Keeping Your Customers Loyal to Your Brand

What do your customers want from you?

I imagine the first thing that many winery people say is “Good wine” and they would be right. However good wine is not the same for all people and (amazingly enough some of your guests may think that your wine is not to their taste. It happens occasionally, though hopefully not often.

This is why, if you can’t wow them with the wine, you should be able to wow them with your Winery (look and feel) and with interaction with the tasting room people. Even if the wine is, perhaps not to your guests’ taste, they will still have good things to say about your winery and will recommend others to visit.

Greet every customer as soon as you can. If you have a tasting room full of people, make the effort to smile at new customers as they walk in. They can see that you are busy but will appreciate the gesture that shows them that they have been seen.

If it is exceptionally busy, with people coming through the door one after another, organize them into groups and offer a tasting to two or three couples at the same time. Having more than six people to serve can make it more difficult to answer all the questions and to interact personally with each guest.

Introduce yourself and ask your customers to introduce themselves to each other and to you.

Then ask a couple of questions to be answered by all such as:

• Is this your first visit to our winery?
• Have you tasted our wines before?

If your guests are familiar with your wines, ask them which of your wines are their favorite.

You might want to ask regular customers in the group, what brings them back.

Make creating a plan part of your next TR staff meeting and in later meetings ask what is working and what is not.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Make the Most of Summer

Today is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. So, welcome to the start of summer. According to the calendar, Wednesday, June 21 is the start of summer. It means that the sun is in its most northern position, directly over the Tropic of Cancer.

When you are serving your guests from today through this weekend, remind them that it is the first day/week of summer… and ask them what their plans are for the summer. (Remember, people love to talk about themselves).

Then tell your customers what you have planned for this summer. For example:

• Special Events to celebrate the wines and the summer.
• Perhaps you have different or older wines that are not usually on the tasting sheet that can be served in the tasting room.
• Or a different wine featured every Saturday and/or Sunday of the Summer.
• Different foods (or one food) that will be served with the wines.

Think of things to celebrate that are specific to your region or state. Do some research into the lesser-known holidays that can be celebrated by your winery. Or create some holidays that can be celebrated.

For example, July 5 is National Graham Cracker Day, July 9 is National Dimples Day and National Sugar Cookie Day.

In fact, there is a National (Whatever) Day for every day of the year. By the way, there are a lot of days that celebrate win. For example:

• February 6 – International Syrah Day
• February 18 – National Mulled Wine Day
• March 13 – International Riesling Day
• April 17 – International Malbec Day

If any of you would like the whole list, drop me a note at  E@inshortmarketng.com and I will send it to you.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Are You Promoting Your Wine Club Enough?

Your wine club is an important avenue for additional sales, not only through wine club sales but through the promotion of your products to people who may never have heard of your wines through your current wine club members.

When people join your wine club they are more likely to offer your wines to others. They are also more liked to introduce your wines to others by using the wine as gifts or taking a bottle to a party or event they are attending.

Additionally, because they have joined your wine club and really believe in your products, your members are more likely to talk about the wines and the winery to others whether they are friends or strangers.

For example: 

• Wine club members who are in the winery to pick up their wine club purchases are likely to talk to other visitors about how great your wine club is while they are there.
• Club members will bring out wine club wines to share with friends they have invited over for dinner or a drink.
• If wine is a topic of conversation for your wine club members at parties, meetings, or other occasions your wine will be part of the discussion.
• Your wine club members also like to tell others they are part of your wine club, especially when they can talk about special events they get invited to as wine club members only.
• Consider a special wine club sign-up month where you add a couple of additional benefits for those who sign up.

Your wine club should be promoted in the tasting room with written information, signage, and by the winery staff as well as through your newsletters. At least a couple of times a year do a mailer or email reminding people about the wine club and why it is such a great thing for them.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Do You Appreciate Your Customers?

Asking if you appreciate your customers may seem like a silly question. We all know that if it wasn’t for customers we would not, most likely, still be in business. However, we don’t always remember to tell our customers (especially our long-term and very loyal customers) how much we appreciate them.

These days when everything is done through emails and such, it is easy to forget that a handwritten note may mean a lot more to your customers than an email. Even a handwritten note sent a couple of times a year can increase your customers’ loyalty to your business.

It is easy to believe your customers already know that you appreciate them, but a note or a phone call, even a personal email from the winery owner, tasting room manager, or one of the tasting room staff will increase your customers’ appreciation of your business. More importantly: a note, phone call, etc., can let your customers know that you and your staff appreciate them.

Many of your regular customers already promote your wines and winery to their friends and others they contact.  Not only do they talk about your wines, but they also talk about how great the staff is and how helpful and knowledgeable they are, and share the information with their friends. Once your customers like your wines, they start promoting them to others, bringing your winery more consumer recognition and, more importantly, more sales, and people to add to your mailing list.

Let your customers know how much you appreciate them in small ways:

• Send personal notes for birthdays, anniversaries, or special occasions.
• If you see them in the tasting room, take the time to say hello, even if you are not serving them.

More on this next week. 

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Ways to Encourage New Guests to Become Long-Term Customers

What are you doing to make your winery stand out from the crowd? You want new customers to visit and to come back often. Offering a mediocre experience is not likely to do that. If you know that your tasting room provides a great experience for new customers, let the people you meet know. That will bring your customers back time after time, and let potential customers know.

If your winery does outside tastings with other wineries in your area, make sure that the staff who pour at these tastings tell newcomers how great the winery is. Selling the quality of the wine, the great atmosphere in the tasting room, and the friendliness of the staff are all good ways to encourage people you meet in other venues to visit the winery.

This is especially true when your winery and others in your area are pouring at a tasting away from the winery. The people you are meeting and offering wine to may never have been to your winery before and have no idea what they are missing. It is up to you to let them know.

When people come to the table to taste the wine, if you don’t recognize them, ask them if they have ever visited the winery.  If the answer is no, that they have not been to the winery, then encourage them to come. 

Ask a couple of questions to discover what wines they enjoy, to ensure that you have wines they would like. Give them a short overview of the winery and wines (don’t go into too much detail) and invite them to come for a visit.

Be sure to get their contact information so you may send them a written invite or email.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Encouraging Your Followers to Buy

Encourage sales to the customers and others who are on your mailing list.

One of the important things to get the most out of your promotions is to promote them well. Make sure that your past customers know about your sales offerings for the different seasons. As well as promoting these offerings at the winery, put the information about your offerings in your newsletters and send information on the sale to past and possible customers by email, phone, or any other way you can think of.

1. Offer sale prices on different wines at different times. Send a list of the wines you are selling at special prices during different months of the year. That way, your customers and potential customers will know when their favorite wines are on sale.
2. Offer discounted or free shipping on any wine bought during certain months, days, or weeks. This encourages your customers and others to buy and save on shipping.
3. Offer special pricing on wines that won a medal in a wine contest or were chosen as a wine of the week or month, by either the winery or a local newspaper.
4. Send an email or letter to the top 25% of your customers thanking them for their support of your winery and wines. And including a discount for a certain amount of time.
5. If you have wines that you want to move quickly, offer a Buy One Get One Free promotion to your best clients. To make this offer sound more important let the recipients know that this offer is only being offered to a special group of customers.

These are just a few ways to encourage customers to buy. More in the future.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Publicize Your Safe Environmental Practices

“Do wine consumers care about how their wine choices impact the environment?” The answer is: They Do Care!!

My question for wineries is twofold:

1. Do you consider the impact on the environment when you are looking at how you package and ship your products? If not, it is a good thing to consider, as consumers are becoming more and more environmentally conscious.

2. Are you letting your customers know that you are conscious of how your manufacturing methods and packing choices make for a better environment and that as a company you are environmentally conscious?

If you have not been touting your safe environmental practices when it comes to making, bottling, selling, and shipping wine now is a good time to start as this is important to many of your customers.

Your website is usually the first place your customers or potential customers start when looking to find information on your products prior to a visit. So, letting your customers know why they should visit your website is the first step in acquiring new customers.

People visiting your website want to know more about your:

• Products: Do you have the products they want?
• Customer Service: Will they be made to feel welcome, comfortable, and important?
• Company: Do you tell them what they want to know? Ask them if they are familiar with your company, and/or products. If they are, then ask them what information they can provide.

Or your guests may wish to tell you about themselves, their knowledge of wine, or other wineries they have visited.  If that is the case let your visitors do the talking.

Follow your guests’ lead. Giving the guests what they want is more likely to result in a sale, which, after all, is the result we want.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Who Is Your Target Audience?

It is coming into the busy season for the wine business.  As the weather improves, wine lovers begin to get out and about to find new wines they like and will buy.

Before it gets too busy, sit down with your company’s tasting room staff and others who deal with the customers and ask them how they sell your wine.

Who is your target audience?

Ask your tasting room staff to describe their customers in broad terms.    

• What type of people is likely to buy your wines generally? 
• Are your sales staff asking the customers about their wants and needs?
• Do they give the customers a chance to talk about their wine preferences?
• Are they listening to what the customers are saying rather than thinking about the next thing they are going to say?
• Do the customers feel welcome at the winery? And leave with the feeling that they are part of the winery family?
• Are customers being asked for their contact information? If not they should be.
• Do the tasting room staff ask visitors for their contact information?

It is particularly important to make your guests who do not regularly drink wine comfortable with wine. Give them the information they need to explain to their friends why they chose to buy wine from you:

• Buying is not just about how much they like the wine. If they like the people they interact with at the winery, they are much more likely to buy the wine.
• Most wine is not inexpensive these days; your guests are much more likely to continue to buy your wine if they have a good experience at the winery and leave with a few bottles or a case.
• Make sure you can contact your guests again.  You want to continue your relationship with them, so make them feel special and liked.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Are You Asking Your Customers to Send You Feedback?

Customers like to believe that they are important to the wineries they visit and buy from. Asking your customers for feedback is a great way to stay in touch with them and get their opinions (which many of them would love to give you). 

When asking for feedback do it in a way that shows your customers that they are important to you and that you appreciate their time and their opinions. Before you create the questionnaire, however, think about what you think your customers want from you, the winery, the wines, and the staff.

You may want to offer a reward so some sort to those customers who complete and return the questionnaire.

• A free tasting
• A special event for those who completed the survey.          
• A behind-the-scenes tour of the winery
• Entry into a drawing with possible prizes:
  • A six-pack of wine
  • Casual lunch or dinner with the winery owners or winemaker or tasting room staff
  • A personal tour of the cellar
  • Lunch on the patio
  • An invitation to the winery Christmas party
  • Cellar worker for a day
  • Tasting room server for a day
  • The opportunity to write wine descriptions.
  • Working in the vineyard

Or anything that comes to your mind that your customers would love to be a part of. (If you come up with a really great idea, let me know.)

Think of the things that you can do that will bond your customers to the winery. An experience that they will be talking to all their friends about for years.

You may want to video the winemaker having lunch with guests or telling them about your wines and send them a copy of the video to show their friends.

There are many things you can do to make your guests feel special. If you come up with some great ideas of your own, let me know at E@inshortmarketing.com

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Encouraging Guests to Return

Most wineries put a lot of time and effort into encouraging visitors to come to their winery, sample the wines and hopefully buy wine to take home with them. The goal is that the guests leave with a positive impression that will encourage them to return and, even more importantly, to tell others about your wines and why they too should visit your winery.

However, even though that is the goal, not all guests walk away from their visit to a winery with a positive impression.

In those cases, it may be because:

• Your visitors want to tell you everything they know about wine, instead of listening to you talk about your wine and the winery.
• Your visitors want to talk about anything buy wine.  They may want to tell you about the other wineries they have visited.
• The guests may have lots of questions they want answers to.

When your guests first arrive, try to ascertain why they came to visit. Perhaps your winery was recommended to them, in which case you want to discover who recommended your winery to them. If it is another winery in your area, send them a thank you note or give them a call to let them know you appreciate the recommendation.

Many people like to talk about themselves, and a fair number of your visitors will want you to know how much they know about wine, what their favorites are, and the depth of their wine knowledge. If they want to talk to you about wine, let them.

I know it can be frustrating when you have lots of facts you want them to know about your wines. However, the visit will be much more lucrative to the winery, if you allow them to tell you about their attitudes and knowledge about wine when and if that is important to them.

Each customer is different, so be ready to change tactics, depending on what your customers want.

A tip of the glass from me to you!