontaneous visitors
2. Target Visitors Intelligently
Successful wineries are meeting their ideal customers where they already are:
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Partnering with local businesses to cross-promote
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Creating family-friendly, approachable offerings to capture broader audiences
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Using wholesale distribution in other states to generate out-of-state tasting room traffic
3. Rethink Events Entirely
Live music is no longer a differentiator. Instead, wineries are winning with:
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High-margin, low-effort pop-up dinners executed via catering partners
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Small, premium, exclusive experiences for higher-intent visitors
Hot Topic #2: How to Maximize the Value of Each Visitor
Once a guest arrives, top wineries are laser-focused on maximizing lifetime value—not just tasting room revenue
Downloadable Copy of OR Top Performers Presentation
1. Focus on Lifetime Value (LTV)
The tasting room is increasingly viewed as an amenity for the wine club business. Winning wineries frame every interaction around:
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Conversion
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Retention
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Relationships
2. Make Joining the Club Easy & Irresistible
Panelists shared several shared tactics:
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“Member for a Day” offers for repeat visitors
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75% same-day conversion rate
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24-hour post-visit club extension, allowing wineries to retroactively waive tasting fees
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Simplified club pitches that emphasize flexibility, skipping, and pausing
3. Invest Thoughtfully in the Experience
“A confused mind says no.”
Top wineries simplify tasting flights and reinvest tasting-fee revenue into enhancing the guest experience through:
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Small, complimentary pairings
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Clear menus
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Easy checkouts
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Confident staff sales behaviors
WISE mystery shopping benchmarks reinforce the impact:
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Asking for the sale: 86%
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Presenting the club: 32%
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Capturing contact data: 18%
Downloadable Copy of OR Top Per…
Lightning Round: What Wineries Would Change if They Could Go Back Three Years
Each panelist shared one big change they would make if they could rewind. The top themes included:
1. Simplifying the Wine Club
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Fewer tiers
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Clearer value
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Incentives aligned with business goals
2. Elevating the Guest Experience Earlier
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Better onboarding
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Stronger follow-up communications
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More personalized engagement
3. Improving Events and Operations
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Leaning into unique, collaborative events sooner
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Adopting texting platforms and modern communication tools earlier
WISE Tips: Be More Intentional
Lesley Berglund shared a set of WISE “intentionality principles” that Oregon’s top performers consistently embrace
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Design policies with flexibility
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Use strategic partnerships—start with five
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Revisit tasting fee waiver strategies (bottles > dollar thresholds)
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Offer good, better, best price points
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Balance tips with team incentives to drive the right behaviors
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Empower “utility players” during slow times
Key Takeaways
From the comprehensive data review and rich panel discussion, three themes emerged loud and clear:
1. Visitors: Volume Down, Value Up
Top wineries are capturing more value per guest through strategic experience design and sales behaviors.
2. Members: Volume Down, Value Up
Clubs remain the economic engine—keeping members engaged is essential.
3. Take Your Show on the Road
Wholesale and partnerships are powerful new visitor acquisition channels, especially for attracting out-of-state travelers.