Wine Direct

September 13, 2012 | Geni Whitehouse

Is your Tasting Room toast?

Guest post by Geni Whitehouse

I’m not suggesting that your tasting room is a complete failure or even that there is anything wrong with what you are doing. I bet it is quite lovely. But I am also willing to bet there is room for improvement.

That’s where toast comes in. The process of making toast is a great way to learn about the idea of continuous improvement and Kaizen principles which you can easily apply to your winery. Our firm uses the Toast Video to train winery staff in these concepts. It captures the steps involved in one man’s attempt to create toast for his wife. (You can imagine how it turns out.) The video walks you through the sequence of steps done in an inefficient way, then shows how the same process looks with a few minor adjustments. It is impossible to watch the video without learning something (and working up a craving for buttered toast.) The video is amazing in its simplicity.

The question for you is how much of what you do in the winery is like the process of making toast. Are you doing things the same way they have always been done? Maybe it is time to take a step back and consider your actions. Kaizen includes a concept of seeing with a “Keen Eye”. How would your tasting room look if you viewed it with a Keen Eye, paying attention to the hundreds of small details that make up your guest experience? What does your guest see when he goes to make a purchase? Does every detail support the image you are trying to create in that visitor’s mind?

Think about areas in your tasting room where you might eliminate waste. Where might you find activities that waste time or effort? Are there functions that need to be outsourced? Items that need to be rearranged? Forms that need to be redesigned? How easy is it for your guest to make a purchase? Get your teams together and have everyone watch the video then walk through your tasting room. You’ll be amazed at the things you notice for the first time.

The next time you start doing an activity the same way you have always done it, stop for a minute and ask yourself “Am I making toast?”

Geni Whitehouse, CPA.CITP, CSPM
Countess of Communication
Brotemarkle, Davis & Co. LLP
www.bdcocpa.com

Geni is the Countess of Communication at Brotemarkle, Davis & Co, a CPA firm focused on wineries. She is the author of “How to Make a Boring Subject Interesting: 52 ways even a nerd can be heard” and is a frequent speaker at events around the country. Together with Craig Underhill, she regularly teaches free classes for area vintners on topics related to finance and performance metrics. She is still trying to get her husband to fix her toast in the morning.

Sep 13, 2012 at 10:31 PM

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August 30, 2012 | Genevieve Verdier

You Work in Wine….What Do You Recommend?

It never fails, I am out to dinner with family or friends and the wine menu find its way to me…“You work in wine, what do you recommend?” A friend emails wanting a suggestion for a special bottle to send as a gift. What do you do?

It comes down to personal taste, brand experience and loyalty. There are an overwhelming number of options for an excellent bottle of wine. A good customer experience and a feeling of personal touch go a long way to make a brand memorable. I recently had just such an experience with Lamborn Family Vineyards.

I was asked by friend for a gift recommendation to send as a thank you for recently hosting their family. A number of wineries came to mind. Lamborn jumped to the top. A visit to their website, a perusal of the current wines available and it was time for me to become a member. I filled out the online form and within hours I had received a personal reply from Mike Lamborn welcoming me aboard. Personal touch.

One of the lures of wine is the lifestyle associated with it: elegance, relaxation and enjoyment...just to name a few. Your interactions with your consumers can extend that experience beyond the glass.

If you ask for consumer information, acknowledge it so that they can feel connected to your brand. It may be hard to personally respond to every email but there are creative ways to write a response that can soften the feeling of receiving a form letter.
Pay attention to your consumers purchasing patterns and tailor promotions to maximize your return and their desire for your wines. If you are a Vin65 customer, their List Builder tool allows you to create dynamic segments of your list based on profile and address information, product preferences, order history, wine clubs, or other criteria.
Plan early for the holidays, especially October thru December. Prepare gift offerings and suggestions at a variety of price ranges. Remember to make them easy to find on your website.
Tell your story. Nothing connects better than humanizing a product. Post pictures of the winery, the process, the people, even the vineyard dog. Be creative. Involve your consumers.

Connect with your consumers and they will in turn connect with you not only for themselves but by inviting others to enjoy your wines as well. While not everyone may agree with my personal taste in wine, I can think of no one that does not like receiving a gift of wine and being part of the experience.

Aug 30, 2012 at 10:28 PM

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August 24, 2012 | Mark Parton

How much money are you leaving on the table?

You have metrics for everything. You know your email click-through rates; abandon cart rates, tasting room foot traffic statistics and wine club attrition rates. You probably look at this aggregate data (and more) every time someone whispers the word “budget” or asks for an explanation on recent performance trends. You speak “percentages as a second language” quite fluently. But do you know your call stats?

Assuming you are actively reaching out to your customers over the phone (which you should be doing, either internally or outsourced), you may find yourself unsure of the potential revenue your database holds as a telemarketing tool, or how to judge your performance.

Quantifying your call metrics (Show them the money!)

At first, looking at your customer list may not bring dollar signs to your eyes. But it should, and here’s why:

Let’s say (to be conservative):

You have 5,000 customer names (with phone numbers in shippable states)
Bad phone numbers: generally account for on average about 10-15% of your list (if you haven’t called it before) – this brings our “callable universe” to about 4,250 Leads
On average you can expect to be able to get in touch with at least half of your list, which would put your contact realm somewhere about 2,125 leads

If you have an employee doing the calling, they should:

Be able to make 100 calls a day
Convert at least 10% of the people they talk to
Maintain an average order volume of $350

So for one employee calling from the winery you are looking at:

42 days
2,125 contacts
213 orders
$74,375 in revenue produced (around $3,000 a day)

Naturally, technology, training, and lead management greatly increase the productivity and success of any calling project (we are accustomed to outperforming these benchmarks).

Plug in your own database numbers, how much are you missing out on?

Aug 24, 2012 at 10:25 PM

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August 22, 2012 | Erica Valentine

September is California Wine Month –The Wine Institute wants you to STEAL THIS IDEA!

The Wine Institute launched California Wine Month in September 2005, and this September will be its eighth year. Last year’s 2011 California Wine Month campaign received 200 million impressions in print, online and broadcast media coverage. The theme for CWM 2012 is “California Wines Road Trip”.

The Wine Institute is encouraging wineries to leverage the promotion, and has invited the industry to STEAL THIS IDEA!

Here are some highlights on “How Wineries Can Participate in California Wine Month 2012”

Click on this link for the full tool kit.
Talk about California Wine Month and your winery’s activities on your social networks. (Twitter hashtag is #CalifWines.)
Participate in any California Wine Month programs coordinated by your regional association.
Create a special California Wine Month wine flight or food pairing at your tasting room.
Create special “only in September” immersion programs at your winery.
A day that tells the story from grapes to glass. Start in the vineyard with climate, grapes and viticulture, followed by a lunch or a picnic highlighting how our wines are a natural part of the fresh, healthy California cuisine and finishing with barrel tasting or blending exercises.
A morning with the winery chef, shopping for produce and creating the perfect wine and food lunch.
Showcase California’s fun, healthy lifestyle with yoga, Pilates or meditation on a patio overlooking the vineyard; horseback riding and wine; bicycling and wine; bocce ball and wine; hiking and wine.
Innovative Wine Tasting Experiences—iPad/iPhone app wine reviews in the tasting room.
Innovative Winery Tour Experiences—winery eco‐tours; dog walks and tasting; winery sculpture garden tour and tasting; pruning/grafting demonstration; art exhibits.
Have a movie night at your winery! Pair Hollywood glamour with wine and food.
Work with local hotels to offer these special VIP programs as part of a hotel package, to encourage weekend getaways at a special price.
Create wine and food pairing seminars for local sommeliers and/or consumers to educate them on your region and wines and their versatility with many cuisines.

Wine Institute members can take advantage of the campaign that will direct consumers toward the web site by posting your events there www.discovercaliforniawines.com. For questions, contact: communications@wineinstitute.org

Aug 22, 2012 at 10:22 PM

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August 9, 2012 | Sheri Hebbeln

Evolution of Wine eCommerce – What Lies Ahead?

Change is inevitable and in the world of technology companies, it happens fast. Over a very short period of time, technology has dramatically changed the way we shop. From brick and mortar to basic eCommerce, to flash models, group buying, social commerce, and mobile; we’re buying a lot more through digital channels today than we were even a year ago. It’s true that the wine industry is still catching up to other markets but the tide is shifting rapidly, due in large part to the California ABC’s industry advisory that was issued in October of 2011.

What’s in store for wine online?

According to Forrester, the U.S. eCommerce market, which represents just 9% of total retail sales, was in excess of $200B in 2010. The value of wine eCommerce is a little more difficult to estimate. VinQuest 2011 put the total DTC market for wine at $3.4B in 2010. Given that, a very conservative estimate of 6% would place the eCommerce portion at about $200MM, leaving a whole lot of opportunity for growth.

The problem we face is that there is still a big divide between consumers, who don’t have easy access to the wealth of product available in wine country, and wineries, who haven’t quite figured out how to reach those customers. We’re still waiting for a large internet retailer or innovative new business model to permanently change the landscape for wine online, but there are plenty of companies making a direct impact today.

As customers continue to shift their buying online it’s important to understand a few realities about today’s online shopper.

Affluent consumers shop online with more frequency (JP Morgan Internet User Survey 2010).
Today’s shopper has been trained by modern business models to expect value, selection, and instant gratification. Products should be in stock and ready to ship.
Reduced shipping rates are an important motivator in online purchasing. Think Amazon Prime.
The sensory experience and sampling are important with wine, and today’s online businesses need to find a way to overcome this through excellent imagery, introductory offers, and use of sampling programs.
Product education is important to online shoppers. Wine businesses should make heavy use of editorial copy, video, and the recommendations of other customers. Content and commerce should always go hand in hand.
Referrals work. Social sharing, refer-a-friend, and discounts for successfully signing friends as members are great ways to boost customer acquisition rates.
Curation is often a way to provide value to your audience, whether through use of an “expert”, an in-house team, celebrity endorsements, or specific product criteria.

Some examples of businesses that are shaking up wine online:

Subscription Model

Flash Models

Group Buying

Aug 9, 2012 at 10:19 PM

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August 3, 2012 | Karin Ballestrazze

Keeping your wine cool when when the weather is warm

Don’t let the warm weather put a chill on your DTC sales. You can ship safely and successfully in the summer months by actively managing a few critical variables; time in transit, the internal temperature of the shipment and cost.

Time in Transit
During hot and freezing weather, consider modifying the days you ship so packages are not held over the weekend at the carrier’s hub. Bi-coastal shipping, if available, can expand the number of states you ship ground, allowing the maximum number of shipping days per week as well as curb rates for 2day, overnight and priority shipping since you are traveling through fewer zones.

Shipping service level
A shipment from Napa to San Francisco will arrive at the same time regardless if it’s overnight or ground and ground is much more cost effective! However, a shipment to Dallas may best be served by a priority overnight shipment. Priority overnight is an effective solution as the wine arrives at its destination by 10:30am, avoiding spending the day on the delivery truck. This also allows for the most flexible shipping schedule as well as being very popular with customers since they receive their wine quickly. It’s worth considering as a warm weather strategy.

Moderate the Internal Temperature of the Shipment
Utilizing WineDirect’s CoolPack shipper (insulated packaging paired with no sweat gel packs) with two day transit will ensure shipments are not exposed to excessive heat or temperature variance.

Cost
You will likely spend more protecting wine during peak temperatures, however consider the opportunity cost of not shipping during the summer. You may be delaying sales as customers get all their summer wine in the Fall and that may reduce your Fall and Holiday shipments or at worst you lose the sale all together especially if the wine is a gift or for a special occasion.

In the end, there may be no single “best” way to ship wine in the heat. Consider a combination of
Cool Packs,shipping schedule & service level used paired with your customer’s location and needs. By utilizing a safe and cost effective shipping method during the summer, it will allow your consumers to enjoy your wine all year long as well as maximize your own sales potential. A win for everyone!

Co Author, Jen Sims, Account Manager

Aug 3, 2012 at 10:16 PM

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July 31, 2012 | WineDirect Admin

Customer Fatigue – the Perils of Marketing Saturation

Sean Moffit pointed out in his fantastic talk ‘Spreading Digital Wildfires’ at the 2012 Wine Information Technology Symposium that in order to be ‘great’ in the social media business we should all be generating 400 tweets, 30 blog posts, 12 videos and 8 emails a month. Really? I enjoyed your talk Sean but I have to disagree with you on this one.

Can you imagine seeing 400 tweets a month from one person on your Twitter Feed? Even if it was your absolute favorite celebrity or the wittiest Tweeter in the universe; 400 tweets would drive you a bit crazy, wouldn’t it? But add to that the amount of blogs, videos and emails that Mr Moffit suggested we should be sending, now that would be just plain annoying.

The simple fact of the matter is too much contact can damage your relationship with your customers.

As with almost anything in this life it’s quality not quantity that counts. You need to have a well thought out marketing strategy if you want to build a loyal customer base. Throwing content out there just for the sake of it will have a negative impact on your customers.

The way we communicate has changed with the meteoric rise of social media. However, what has remained the same, in the wine industry at least, is ‘story’ sells. If you are communicating with your customers make sure that you have a strong, compelling reason for doing so. An exciting, unique and perfectly timed marketing campaign will help you to create long-time fans and hopefully generate lots of sales as well!

So how much contact is just enough? Below is my suggestion for contact with your customers over the next six months. If your message is unique, interesting and not repetitious this is a recipe for success!

So start carefully planning your marketing strategy now and maximize your sales as we move into the busy end of year! Best of luck!

Jul 31, 2012 at 10:11 PM

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July 24, 2012 | Sheri Hebbeln

Your Brand is Built by What You Do - The Jack Daniel's Letter

It’s a message you’ve no doubt heard many times before, but one that bears repeating – every person who works for you represents your brand; not just your customer service team, but also your winemaker, your bookkeeper, and even, (if you happen to work for a big company), your legal department.

The Nicest Cease-and-Desist Letter Ever

I love this story……..the story of the legal letter gone viral. If you’re not familiar with it, earlier this month a trademark lawyer for Jack Daniel’s sent a letter to Patrick Wensink, author of a book titled Broken Piano for President. The cover of that book just happens to bear a remarkable resemblance to the label on a bottle of Old No. 7. When he received the letter, Patrick Wensink posted it on his blog with the comment “Who knew Jack Daniel’s was full of sweethearts?” It’s a great letter, full of southern charm and hospitality – not quite what you would expect from the legal team. And it’s gone viral. The last I looked, the book was #9 on the Amazon Best Sellers list and Jack Daniel’s has been featured in articles by Mashable, Esquire, The Atlantic, Time, BusinessWeek and others.

What a great example of brand ownership coming from an unlikely source, the legal department. With the help of Twitter, Yelp, and Facebook, word-of-mouth is much more powerful today than it was just a few short years ago. We love to share and connect with friends through stories. The stories customers tell about their experiences with your winery will have a huge impact on your marketing efforts. For that reason, your reputation and the growth of your company rest in the hands of your employees, regardless of which touch point within your organization. Developing and nurturing a culture of employees who believe in your mission and want to do right by the community and by your customers will have a very real impact on your future.

One of my favorite quotes is from Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap.

“Your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.”

Jul 24, 2012 at 10:08 PM

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July 5, 2012 | Matthew Mann

Finding Your Way in the .Gov Universe

What I’m about to say will likely seem obvious to many but I’ll say it anyway…if you want to know the rules for selling wine in a particular state, start at the liquor authority website. Over my years as a lawyer and compliance specialist, I’m frequently asked questions the answer to which is readily available on the state website. One of the great developments of the internet age is the ease of access to information on a multitude of topics, including the laws on making and selling wine.

The ABCs of ABCs
I’ve explored every state and federal alcohol agency website and I’ll be the first to tell you they are all over the map in terms of the quality. Most are actually quite good. They want you to easily find what you’re looking for so you don’t bother them with a phone call. The Texas ABC site is a great example. Informative and easy to navigate with answers to just about anything you’d want to know. California’s ABC site is pretty user friendly as well. Others leave something to be desired. Often this is the result of these agencies being divisions within a larger department and getting buried within the larger website, whereas Texas and California are departments in and of themselves.

Navigation can vary. Most states use simple panel or tab navigation with headers such as “Forms”, “Taxes”, or “Regulations”. They are intuitive and take you right to where you want to be. The worst seem to view visitor access as some kind of game. For these sites finding what you need is something like “hide and seek”, with the hider often winning. When all else fails most sites have “Search” boxes to look for key terms. I’ve had modest success using this method and sometimes you get lucky.

At the best sites you can find answers to questions ranging from getting started and licensing to advertising and trade practices, often available with just a few targeted clicks. Best of all, and maybe most importantly, you can find forms. Pretty much anything you need to stay current with the state.

License and permit applications forms
Reporting and taxes
Changes to your business

You can also find meaningful information on your license privileges; not only through the governing statutes and regulations, but through bulletins and agency advisories providing interpretations and policy positions.

Getting There From Here
Finding agency sites is as easy as a web search, but for one-stop shopping you can’t beat the Wine Institute site. Not only will you find links to every state liquor agency, but also links to most state revenue departments. This is extremely helpful as many of the state tax forms are located with the revenue department rather than the liquor agency. A great resource for tax sites and rates is the Federation of Tax Administrators.

Don’t forget federal law. For whatever other complaints you may have about the TTB, its website shouldn’t be one of them. Whether you’re an importer, wholesaler, or winery, you can find answers to almost any question. They have a specialized Wine section, including information on labeling, permitting, taxes, trade practices and advertising. They even address questions about alternating proprietorships and custom crush.

DIY
If you need help, there are many professionals with practical experience dealing with regulatory agencies. Wine Compliance Alliance provides not only compliance services, but will train and educate your staff to professionally handle your compliance needs. Still, “do-it-yourself” is always a good way to get started. There is a wealth of information on the internet, you’ll be surprised just how much you can discover and learn just by looking.

Jul 5, 2012 at 10:03 PM

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June 28, 2012 | Erica Valentine

Wine Ecommerce –3 Reality Checks: It is NOT a field of dreams people!

Before you build your shopping cart, you need to create your customer acquisition strategy. The best web shopping carts in the world won’t generate sales unless customers are compelled to use them.

It never ceases to amaze me that this subject continues to be a huge blind spot for the wine industry. Now that there is tangible evidence that DIRECT WINE SALES ARE GROWING , the allure as well as the reality of selling directly to consumers through tasting rooms and websites is even more compelling, while selling wine through distributors is getting harder and more expensive each year.

Wine purchases in your tasting room or via your website “will (NOT) come if you build it”, the premise of the fanciful movie ‘Field of Dreams’ . Business success depends upon a strategy and a plan with measurable tasks and timelines built around authentic and compelling selling propositions. What does this mean? A successful DTC sales plan defines your sales goals and your customer acquisition strategies. Time for the Reality Check: Who are and where do you find your customers? How many people are in your database? Is your database being kept up to date? How are you building it with goals for each day, week, month and year? What is your existing or planned conversion rate online and in your tasting room?

Reality Check 1: Ecommerce sales conversion rates around 1% and 2% are fairly common.

For every 1,000 visitors to your website, this equates to only 10 to 20 sales! Of course a targeted email campaign to pre-qualified people that know and love your wine should be a much higher rate, but you hopefully get the point. Here is an excellent blog on conversionxl.com on best practices for improving ecommerce sales and conversion rates. Vin65 is a leading ecommerce platform for the wine industry that is also improving rates for winery sites via their mobile, ipad and Facebook apps.

Reality Check 2: Most wineries do not have a ‘customer acquisition plan’.

Think of it this way, if you produce 1,000 cases and plan to sell 500 to restaurants, you need 1,000 restaurants on your hit list assuming an aggressive 50% sales success rate. How many consumers do you need walking through your doors or being driven to your website to sell 500 cases (6,000 bottles)? A reasonable number would be 5,000 consumers at launch to market to, but where and how do you get them? A good white paper about targeting luxury consumers is found here on iprospect.com

Reality Check 3: You should always be engaging with prospective and existing customers.

Once you are launched and getting people in your doors and visiting online, you should continue to recruit new, engage with and retain existing customers to maintain sales momentum. Your sales and frequency will improve with a compelling story and sales strategy that is mapped out over the year around release schedules and events. Strategic partners such as publications, associations, the media and other portals to consumers are key to meeting new and staying in touch with existing customers. Bloggers can be powerful sources of referral, well beyond this great list of wine bloggers mentioned by VinTank.

Wishing you ever increasing acquisitions and conversions!

Jun 28, 2012 at 9:59 PM

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