In this article I will give you the first most important strategy of the wine marketing to increase sales. My aim is to make you see things from a different point of view than yours, an external one, to make you realise how much an aspect that you may consider marginal sometimes has a decisive capacity on the final consumer's choice. The world of wine marketing is fascinating and complex and its accomplishment is to effectively sell your wine at the right price. Communicating wine in the right way therefore becomes crucial to achieving this goal.
When I wrote my mission statement, I unintentionally made clear the concept of the perceived value of a product:
"I frame your company and tell everyone in the world your story".
Framing your wine is making exceptional outside an exceptional product inside. Let's not forget that you buy first with your eyes, then with your mouth.
In this guide I will explain what the perceived value of a product and how to increase the perceived value of YOUR product through the first of the 3 core marketing strategies:
Outstanding presentationthe label, the shape of the bottle and any packaging in the perception of the overall value of the wine.
Before I start telling you all the secrets of proper wine communication, however, it is very important that you get an idea of the basics of marketing. I recommend that you read at least a couple of these books, with some research on Amazon I found them at a very affordable price... and it is always worth investing a few tens of euros in your training to boost your business! (Actually, even more than a few tens of euros, so let's consider them a starting point...)
- The new rules of marketing: How to use social media, online video, mobile apps, blogs, press releases and viral marketing to reach customers (Web & marketing 2.0)
- Adding value to a product with quality ingredients. The importance of ingredient branding
- Wine and territory marketing: instructions for use
- Marketing 3.0 (Business World)
- The Purple Cow: Getting noticed (and making a fortune) in a brown world (Varia. Economics Vol. 39)
- Assert your identity with Net Branding: Build concrete content and strengthen your online reputation
- Wine marketing: From labels to social networks, the complete guide to promoting wine and food tourism (Business models)
But if you really don't feel like reading the classic marketing manual, I recommend this personal growth manual... today it costs only €4.99 and I assure you that it will change the way you look at things: The monk who sold his Ferrari: A spiritual fable
Let's say that all of them would be worth reading for different reasons... certainly if I had to choose just one I think I would tell you to buy at least The Purple Cow: Getting noticed (and making a fortune) in a brown world 🙂
I will start with the first concept: the famous P's of marketing are not enough! Do you know the famous P's of marketing?
- Product
- Price
- Promotion
- Positioning
- Advertisement
- Packaging
- Word of mouth
- Presentation
Actually, everyone has their own favourite, but in my opinion you can find 100 P's of marketing... they all need a common denominator to work: theuniqueness. Translated:
- Product exceptional
- Price exceptional
- Promotion exceptional
- Positioning exceptional
- Advertisement exceptional
- Packaging exceptional
- Word of mouth exceptional
- Presentation exceptional
And you know what's really extraordinary? That an order to achieve the result, i.e. SELLING, it is more useful for you to have one exceptional P than 8 ordinary P's.
Get it into your head: exceptional word-of-mouth can make up for an ordinary product. But word of mouth, packaging, advertising, promotion and price all together are not enough to sell an ordinary product. And now don't tell me that your product is exceptional and therefore alone is enough to hold up the whole system! In this case, exceptionalism should be that you are the only one in the world to produce that type of wine, which I am absolutely certain is not the case! Of course the quality of your wines may be exceptional... but if one of the other 7 exceptional P's does not occur at the same time, it will never be enough for you! The Purple Cow is nothing more than the exceptional event, it is the cow you notice among millions of brown-coated cows.
In this world where we now complain about everything without realising that we have everything, the 96% of products that companies have developed to improve our existence pass us by completely indifferent. And the same applies to the wine market: out of 100 wines on display, there are basically 4 wines on which our attention will rest, and it is among those 4 that we will end up buying. What are those 4 bottles?
- is the bottle of the famous brand, of the one that everyone knows because it is fashionable, regardless of whether it is in the end consumer's heart or not - exceptional brand (it is not a P for the simple reason that it 'does not count' except for the purposes of argument!);
- it's the unusual bottle shape: we are now used to seeing the classic Bordeaux bottles for reds... and Rhinelanders for aromatic whites and Champagne cuvees for sparkling wines... do you want to bet that a pulcianella (just to say a little bit different) is very noticeable? Here you will find an in-depth look at bottles and bottling! Not to mention even more unusual bottles... have you ever seen Bepin de Eto's Rosé? An absolutely good but ordinary wine with an extraordinary bottle... with a diamond effect that I have seen so many women fall in love with: guess which one they will choose out of so many other bottles of even more precious nectars?
- The label is outstanding: strange, peculiar, sinuous, eye-catching colour!
- The price is exceptional: in the type of wine you are looking for, it is by far the cheapest: YOURS.
Look at these bottles: there are wines that start at a few € to wines that cost hundreds. Yet I am sure that among the bottles that are represented in the foreground is your choice. Imagine not reading the label, these 5 bottles have communicative originality and strength in common. Those depicted upside down only have in common that they are ordinary.
Lately I have been receiving more and more wine samples from wineries that send me their products partly because they are hoping for a review - but I remember that I am not that kind of blog, for reviews there are wine bloggers like Francesco Saverio Russo of WineBlogRoll and I'll leave them to him 😉 - a bit to ask my opinion. Here, first of all, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the "Labels"where I will survey every wine label I come across... I'm not talking about a review, but an objective technical data sheet, the tasting I will do as an A.I.S. Sommelier, and my own pairing advice.
I tell you this because lately I've been paying even more attention to what the various wineries are doing... and it's amazing how small things make the end user's perceived value of the product skyrocket. The bottles I receive are so different... different wineries, different stories and different prices.
Brand management is the application of marketing strategies to increase the perceived value of the product to the customer. But what is the perceived value?
The perceived value is the value you believe a product has regardless of its real value.
Watch out! Today, thanks to the ease of information acquisition that the internet has given us, it is difficult to cheat on real value... so the perceived value of a product has to be really strong to stand up. The perceived value of the product that works in 2015 is the one determined by emotion.
And now I want to remind you of a great truth: a large proportion of your potential customers cannot buy your product because they either have no money or no time or do not feel the need.
Assuming that yours is a product exceptional to be sure of selling he must also have a exceptional price (little or much it must be highly competitive), a exceptional positioning (above all, it must be readily available) and the exceptional publicity in order to create an uncontrollable need.
So how can you answer these 3 laws of marketing? What are these 3 strategies that will increase my sales?
Strategy 1: Start again with Packaging!
Make your product exceptional with exceptional packaging! Don't think that packaging doesn't make a difference: when your wine is on the shelf among dozens and dozens of bottles, what will strike the consumer is its packaging. So invest in a strange bottle, in a wrapper that gives value, in a ruffian label. Learn from La Montinawhich has renewed itself with a style that pleases and convinces because it is chic, not shocking! Daring but not excessive, the shopper of La Montina's Rosé Demi Sec is first prize at the Luxury Packaging Awards in London. Pink, with a riot of black lace up to the handles that had never been seen like this, hand-packed, chic as ever: the Franciacorta Rosé Demi Sec shopper from La Montina beats the competition in the city of design.
Without disturbing the splendour of La Montina, I will show you two bottles of Franciacorta... apart from the fact that one reminds me of Mickey Mouse's cow, it has a bottle that no one will ever buy on a shelf, not even if it has the best Franciacorta in the world inside!
Here you have the exact projection of what I will never tire of saying: first you buy with your eyes. It applies in love, why shouldn't it apply in everything? Even before I know if a man is special (read wine is good) I see if I like the way he looks... (read label & packaging). A person may be the most extraordinary of all, but I will never find out if I don't feel like delving into it because he hides behind a scruffy look... or if he has a huge nose or who knows what else. And men, who are even more aesthetic than us women about outward appearance, why shouldn't they be with the wines they sell?
Soon I will reveal other product strategies to better sell your wine 😉
Hoping I have been helpful, I embrace you!
For doubts or questions leave me a comment!
Chiara
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