3 Lessons for Wineries from Tech Startup Fast.co

Fast (fast.co) is one of (if not the) tech startup darling of 2020. Their mission could not be simpler: Create a one-click checkout solution that works across multiple online stores. Imagine never having to enter your billing, shipping and credit card information each time you wish to buy something online. That’s the future they’re building.

As noteworthy as their solution is their launch strategy, which is evolving into one of the most successful customer acquisition efforts this marketer has ever seen. Their content is driven by social media expert Matthew Kobach (@mkobach) and often features their charismatic co-founder and CEO Domm Holland (@domm) espousing the product’s merits in wildly creative ways.

While I would love to see their solution implemented across the wine industry, their marketing prowess also deserves a closer look. Here are four key lessons wine marketers can learn from Fast:

1 - Your brand doesn’t belong to you, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

This 2015 article on branding contains one of my favorite quotes: “Your brand is the collection of perceptions held by each person who comes into contact with it.” In other words, as strenuously as marketers try to control the public perceptions of the brands they manage, brands

Look at Fast’s Instagram post above. They just come right out and say it: “Fast belongs to all of us.” So they ask an artist to interpret what Fast means to them. Obviously Fast gets to decide what they ultimately post, but to cede control of their brand in this way accomplishes four things for them:

• Fast has a measure of humility. Sure, they want every online store to adopt their product, but they realize they can’t do it unless their brand is viewed the right way. Letting others weigh in gives them a sense of where they stand.

• Fast is confident. They are comfortable enough with the brand they’ve built that they are open to letting others shape it. If they are this confident in their brand, then they are probably as confident in the quality of their product.

• This tactic supports one of their stated values: “Share the Mission.” In their words, “We’re bold and optimistic about the future, and our high-energy culture spills into the universe around us. It brightens every interaction we have with our teammates, customers and partners — and moves us all forward.”

• It gave them pieces of engaging content they probably could not have created on their own.

Why should wineries care?

It doesn’t necessarily mean soliciting artists to interpret your brand visually (although this might work for some wineries).

Given the saturation of the market, wineries need to differentiate themselves, and aggregating user-generated content (UGC) is one way to do it.

Soliciting UGC is hardly a new marketing tactic, and many wineries — @tankwinery and @honigwine are two examples — have elevated their content with it. But when Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers trust earned media (UGC) more than any other form of content, it’s astonishing that more wineries haven’t followed suit.

One of the best ways to solicit UCG is to gamify it. For example, with the holidays upon us, ask your FB and/or IG followers to submit a photo of them enjoying your wine in a festive holiday setting. Have them tag you and use a unique hashtag. Set a submission deadline, and then pick your favorite. Award the winner a gift card which can be redeemed online.

2 - Fast lets their fans advertise for them.

Fast is technically a B2B company, but many of their tactics resemble that of a B2C. It makes perfect sense, though.

Fast wants to cultivate a rabid following among consumers who demand a faster checkout experience. Many of these consumers probably work for companies that would benefit from Fast’s product. They also want to lean on the networks (and torsos) of consumers to get the word out.

Again, this tactic is not especially new, but Fast executes it so well it demands attention. In order to cultivate their fan base, they heavily leveraged giveaways (see IG post above) to increase their followings. Once the buzz was created, they opened an online apparel shop with free worldwide shipping which, of course, utilizes their fast checkout product.

Fast successfully straddles the line between being a tech company and being a lifestyle company, and there is a lesson for wineries here.

Many wineries would agree that they too are lifestyle companies, but so much of their marketing remains squarely focused on the bottle. So many would still rather try to get existing and potential customers to care about the soil type of their estate vineyard than find creative ways to amplify and spread the enthusiasm that (hopefully) comes from consuming their wines.

Apparel is certainly one way both to satisfy your advocates’ desires to engage more fully with you and to put your brand in front of more eyeballs. Apparel can also be a basis for giveaways (if appropriate) and the creation of UGC.

Some wineries take a more formal approach to apparel (Silver Trident Winery) while others are more irreverent (Maison Noir Wines). It all comes down to knowing your brand and your audience.

What Fast understands so well is that their brand is bigger than their core product, and they’ve found ways to harness its energy in a way that builds community. Wineries would be wise to consider their example.

3 – Fast invests in content. It’s an obvious priority for them.

I’m not a gamer, but I understand the frenzy that seizes gamers when a new version of PlayStation is released.

With the IG post above, Fast not only capitalized on that frenzy but also converted some of it into aspiration for their product. The video opens with a buyer tapping the single button on their mobile that is the Fast one-click checkout. The phone opens and the PS5 emerges. Not only is it extremely cool to watch it makes Fast’s ambitions crystal clear. I would argue it’s their most effective piece of content to date.

Most wineries likely don’t have Fast’s marketing budget, but that doesn’t mean that wineries can’t also create high-quality content that differentiates them from their competition. High-quality doesn’t mean immaculately polished (remember the Ocean Spray guy skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac on TikTok?), but it does mean authentic and memorable.

As we should all know by now, content marketing is a long-term strategy that uses a variety of media to build a stronger relationship with your audience, capture their attention, improve engagement, and improve brand recall. Given that 70% of customers would rather learn about a company through an article over any kind of advertisement, to not invest in content is to leave money on the table.

The key word here is “long-term.” One reason is that organic reach on social media isn’t what it used to be. According to We Are Social, roughly one in every 19 fans sees your Facebook page’s non-promoted content, but that doesn’t mean that you should get discouraged.

As Matthew Kobach, head of content marketing at Fast, put it on Twitter, organic social media marketing is akin to the wining and dining portion of a sales pitch. You need to build the relationship before you make the hard sell.

If you’re looking for inspiration, head on over to @tablascreek and their episodic series Chelsea and the Shepherd. There’s a good dose of wine geekery, but it’s light-hearted, down-to-earth, not too long and obviously not expensive to produce.

These short videos are obviously not something that Tablas Creek can or even needs to do on a daily basis, but it’s an example of a piece of differentiating content that their fans love.

Fast is one of those highly focused startups whose brand permeates every piece of content they produce and disseminate. While they don’t operate in an industry as saturated as wine, their launch and continued growth has plenty to teach wineries on how to cultivate a loyal community.