Building a Better Virtual Tasting Room
Posted by Ben Chinn on October 30th, 2008
We sometimes think of winery websites as "virtual tasting rooms". Okay, you can't actually taste the wine on a website, but in other ways a website can, and should, achieve much of what a tasting room does. Next time you're thinking about the content of your web site, or if you're building a new one, a lot of what you already know about your tasting room will help you with your online presence.
Making A Connection
Tasting rooms allow customers to make a personal connection to your wine. Tasting room employees engage with customers in a way that captures a customer's attention in a way that no other kind of promotion can. A winery website has the potential to make a connection in a similar way. What are you saying on your website? Can you imagine an employee in your tasting room talking like the text reads on your site? You have an opportunity to connect directly with customers on your website – don't lose sight of the human being on the other side of the screen.
Honoring the Journey
When somebody shows up at your tasting room you know that they have traveled to get there. You appreciate they have taken the time to visit your winery and you try to make sure they don't regret that investment. A customer visiting your website has also made a journey. Maybe they arrived after searching for your wine on Google or following a link from another site. However they got there, they made a choice to visit your site and have invested some time in exploring it. They should feel like they are getting some value in return, whether it's a special offer on a wine, an opportunity to join your club or an invitation to a winery event.
Beating the Competition
Especially in the big wine centers there are plenty of opportunities to visit tasting rooms. Many people who visit your winery may already have been to one or two others and may visit more after they have left. You need to create a memory of your winery that stands out among the other tasting room visits that day. One the web the competition is even more severe. You are competing with millions of other web sites and all of them are only a click away. How have you distinguished yourself and made sure the memory of your web site stays with each customer?
In an Interview with Wine Business Monthly tasting room consultant Veronica Barclay says that the purpose of a tasting room is to "create memories". A good winery website can do the same thing. But what about the purpose of selling wine? I'll get to that in a future post.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Good Reads
For your consideration, a nice post from Ben Chinn at Inertia Beverages, Building a Better Virtual Tasting Room, including a link to a great interview with some experts on maximizing tasting room effectiveness.Next time you’re thinking about the conte…
October 30th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Ben,
Spot on. We have been focused on the notion of a virtual tasting room too (as stated in our joint press release). In my opinion, it’s the informal personal connection offered by the tasting room that is of the most value. However, it seems difficult to me to generate this type of informal discussion via a winery website. That is why the most engaging wineries use blogs (e.g. Dover Canyon, Twisted Oak, etc.).
The only problem is that a blog is a serious undertaking, which prevents many wineries from achieving this type of informal personal interaction with readers. Therefore, I think wineries are best served by participating in online discussions about their winery. Some forums may offer no tangible direct benefit, while others will. For example, our site tries to facilitate this type of discussion within arm’s reach of the winery’s online store. See Bighorn Cellars’ profile for an example.
If I owned a winery, I would set up a Google Alert with my winery’s name so that I receive an e-mail every time my brand is mentioned online. Next, I would go to that site/forum/blog and engage in the discussion (or merely say thanks for the shout out). This is a little extra work, but it sure is a lot more personal!
Food for thought.
Kevin
November 4th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Thanks for the mention, Kevin! Excellent advice–to be successful, maintaining a blog for commercial purposes does require more than just writing about one’s business–it’s important to engage and honor your readers, make them feel welcome and valued, just as you would in your tasting room. If a winery does not want to establish a blog, there are other ways to engage visitors, like sending a personal thank you to email signups, or posting visitor polls–if they’re fun people tend to participate and the winery can find out more about their demographic (Vizu is a free program that we use).