For years, wineries have told me some version of the same story: “Too many of our wine club members never see our emails.”

Bryan St. Amant - Founder & CEO of VinterActiveIn 2026, missed emails matter more than ever. When loyal customers miss shipment reminders, event invitations, or special offers, wineries don’t just lose sales. Team members have to resend messages, answer avoidable questions, and sometimes watch good customers drift away.

As a DTC wine marketer, I initially assumed this was a messaging problem. Better subject lines. Better timing. Better segmentation. Or more personalization.

But then I asked a different question:

What if the message isn’t the problem? What if the messaging channel is the problem?

Answering that question sent me down a rabbit hole involving email, SMS, mobile apps, progressive web apps, and nearly three decades of lessons learned helping wineries build direct relationships with consumers.

The result was something I never intended to invent: Progressive App Marketing™ , a new approach designed to give small businesses a direct, permission-based communication channel prominently accessible from the home screens of their best customers’ phones.

Think of it as having all the communication capabilities of SMS, plus the premium brand visibility of a custom mobile app.

I recently wrote the story of how — and why — this happened.

Read: Why I Invented a New Marketing Channel for Small Businesses →

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan St. Amant is the founder and CEO of VinterActive and earned an MS in Business Management from MIT and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley. He’s led marketing teams for tech industry giants and built AI systems for governments and small businesses. His research on best practices has helped thousands of brands worldwide. His award-winning work has been featured in CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Oregon Wine Symposium, Wine Marketing Report, Wine Business, and the Wine Industry Network.