In selling wine, especially in the tasting room, there is a difference between marketing and branding. Yes, the two are often mixed up, but they need to be interpreted and handled differently. Without a brand identity it is difficult to market wine. We don’t want to take this discussion in an esoteric direction, however, tasting rooms are an opportunity to go much further than just selling wine, the real advantage lies in creating a tasting room to sell wine and reinforcing a brand identity, that is, the brand.
Perhaps it would help to look at branding this way: “Branding is to a company (warehouse) what personality is to a person. Branding is both internal and external. If you have a strong and trustworthy brand, your employees are happier.” , more motivated and more loyal,” says Mr. Russel Cooke, a professional Customer Relations Manager. “Branding is the allocation of resources to promote awareness of your brand, products, and services. The purpose of marketing, simply put, is to communicate your brand value to potential customers.”
Branding is a process that occurs over time; like the way our personalities evolve over time, but at some point, personality is defined for people to recognize. Marketing will use advertising (print, radio, TV), designs, collateral materials to build awareness of a brand and hopefully call the consumer to action.
Is a tasting room for sales only? I would post the answer as “a tasting room is a terrible asset to waste solely on sales.” A brand is an asset inherited in perpetuity and sales are fleeting. The sale of wines is an effort that must be created anew each season; A brand lives on to be destroyed or strengthened, so choose your brand identity wisely!
In any marketing or branding experience, the complexities of successfully executing these tasks are mind-boggling; really. In the wine industry, the task can be exponentially more complex due to secondary issues such as: federal regulations, external issues influencing the product (weather), and local government restrictions, et al. Selling coffee mugs should be a little less complex. In the field of direct-to-consumer marketing, the tasting room is the only place where the winery can control and execute its branding and sales/marketing plans for its product in real time. Here a visitor comes up to you and says, tell me about your product and by the way, I want to buy. Wow, what a marketing advantage!
The tasting room is truly the only face-to-face moment a winery has to impact all of the human senses that will influence a sale, and hopefully a repeat sale. Therefore, I present that the interface experience of the visitors with the employees is the most important thing; Why else do companies send representatives to visit the customer? At one point, airlines felt that email and video conferencing would have a negative impact on their business; the facts proved him wrong. Nothing can replace the impact of people directly looking at, communicating with, and feeling the personality of face-to-face interactions.
Maybe you still doubt this line of thinking, consider the hits of reality TV. Shows like American Pickers and Fixer Uppers are shows about people, experiences, and their lives. American Pickers or Dirty Jobs are shows that now spend most of their time focused on real people and their stories. A tasting room experience is communicating with people who love wine and want to be sold to and want to learn about the history of the brand. Yes, taste the wine, but tell the visitor the history of the brand.
Let’s assume for this discussion that a significant number of people decide to visit a specific winery for any of a number of reasons. To illustrate the point. A few years ago, I saw a study that listed various reasons why people visit a winery:
- Want to see the winery that made your favorite wine.
- Recommended by friends.
- I wanted to experience a winery or location.
- He wanted to buy wine to commemorate a visit to the region.
The premise is that branding through interpersonal contacts, within the tasting rooms, is important, and perhaps even critical, for all wineries; long and small. This type of branding tool will give instant product feedback on marketing and branding because the visitor is engaged with a representative of the winery. Finally, public contact warehouse employees can immediately address product inquiries from visitors. We intrinsically buy products (wine) and services based on relationships and a feeling (trust and enthusiasm) about the relationship with the company/winery.
Many years ago, I visited a winery that sold expensive wine; expensive by the standards of 3 decades ago; and I ask a simple question: What makes your varietal more expensive than that of another winery? When I asked the question, I did so with a stubborn tone, to the credit of the tasting room clerk, she cleverly engaged me and others within earshot in discussing what makes their wines more expensive/quality. She was responsive, unfazed, engaged, and made me a marketing missionary for her winery’s quality wines. My first real experience with the real world brand.
I believe in the power of the brand and how it affects sales, production, finances and longevity.
Tasting rooms that build on a winery’s brand and reinforce the brand will ultimately sell wines. Without a good brand, marketing is a very tough exercise for a winery. My fantasy for the effectiveness of tasting room #101 is:
- Be greeted at the door and receive a brochure about the winery, its management, an explanation of the winemaker’s philosophy/approach to the product, and information proudly presented. If the tasting is free, with charge or by appointment only; whatever the business model, the brand experience is the most important thing. For example, have you ever been to a warehouse with humble facilities, but you connected with the brand because of the people? Conversely, have you been to a very well-appointed tasting room and been disappointed?
- Realizing that visitors are buying an experience and hopefully a relationship. Just read a list of old wine quotes and you’ll soon realize that wine has long risen simply based on wine experience.
- Nice people who know the wines their winery produces.
- Employees who involve me in understanding what makes their wines great, which is part of their brand image.
- Visitors want a story about the brand and then about the wine.
- If the tasting room staff give a “tummy up” presentation to the visitor, the winery has decreased the value of the tasting room by more than 50%, even if the visitor purchases a bottle of wine.
- If the brand and the marketing effort work together, the sale happens. Then comes the wine club sale, follow-up sales of new vintages, and direct mail with collateral materials. As a distribution channel, the tasting room is a winner.
- Learn about the vineyards where their grapes come from and why that is important.
- Proud product staff.
- I want to understand what I like and why.
- Treat me with respect and my level of experience. The tasting room is not about a place where the staff can show off their knowledge of buzzwords and technical points – bad branding.
- And a tasting room that sends me off with a farewell that makes me feel good about my visit and purchase. “Please enjoy my wine and send me a note to tell me when you drank it.”
A tasting room from a winery that does these things will encourage me to buy more, share my experience with others, and give me a very long-term view of what the values of this winery are, hopefully one of excellence.
As a “back of the napkin” exercise, if you are a winery owner or tasting room manager, write down precisely how you think your winery’s brand is defined by the visitor, then the distributor, the restaurant /buyer at facilities and retailers. So ask yourself, is this the brand I want, need, and can live with in the future? People buy the brand first and the marketing story second; the brand is still alive but the marketing story will change due to many dictates.
Tasting room staff attitude and product knowledge, interpersonal skills, level of interest from management and staff throughout the organization; All of these factors ooze brand definition throughout the organization. Wineries don’t need to spend a lot of money to create a brand, but the tasting room comes from the inside out.
We never forget that branding and marketing are complex and rarely great without thorough planning, initial experience, constant training and strategy reinforcement, buy-in at all levels, and updating plans.
A tasting room should present the brand to the public as the owners want. “The brand is the truth, reputation and value of a small business’s image, ethics and craftsmanship. It is the seal or logo on a product that becomes a household name and trusted brand.. Marketing it’s the sales-driven tactic behind the brand,” says Monique Ouellette. Keep in mind that marketing is behind the brand and drives the “call to action” to drive sales.
Apple is a great brand and marketing organization. Look at the branding of your retail locations (tasting rooms). Disney is another great brand that is on display in their tasting rooms. Don’t confuse branding and marketing.