Vintage Maneuver: Winery Turns to Podcasting to Reach Younger Audience
Napa Valley, CA winery Goosecross Cellars wanted a way to attract drinkers beyond its core baby boomer audience.
To do that, owner David Topper knew he had to tap into the marketing trend of mobilization and time shifting. Thus was born Napa Valley Wine Radio, a podcast he figured would attract Gen Xers and Millennials. “We need to communicate with them the way they want to be communicated with.”
Surprise. The people listening the most are…boomers. This is nice, but not what Topper had hoped. “Boomers will begin retiring soon and pulling in discretionary funds. We need to get to the next generation. It’s important that wines aren’t seen as ‘our parents beverage.'”
Still, the one-year-old podcast has helped the winery differentiate itself from the competition and give people a reason to come back to the company’s site, http://www.goosecross.com/.
While there are many wine-oriented podcasts, Topper says this is the first produced by a winery. Napa Valley Wine Radio currently attracts about 2,000 unique subscribers. The half-hour biweekly program is promoted via e-mail, search engine and directory submissions, and on the Web site. It is also featured on all printed materials sent to customers, including postcards and case stuffers.
The content of the podcasts includes wine education, ranging from detailed analysis of the winemaking process to lighter features on topics like why there is a punt in the bottom of wine bottles (the divot was originally designed to strengthen the bottle, so sparkling wine wouldn’t cause it to explode). Food and wine parings are also discussed, as is wine etiquette, history and entertaining. Winemakers from Goosecross as well as other vineyards are regularly featured.
“While the podcast is clearly produced by Goosecross, it isn’t designed to be Goosecross-centric,” he notes. “We wanted it to be more broad, so while it brings value back to Goosecross, it doesn’t just center around us.”
Via RSS feed, the winery offers the podcast, as well as a separate feed of general company news such as new releases.
How do they judge the ROI of the podcasts?
“The holy grail of podcasting will be when we can identify the actual number of downloads and the actual number of episodes listened to,” notes Topper.
Using DRM (digital rights management) would allow Goosecross to get more data, but as there is debate among listeners about whether this technology is an invasion of privacy, the winery has decided to stay away from it for the time being.
Feedback via e-mail, tasting room conversations and surveys is considered seriously, and the company just started including offer codes in each of the podcasts to track listenership. For example, if a listener would like to try the wine featured in an episode, they can use offer code “ABCD” to get a 20% discount on that vintage.
The company also maintains a file of over 25,000 e-mail addresses. While the podcast is updated every two weeks like clockwork, e-newsletters are only sent “when we have something to say,” notes Topper.
All newsletter communications are permission based; when a customer signs up, they specify what they’d like to receive, such as news on only white or red wine, recipes, new releases, wine education, company news or surveys.
The winery sells 10,000 cases per year, 98% of which is direct to consumer.
