To win a raffle, you have to buy a ticket. It is as simple as that. Your chances might be slim and you might have no way of influencing the odds, but without that ticket, you have no chance. Similarly, to catch a fish, you need a line in the water. What is different here though, is when fishing, you can influence your success. Attending Vinexpo Asia this week and reading the insights and highlights from both the recent SA Wine Summit and Wine Tourism Conference, I realised that these two simple truths about giving yourself a chance, also applies to selling wine!
In his presentation, Show us the Money, Peter McAtamney, the Founding Principal of Wine Business Solutions, Australia and a regular at the Wine Tourism Conference, said we have to be open – yes, open-minded and open to suggestion – but on the most basic of levels, our doors have to be open. Only when your tasting room doors are open, you have the chance of selling a bottle of wine. Like buying a lottery ticket, you have to take that first step or nothing will happen. But, other than with the lotto odds, there’s much more that you can do when it comes to getting your wine sold and we should rather take our lessons from the fisherman.
Having your line in the water is but one step if you want to catch a fish. What type of fish you want will influence the bait you use, the time of day you go out, the place you choose to throw in your line and then there is of course the phase of the moon and the tides to keep in mind. Seems like we are in familiar water here. Although we might be happy to sell a bottle of wine to anyone, there are a certain type of preferred customer. To be attractive to this customer, we need to have a certain type of product, an image and a tone mapped through our brand’s complete customer journey. This is something far more complicated than having an open door, but of course, of no use without those open doors.
Open doors can have a more figurate meaning too. It can, for instance, also require you as a winery to have a dealcoholised option when the market trend is for low and no alcohol. Without the offering, you can’t compete in the category. Giving yourself the opportunity to fish in this new pond, will require you to explore, research and invest. At Vinexpo Asia, we debated standardising the global no and low category. Are we adding flavourants to make the drink more attractive or are we proud of being purists? At the Wine Summit in Cape Town, Felicity Carter said that we have to understand the new consumer palate. They might find wine a little boring as they grew up with and are exposed to so many flavour profiles. Long gone are the days of choosing only between salt and vinegar, cheese and onion, or plain. Are the subtleties and intrigue of regular wine lost on a new category of wine drinkers? And what to do with the no and low alcohol category where it is even harder to offer natural flavour?
And this is the challenge of selling wine today. Brand, marketing and sales managers are always trying to understand, attrackt and please their customers. We attend shows and seminars to learn from the rest of the industry, we try to stay up to date with the latest research and to listen to the interpretations of industry leaders. We continuously benchmark our offering and amend it to meet consumer preference. Baby boomers were happy with formal wine tasting rooms and loved wine facts. Today, Millennials and Gen Z prefer a fun experience – they’ll google the technicalities later. No longer is it enough to have a welcoming host with wine knowledge presenting your wine, nowadays we need an entertainer, someone who asks guests questions and entice them to purchase the wine. No one wants to call to make a booking – it has to happen online. But, customers seems to enjoy it when you give them a call to ask about their experience or to compliment them on buying your wine. We want a seamless experience, but a personal interaction, tailored and premiumised. And of course, also authentic! Seems the more we embrace AI for insight and targeted promotion, the more we expect human emotional intelligence.
I listen, I look, I taste and I understand that this is the ideal. It is also my expectation. I want to be able to make easy online bookings and payments, all automated and accurate with no room for human error. But, when I arrive at my destination, I want a warm welcome, someone who knows I prefer my coffee black and my curtains drawn. Consumers today have high expectations. We want the efficiency and information of technology presented with warm and authentic hospitality. We want a fun experience, but without hassle. And then, if the state of the global economy doesn’t have too much of an effect on our personal finances, we would like to purchase.
No one survives without selling and the landscape is very competitive. Wine brands don’t compete with wine brands anymore, we compete with a myriad of drinks and options and it is very much required for us to be informed and focused. But… and perhaps I am the victim of info overload at the moment… sometimes when I think about the world of wine, I wonder about a possible disconnect between the art of wine-making, that passion for terroir and quality and the relentless drive to please and to adapt in the hope of making a (profitable) sale. I do believe the quality product and the enticed buyer need each other, but the balance seems increasingly complicated.