If you haven’t heard this yet: marketing is still important right now.
We shouldn't market like it is business as usual, but we shouldn’t feel bad about selling during a time of crisis.
Right now, a ton of people are hurting, so it’s understandable if you are hesitant to sell anything. You don’t want to burden anybody. But, on the other hand, we all have employees and bills to pay—and my true belief is that wine is essential.
Wine can bring a little bit of happiness and “normalcy” to people’s new (temporary) normal at home.
I just wanted to get that out of the way. I had a long video chat with a brewery friend of mine who was just about to open up her taproom—in fact, an inspector was scheduled to come—but he had to cancel. So, she's stuck with a rent bill, a ton of beer, and no possibility of selling it. We brainstormed ideas for keeping her business afloat. Thankfully, she did have a good amount of swag, t-shirts, hats, beer mugs, etc.; so she is going to create an online store and sell those, along with gift certificates for when the taproom opens.
Even though she was hurting, she still was scared that no one would purchase from her because they were all hurting, too. My advice to her is exactly what my advice is to all of you.
If people can purchase right now, they will; if they can't, they won't.
And that is okay. Right now is an essential time to regroup, take some time away from the constant news cycle, and have the hard talk about where the winery is going in the future.
For many of us in the hospitality industry, all of our marketing efforts were directed at getting people into the tasting room, restaurant or hotel, and letting our tasting room staff sell wine club memberships/wine/food, etc.
And even though this crisis is temporary, the brands that adapt will be able to move forward stronger, and the brands that simply want to revert to the status quo will be left behind.
Right now, we are having a new boom of...well, of literal Boomers learning how to buy things online. I s*** you not, it took a pandemic to get my friends mom to purchase something from target.com. I was so proud of her when she did, and her response was, “Wow, that was easy—what else can I buy online?”
So, for the first time in a generation we are seeing the main purchasers of wine - the baby boomers - learn that it isn’t that scary to buy items online (side note, I understand that I am generalizing this group of people, because there are plenty of over 55 crowd that does purchase things online, this is what I'm hearing from many of my elder millennial friends about their parents purchasing habits during this pandemic). And while Generation Y (aka those pesky millennials youngins who are actually 25-39) know how to buy items online, many still haven’t bought food/wine, until now.
Wineries need to think like ecommerce brands now more than ever—and marketing an ecommerce brand is a little bit different from sending people to a tasting room.
Best Practices for Marketing During a Crisis
As I mentioned, take some time to regroup as a team, or on your own, to look at what marketing efforts have done well in the past, and to identify which efforts could use a revamp. Define your brand passions for marketing (this is also called core values). Have daily sessions (through video chat, hello Webex) with your team to keep everyone updated and to brainstorm new ideas.
From first-hand knowledge of being both a wine consumer and a wine marketer, I have a few ideas….
Build Systems That Can Attract New Customers
Create an email drip series when someone signs up for your newsletter or joins your wine club so a series of marketing and helpful emails go out over a few weeks, or months and it allows your future work to be more automated than it is now. If you are not sure what that means, talk to a digital strategist that can help you set up a system like this in your email platform. This will allow you to serve more customers, and focus on what you’re really good at.
Plan an ebook or checklist for customers to download on your website (and get them to sign up for your newsletter). Create a landing page on your website, start driving traffic there (through social media and digital ads), and offer a wine and recipe pairing guide or five rules for wine tasting at home. Focus on creating value to your customers, and the sales will come from the drip campaign later, and retargeting efforts. Here is one of my landing pages I recently created to help social media marketers with their daily schedules.
Create blog posts and work on the SEO of your website. Focus on keywords for getting customers to your site who may want to purchase wines (instead of trying to get guests to come to your tasting room).
Build an online store of non-wine stuff on your website. Hats, coasters, sweatshirts, signs with a funny saying about your brand, wine glasses with logos, cheese boards, and even a calendar of your best Instagram images. There is so much more to the entirety of the wine experience than just the bottle of wine. Tasting room sales have actually been down since before this pandemic because people are spending more time at fewer wineries. They've been so engrossed with the experience that they aren't winery hopping like they used to. So, take the idea of the “experience” in your tasting room and figure out how you can sell something online.
There's so much you can do with this online store—you can upsell products to wine club members, you can create ads directing people to the cheese boards, and maybe if you've already created an ebook of wine and cheese pairings, you can direct them to that as well. It all becomes a cycle of content when you change your mindset about what your brand can sell.
When It Comes to Social Media, I Want to Remind You:
Marketing is keeping your lights on right now, and it all boils down to the way you send out your message. What I want to challenge you to do is focus on a clear message. Be honest with people. Tell them explicitly how to help you. Be honest about what is happening, even if you are not sure what is going on.
Stop all forms of “business as usual" posts; this includes scheduled social media posts, automated emails, and ads (because an ad inviting people to the winery when you are closed is misleading).
Post uplifting content about your products, but make sure to be empathetic to what your customers are going through. Right now everybody is scared, so having a little bit of empathy in your social media content can go a long way. Wine makes people happy and brings some normalcy to daily life for many people stuck at home. People are looking for this, so share content that makes people smile.
Create Value vs. Pushing People to Buy
Connecting with your customers is essential, especially in this moment. Sales come when we show up for one and other. This is not a time to go silent on social media, nor to become a billboard that’s trying to push regular transactions without having a solid reason (e.g., $1 shipping, a new release, or an exclusive virtual tasting).
Many businesses are trying to sell at the expense of losing the relationship with a customer.
Customers are being bombarded with emails from every business they ever subscribed to, being asked to purchase something. And they’re hitting “unsubscribe” very quickly.
Flash sales are everywhere right now, which is a response to everyone being scared about the state of the business. I GET THIS—but you are discounting your brand at the same time. By doing this, you are training your customers to only purchase if it is cheap. This makes customers think of your wine as just a drink instead of something that says something about WHO THEY ARE because that’s what they drink.
57% of customers will buy with one brand over another because of the relationship—use this time to build your connections (via digital marketer). So, if you send out a marketing email, try to make it less about sales, and more similar to your social media posts by creating value and keeping your customers updated.
Have a Way to Make THAT Personal Connection with Your Top Buyers
Find that shared connection that only your winery has with your customers. Share personalized videos and tell your customers that you want to help them get through this pandemic.
Create personalized video clips or voice messages to share in your best wine club members’ emails, or DMs (use the save feature on Instagram to save a folder of your wine club members to revisit)—or write handwritten notes—asking them how they are doing. This is not a place to sell unless they ask, but trust me, most will ask.
We are all worried about the state of our businesses since we have no idea when this pandemic will end—but eventually, it will. When it comes to marketing, it never has been about pushing the sale. It is about creating relationships that MAKE people want to purchase from you.
I have a few extra ideas...
Listen more, talk less. If you don't listen to your customers, you'll never understand them.
Brainstorm with your team (remotely over video) to think of more personalized ways to connect with your customers.
Head over to my landing page for wineries to download 15 content ideas for your wineries’ social media. These should help you when you aren’t sure what to share.
Start researching retargeting digital ads to boost content to customers who already engage or have been to your website.
Thank you!