Tumblong Hills: How TMR managed SEO, SEM and Email growth
Tumblong Hills is a small winery in Southern NSW — one that stays true to the multicultural heritage of its home and the European style of its wines, while challenging the status quo with lesser-known, climate-friendly varietals. They came to TMR Agency not with a big brand budget, but with a clear ambition: to grow their audience, build a loyal wine club community, and and sell their wines through ads. What followed was a three-channel digital programme — SEO, eDM, and social media — that delivered 90% year-on-year organic growth, 40%+ email open rates on every Wine Club communication, and a 200% increase in sales.
90%
Year-on-year increase in organic search sessions
40%+
Open rate on every Wine Club eDM
#1
6 mo
The Client
Tumblong Hills is a boutique winery located in the Gundagai wine region of Southern NSW. Founded on a philosophy of continuous improvement and respect for nature, the winery produces European-style wines using lesser-known, climate-friendly varietals — an approach that sets them apart from mainstream Australian wine producers but also means building an audience requires education as much as promotion. Their customers are wine lovers who care about provenance, craft, and sustainability — people who respond to story as much as to product. The winery operates a Wine Club as its primary direct-to-consumer channel, making email marketing a central part of the business model and community-building a core commercial objective alongside sales.
The Brief
Tumblong Hills engaged TMR Agency to grow their digital presence across three fronts. As a small producer competing in a category dominated by well-resourced brands, the brief required smart prioritisation — not outspending competitors, but out-ranking and out-communicating them.
Organic search growth
rank for wine-related and winery-specific keywords that would bring qualified visitors to the site without relying on paid ads, including technical SEO fixes to address crawlability and site health issues identified in the initial audit
Wine Club community growth
drive Wine Club sign-ups and keep existing members engaged through a consistent, high-quality email programme that reflected the winery's brand voice and built genuine loyalty over time
Social media presence
develop a visual social strategy that showcased the Tumblong Hills story: the vineyard, the winemaking process, the people, and the wines — and grew an engaged audience across relevant platforms
Brand authority
establish Tumblong Hills as a credible, discoverable brand in the competitive Australian boutique wine market, without the marketing budget of larger producers
The Strategy
SEO for a boutique winery is a different challenge to SEO for a service business. Keyword volumes are lower, competition comes from brands with deep domain authority, and the content opportunity — wine, food, provenance, terroir — is broad. TMR’s SEO strategy for Tumblong Hills had three components: fix the technical foundation, build topical authority through content, and earn links that would move the needle on domain strength.
The eDM Strategy
The Tumblong Hills Wine Club is more than a mailing list — it’s the primary direct-to-consumer revenue channel for the winery. Members receive exclusive access to new releases, cellar door events, and behind-the-scenes content from the vineyard. Getting the email programme right wasn’t just a marketing task — it was a commercial priority.
Platform & Setup
Wine Club communications were managed through [CONFIRM platform], configured with audience segments to separate active Wine Club members, past purchasers, and general subscribers — ensuring each group received content appropriate to their relationship with the winery. Automations were set up for new Wine Club welcome sequences, post-purchase follow-ups, and re-engagement flows for lapsed subscribers.
Frequency & Content
Wine Club communications went out on a regular cadence — typically [CONFIRM frequency, e.g. monthly / bi-monthly] — timed around key moments in the winery calendar: vintage releases, seasonal events, cellar door openings, and harvest updates. Content was written in Tumblong Hills' distinct brand voice: warm, knowledgeable, and rooted in the story of the place and the people. Each send included:
• A personal note from the winery — connecting members to the current season, what's happening in the vineyard, and what's coming next
• Wine release or feature — spotlight on a specific wine or varietal, with tasting notes written to educate as well as entice
• Member-exclusive offer or early access — a tangible reason to stay subscribed and a driver of direct revenue from each send
• Cellar door or event news — upcoming visits, tastings, or experiences to deepen the connection between online members and the physical winery
Open Rates — Why 40%+ Matters
The industry benchmark for email open rates in the food and beverage sector sits around 20–25%. Tumblong Hills Wine Club communications consistently achieved 40%+ open rates — a result that reflects both the quality of the audience (genuine Wine Club members who opted in for exactly this content) and the relevance of each send. Click-through rates and revenue-per-send figures are available on request. [CONFIRM click-through rate and any revenue-per-send data to add here.]
The Social Media Approach
Social media for a boutique winery is about more than selling wine — it’s about selling a world. The vineyards at dawn. The harvest in progress. The story of a varietal grown nowhere else in Australia. TMR’s social strategy for Tumblong Hills was built around visual storytelling and community-first content: content that made people want to be part of what Tumblong Hills was doing, not just buy what they were making.
Platforms
Social activity was focused on the platforms where Tumblong Hills' audience actually spends time:
Instagram — primary platform for visual brand building. Vineyard photography, winemaking process content, wine styling, and behind-the-scenes Reels drove follower growth and reach among food and wine enthusiasts in Tumblong Hills’ target demographic
Facebook — community engagement and event promotion. The Tumblong Hills Facebook page served an older, established audience and was the primary channel for cellar door event announcements, Wine Club promotions, and sharing longer-form winery news
Meta Ads — paid amplification of key organic content to reach lookalike audiences based on existing Wine Club members and website visitors, driving both new followers and direct Wine Club sign-ups
Content Types
Content was planned monthly around the winery calendar and produced in a mix of formats to suit each platform's algorithm and audience behaviour:
Vineyard and landscape photography — seasonal imagery of the estate, vines, and Gundagai region to anchor the brand in place and provenance
Winemaking process content — behind-the-scenes at harvest, bottling, and tastings; content that educated the audience and built craft credibility
Wine and food pairing content — styling shots and pairing guides that gave followers a reason to engage and save posts for future reference
Varietal education — short-form content explaining the lesser-known grapes Tumblong Hills grows, positioning the winery as a knowledgeable voice in a niche that rewards expertise
User-generated content and community posts — resharing member content, cellar door visit photos, and Wine Club moments to build social proof and community identity
Reels and short-form video — harvest and winery process Reels for Instagram reach growth; higher organic reach than static posts and disproportionately effective for new audience acquisition
The Results in Plain Terms
The three-channel programme delivered measurable growth across every objective. Here are the results in plain terms — no screenshots, no images — because these numbers need to be readable by Google as well as by people.
90% year-on-year increase in organic search sessions
Organic traffic to the Tumblong Hills website grew by 90% year-on-year — the direct result of technical SEO fixes, keyword-targeted content, and a backlink programme that built the domain's authority in the wine category. This growth brought qualified visitors: people searching for exactly what Tumblong Hills produces.
40%+ open rate on every Wine Club eDM
Every Wine Club email communication achieved an open rate above 40% — more than double the industry benchmark for food and beverage. This reflects the quality of the subscriber list (genuine opt-ins with strong brand affinity), the relevance of each send to its audience, and a consistent brand voice that members recognised and looked forward to. [CONFIRM click-through rate and any revenue attribution data to add here.]
Audience growth across social platforms
Social media follower numbers grew across Instagram and Facebook over the course of the campaign.
Revenue and average order value growth
The combination of increased organic traffic, a high-performing eDM programme, and social media-driven brand awareness contributed to measurable revenue growth for the winery.
What they said
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