Vin65 Blog

5 Stars Dominate Ratings (in Video and Wine)

Youtube blogged earlier today how Five Stars Dominate Ratings. I quote: "great video prompts action; anything less prompts indifference." And in their blog they posted the graph on the right.

I wanted to compare how closely YouTube's ratings match how consumers rate wine. We pulled the data from all of the websites on our platform using our 5 star rating widget. Almost 50% of consumers rated the wine at the full 5 stars. (The full results are in the graph on the right).

A couple of objection we hear from clients about allowing consumer ratings and reviews are:

1. What do we do if there is a negative rating or review; and
2. Not all consumers rate wine on the same scale (for some 3 out of 5 might mean it was good, while to others it means mediocre)

The statistics above basically coincide with what we have often thought.  There are very few negative consumer reviews (less than 10% of ratings were 1 or 2 stars) and there are an overwhelming amount of positive ratings and reviews.

More importantly, we know that ratings and reviews will increase conversion other industries report 20-50% increase in conversion). So while YouTube debates the merits of its 5 star rating system for video, to me a 5 star rating system on a winery website makes a lot of sense.

What do you think?

Sep 22, 2009 at 10:00 PM

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Who should be the voice of our winery’s social media program?

(This is a guest blog post from our PR and Branding consultant, Melissa Dobson of Melissa Dobson PR & Marketing.  Melissa blogs at http://familylovewine.wordpress.com/ )

You’ve been reading up and researching social media. You’re ready to get started and incorporate a couple of the platforms into your winery’s marketing and relationship building strategy. Now, who should be the face behind the voice that will represent your winery?

Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Think of your staff including owners, staff and their families. Is there someone or a few among them who are already passionate participants in social media for their own personal use? If so, do those people have a good understanding of the day-to-day, behind the scenes stuff that goes on at the winery? Are they personable, engaging and responsive to questions?
• Discuss the possibilities of social media engagement during a staff meeting. Ask for experiences and feedback from staff. Ask staffers to research and speak about some other winery examples who are already present there, what they’re doing, what you could do that’s different and representative of your winery’s core branding.
• Divide and conquer. If the owner and winemaker have a tight schedule (imagine that!), rotate who will post or update throughout the week even if it’s just posting a few photos with comments and photo descriptors when you’re pressed for time. 
• If you decide to divide and conquer, create a posting schedule to keep on track and for consistency.
• Try to carve out time to dedicate to learning more about social media platforms and continually assess your program. 
• Although a winery PR person, wine club manager or tasting room manager work as a good representative for a winery social media program, many consumers are clamoring to hear from the winemaker and owner directly. Bring them in as much as possible.
• Be sure that your winery social media “faces” are responsive to inquiries and feedback from consumers. This can be time consuming, but the trust and loyalty that this direct responsiveness brings is well worth the time.
• If you receive a negative comment about your business or your wine, take the time to address it and provide any additional insights or information and create a customer service opportunity to make things right or overcome the negative impression. A thoughtful response from the owner, winemaker or appropriate staff person can make a difference, if not with the comment writer than for those who read the comment and response in the future. I recommend only deleting negative comments that are vulgar or inappropriate.
• Don’t forget to promote other wineries, regions and collaborate with others in the industry. Jump into conversations about things you’re passionate about, provide resources if you have a recommendation or feedback. These types of interactions are essential to building trust and credibility. Show an interest in others, rather than only talking about yourself and your business.

It will take a little while for your winery’s social media faces to “find their voices”. Listening first by monitoring conversations that are already going on and following the practices of social media thought leaders in the industry on Twitter and Facebook are a good way to get started.  Don't be afraid to ask for advice from those who are already participating in social media.

What have been the biggest challenges in getting started with social media for your winery? Do you have advice for newbies?
 

Sep 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM

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The Experience

As an owner of a wine web site one of the biggest challenges you will face is conveying "The Experience" of your winery, facility, vineyard, and wines. At Vin 65 we often get asked to capture as much of the atmosphere of the winery in the design of the web site as possible. We use all kinds of things like flash and photos to give the visitor to the web site as much as we can.

At Vin 65 we have lots of fun ideas, some are really out there. My current personal favourite is offering an online tasting pack. The purpose is give a visitor the option to have a virtual tasting room experience. In a tasting room there is a $10 fee or something to taste some wine and then you get a credit towards your purchase. So why not built a tasting pack around 6 small bottles that are like 200ml or 150ml each and send it out for $25.00 or something with a $20.00 coupon towards their next purchase?

In this way you can give someone the option to try and savour some of your amazing wine if they can't get out to your winery for a tasting. It allows potential direct to trade customers to sample without spending hundreds of dollars. Getting out to the winery is the best, but if someone back East can't make it out this year for your new vintages, give them an option. How are you going to capture new customers or give your current fans a vehicle to send their friends a cool tasting gift.

Anyway, back to the main point of the post and that is sharing what your are all about on the web site, as limiting as a web site is. One thing you never see is a 360 view of your wine bottle. Now, hardly anyone does this, maybe because the impact just wouldn't be worth effort. I saw it for the first time the other day and was shocked how much more impact it had than I thought was possible. It looks really impressed on silk screened labels, but works on any bottle. Take a look at JAQK Cellars - and click the 360 view on the drilldown page. I like it - a lot, I feel like I am experiencing that bottle of wine as much as I can with out opening it.

Sep 8, 2009 at 9:00 AM

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