At the beginning of the year, I sifted through numerous packets of information from webinars, conferences, blogs and reports to see what everyone was predicting for 2010. A fair amount was grim news from distributors and on-premise accounts, but the glimmers of hope came from the consumer direct sales channel and the marked increase in social media usage. Our company has long recommended social media and the consumer direct sales channel so this did not come as any surprise to us.
Catalyst also looks at marketing from a consumer’s perspective, because we are ultimately consumers. We go to a lot of wine tasting events, both large and small, to see (and hear) what’s going on. As a fellow consumer, let me give you my perspective on a somewhat disturbing trend I’ve noticed this year.
At each tasting, when I found a wine I really like, I indicated how much I enjoyed it and asked a few more leading questions like “what’s the price point, where can I purchase this”. In each case, my questions were answered but what surprised me was how few people asked me if would I like to join the mailing list or become a “friend” of the winery, even when the mailing list was sitting on the table in full view.
For a long time, wineries thought once consumers tasted the wine, the wine would sell itself. That’s true to a certain extent, but now, customers want more. We want to be part of a community; we want to interact with other like-minded consumers. In today’s market, inviting a customer to join your community is just as important as the tasting experience itself. If you don’t offer a complete customer experience, we will go to your competitor to find it.
Even though the mailing list sign up sheet is sitting in full view, don’t assume because it’s there, everyone will sign up. Ask us to join the mailing list, invite us into your community. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the reaction. You’ll probably even get a sale. Hmmm…. make the wine and then sell wine by creating a relationship with the customer. Now that’s a complete customer experience!
February 22, 2010 at 3:40 pm |
Hi, would you like to join my community?
At the moment we only have a blog (where I write about the day-to-day in the vineyard and winery) and a FB page (which is a disaster, because I don’t have the time and knowledge to fix it!) and Twitter.
Seriously, interesting point, sometimes one forgets about the obvious things that are staring at you right in the face!
February 22, 2010 at 4:31 pm |
Couldn’t agree more.
In a similar vein (on this side of the Atlantic) … I recently canvassed all of the generic bodies who have a wine marketing budget to spend in 2010 and asked them for their plans for this year.
None of them seemed to want to get close to the consumer.
It’s a bit like, if we want to market wine we need to make the trade happy first and then maybe we’ll figure a way to get to the consumer as well ! What makes the trade happy are sales. Strange to think but a memorable purchase is the same thing. Most wine consumer mailing lists gathered at fairs over here are not followed up and are often treated as a nuisance.
Your’e right. Wasted opportunity. Consumer: empower yourself.
Why do people think its a hard thing to get close to the consumer when the modern world has made communication so easy?
February 22, 2010 at 9:45 pm |
nice post, often overlooked. as a smaller winery our tasting room is one of our major ways to connect with our customers. people need a reason to come back or buy online etc – a good experience face-to-face really helps.