This post may anger some wine club and tasting room managers and those individuals that lead direct to consumer programs with wineries. The purpose of this post is to make you ponder a simple fact…
“The largest wine clubs and wine continuity programs in America are not owned, managed or fulfilled directly by wineries.”Why? The winery should have the advantage, the create the brand, they are the experts in quality, experience and the story but most wineries under-utilize the web and miss the opportunity due to complacency.
What is the purpose of the bricks and mortar tasting room?
It’s to create a memory or an experience ensuring a purchase now and in the future. Most important to most wineries is the tasting room to create a memory leading to a BRANDED sales opportunity. If the job is done very well at the tasting room, the individual will follow up at a restaurant, in retail stores, via the web and if you’ve done your job extremely well and you’ve reminded the customer of your web presence they will come back via your on-line store or via an ongoing continuity program such as your wine club.
The tasting room is your chance to create the “Disney Experience”, an impression to last a lifetime and create a loyal, repeat customer specify to your brand. There’s a story behind the label and the wine. It can be educating, it should be memorable and always positive. It has to be entertaining to be memorable and for the visitor to see value and create a memory to share. That memory is what the customer takes back home. The customer will come back to the web or your online store if you support that memory with a memorable website that builds on that memory or entices the customer to visit and come back often. Do you treat your online customer with the same respect and memorable experience that you would treat your in-house tasting room guest with? In most cases the answer sadly, is no. The online customer should be made to feel as welcome, as special, as entertained as the guest entering your tasting room. By making them feel special online you make them want to come back. But how do you make them feel special? You have to engage them, period. The web is not just a place to sell to them but to help build your brand image as important as your tasting room. You must make them feel a part of the experience. Request their participation, engage them in feedback, entertain them, update the site often with information to make them want to see what is new, relative, interesting and force them to participate in the brands you are building. Blast your prospects with email campaigns encouraging them to visit your website often.
The most successful wine brands and wine clubs online are the brands and clubs where the customer takes an active role, feels engaged and is encouraged to visit often. A website just hanging on the web is useless if you do not actively email and invite people to visit often. You must provide the customer a reason to visit and keep coming back
.If your email campaign failed it may not be the campaign but what you directed the customer back to visit on your website. Disney updates their website constantly, they clearly understand that every visit to their site is a brand experience and is a unique experience and opportunity to encourage a sale and to build upon the brand image. Why would marketing wine be any different?
Why are the largest wine club memberships in America not managed or owned by a winery?
A fact few wineries recognize or are willing to admit. Wineries tend to rely on the bricks and mortar tasting rooms to build the wine club whereas the companies managing America’s largest wine clubs understand the need to be web based, aggressive and engaged out of necessity of not having the benefit of bricks and mortar tasting rooms. Their belief is the tasting room would be the “shine on the silver” of the customer experience if they had one available. America’s largest wine clubs are not supported by a bricks and mortar tasting room but are supported by a virtual tasting rooms that engage, invite and encourage participation and significant repeat business. The lesson or sales tip is work your website, prospect list and maximize the use of the tasting room to build online and club sales. Update all collateral materials, email confirmations and customer contacts to drive traffic to the website. Update the website and make it interesting and engaging. Finally don’t be complacent and rely on the tasting room to build your club and web sales but apply the reverse logic build your web presence to encourage visits to your tasting room.