Virtual Tastings: What Have We Learned?
When the pandemic-related lockdowns took hold in March of this year, wineries scrambled to figure out how to capture the allure of their tasting experiences for thirsty audiences stuck at home.
Many wineries nailed them right out of the gate, while others struggled, leading to a flurry of webinars and blog posts on virtual tasting best practices. Now that seven months have passed since wine lovers began to get comfy drinking wine in front of the soft glow of their computer screens, what can we safely say works, and what does the future hold?
1 – They are likely here to stay.
There is no doubt that wine travel will pick up, but whether it will return to pre-COVD levels anytime soon is a live question. Even if the threat of getting sick abates somewhat, the economic fallout from the pandemic will continue for years, which may inhibit those who want to travel from traveling at all. Finally, with climate change prolonging and intensifying wildfire season in key regions, virtual tastings may have to partially make up for in-person visits during normally busy times of year.
We’re also seeing a virtual tasting elite take shape, a group of wineries so adept at engaging their audience via Zoom; FB, IG, YouTube live; or Google Hangouts that they have created a new, fertile marketing channel.
How are you measuring the success of your virtual tastings? Tasting kits sold? Attendance? Wine club attrition? If virtual tastings really are here to stay, make sure you’ve put in place KPIs to measure their success.
2 – Keeping your brand and audience front of mind is beyond critical.
If you consider yourself a luxury brand, make sure the production of your virtual tastings looks the part. Make sure you do practice runs with your team to make sure you’ve mastered the technology. Background noise, insufficient lighting, and a bland setting can all erode the impact of the experience.
Does your audience want to learn or have fun? Are they the types of folks who will open three $75+ bottles at once for the tasting experience? Managed expectations are a key prerequisite for virtual tasting success.
3 – The people attending the tasting are more important than the wines featured in the tasting.
The goal of any virtual tasting, much like an in-person tasting, is to build relationships. It can be just as easy to get lost in the minutiae of the wine online as in person, but it’s never a good idea to spend too much time dispensing information that attendees can find on your website.
Telling stories, using humor, mixing in music or art, asking attendees for questions and comments—all of these things can break down barriers and lead to genuine relationship-building.
The folks attending the virtual tasting most likely already love your wines, which in turn makes your job to show how much you care about your guests.
4 – Your virtual tasting went well. Now what?
How you follow up after a virtual tasting is about as important as how you conduct the tasting itself. Here are some critical items to consider if you want your next virtual tasting to be as or more successful than the one you just finished.
Send an email to all attendees thanking them for their time and containing the following:
An invitation to the next one!
A small discount or voucher on the tasting pack for the next tasting as a thank you for attending the previous one. (You may want to offer special pricing on the tasting set in the first place.)
An additional incentive if they bring a friend to the next one. The incentive could be a piece of swag, a $50 voucher on an order of a certain size.
Make sure you take a smiles-filled screenshot from your most recent tasting as a way of marketing the next one.
Consider recording a quick video preview of the next tasting by the person hosting, so attendees can get a sense of the tasting’s tone and direction.
5 – Okay, you’re comfortable with virtual tastings. What about virtual tours?
Virtual tours are a logical next step. Again, with travel curtailed and many consumers trapped behind their computers, virtual tours can be a great way to give them a “taste” of your property and a renewed sense of anticipation for visiting in person at some point in the future.
Here are several tips to keep in mind as you create your virtual tour:
First, have a script. Which areas of the property deserve to be highlighted? What are the key things you want your viewer to know about each stop?
Decide whether you want to do a 360 photo tour or video tour.
To conduct a 360 photo tour, you first need to purchase a 360 camera, which can run a couple hundred dollars or more.
You can upload the photos to a platform such as my360tours.com in order to create the tour itself.
The completed tour can be shared across your social media channels or embedded to your website. Click here for a great example.
You could also film an actual tour where someone leads the viewer on a walk around your property. Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma chose this option and did a stellar job. If you want it professional shot, then it will most definitely cost more than the 360 photo tour option.
An obvious place to embed your virtual tour is the Visit Us section of your website, but it could also be embedded on a special landing page where new mailing list signups are taken after they join. This could whet their appetite to visit or even purchase.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forever altered what we consider to be normal in so many aspects of life. With winter and the traditional slow season approaching, alongside a virus whose vaccine is months if not years away from wide adoption, wineries would be wise to use this time to enhance their virtual tasting experiences and the channels they use to promote them. Connecting with new and existing customers in these unprecedented times is daunting, but there have never been more tools available to find success.