Younger audiences, especially generations Y and Z, born between 1981 and 2012, are set to represent 80% of the global personal luxury goods market by 2030 (Bain & Company, 2023).
These young consumers have a different approach to luxury than older generations. They value meaningful luxury experiences that are authentic and personalized over the possession of luxury goods. It’s not necessarily about the product, it’s about the experience that gets associated with that product and how it makes that person feel.
This translates as well to the luxury wine hospitality experience.
Per the Wine Marketing Council’s findings in their latest research, younger people are looking for new drinking occasions. For me personally, the take away is that this does not have to be about a big event or a celebration. It’s more about an experience that triggers a person’s imagination and makes them want to be there. I’ll give you a simple example. I was shopping recently and it happened to be a really nice sunny day, compared to the many cloudy days we have been having lately. It’s Winter, so it is expected. What was not expected was the warm sunshine and seeing this group of friends enjoy a flight of white wines out on the patio in the afternoon at this high-end wine tasting bar. I really wanted to be there. Meaning, I really wanted to partake in a glass of chardonnay outdoors, with a meaningful and personalized hospitality experience, while enjoying a great 1 on 1 conversation with a friend. Plus, Spring is around the corner and that excites me. The take away here is I don’t just go to have a glass of wine, visit a winery, or buy a bottle of wine. I have to first think or be presented with an experience that makes me want to be there.
We need to rethink how we communicate a wine hospitality experience.
These experiences and how they are conveyed need to ignite your potential visitors’ curiosity and imagination on what it would be like. The questions they are asking themselves are: Should I take the drive to wine country? The tasting notes on the website are tough to decode. Will I even like the wine? What else can we do while we are there?
Technology plays a key role in delivering a hospitality experience to these younger audiences.
This does not mean jumping on the bandwagon with augmented reality or NFT’s. It might make your brand look cool for a few seconds, but Luxury hospitality brands need to start thinking about experiences that are more meaningful and personalized and delivered with authenticity. And, it needs to be more than the standard outreach campaigns in Instagram, the next generation of Facebook, or email marketing.
So, where do you start?
Rather than take the traditional approach, map out your visitor’s journey from every key touch point, that when combined, forms a complete luxury hospitality experience with your winery. Create elevated experiences from your first outreach, to the time your guests step into your wine tasting room, through the tasting experience, when they leave your winery, and how you continue to engage with them.
#1 The First Outreach
A luxury hospitality experience starts with the first time they hear from you.
In order for visitors to really engage with your brand, and ultimately become a loyal wine club member, they need to come to the winery for a memorable experience.
But how do you get them to that feeling place in their mind? Standard email communications or social media posts will not cut it for substantial brand growth. What I mean by standard is having to read a lot of text with flat images, watching a long video of the winemaker talking about the wines from their perspective, and linking your viewers to your website’s wine page where the description of the wine has to be decoded to fit your narrative, and not their expectations.
Using short video vignettes, we have created captivating moments that showcases the wine brand’s story from the guest’s perspective. These video vignettes answer their questions of why should I come, how does the wine taste, what are other people saying that are like me, and how can I visualize myself in this conversation. These are visually authentic and captivating moments that visitors will not find anywhere else.
#2 The Appointment
Embrace an air of exclusivity with an engaging and intimate welcome to your hospitality experience.
Rather than a standard reply after your guest makes their wine tasting appointment, set their expectations in a new way that excites them with a visually unforgettable hospitality experience that will be coming their way. You'll already have them engaged with you before they even arrive.
#3 The Wine Tasting Experience
Makes it easy for guests to learn more about the wine club at the winery when they are still on the fence to ask.
Your guests love it when you bring out those special wines for them to taste beyond what is on the wine tasting list, but it might not get them to want to hear about being a wine club member right away. And, in most cases they are not going to ask on their own.
Our Captive Portal is an authentic way to offer up more information about the wine club membership that guests can easily access and get curious about o their own. It’s an authentic self-selling experience that ignites guests to ask for more information and become a member before they leave the winery.
#4 Continued Engagement
One of the best ways to stay connected is through wine club memberships or more imaginative post visit email follow-up.
Unfortunately, wine club shipments have become expected. Instead of a brochure in a box, bring the winery experience to the home anywhere in the country by adding a QR Code connected to our Captive Portal. Connect the Portal to your website for more winery visits or your shopping cart to generate add-on sales. This is an opportunity to closely connect with your members, reduce attrition, and trade up with a new way to engage.
Keep the wine tasting experience alive, upfront, and center in your guests’ mind. Rather than a picture of a wine bottle with traditional tasting notes in email, captivate them with video that shows how the wine tastes, unexpected pairings, and new occasions to enjoy the wine.
We Deliver A Luxury Hospitality Experience
Now video might sound daunting and expensive, but it does not have to be. Producing expensive and time-consuming videos is not scalable to support a multi-purpose video strategy. We create the strategy and produce the videos at a fraction of the cost, enabling you to leverage them across your existing multi-channel platforms. And, you don’t have to manage another platform, we do it all for you.
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