Last week we discussed an important topic: How wine consumers are buying wine at lower prices and the two price ranges they’re buying in (here’s the post). Today we’ll talk about how we can sell more wine without lowering our prices.
But first, let’s address the question in your mind: ‘what the heck do online marketers have to do with wine’? The answer: they show us a technique that can help sell more. That technique is adding value.
Many online marketers sell their products through long hyped-up sales pages promising the wealth of the ages. And the “close” to get you to buy is they offer several bonuses if you buy right now before the price goes up. Using bonuses works. These people sell millions of dollars online every year. Many people buy the product based on the bonuses, thinking “Wow! Look at all the stuff I get!”. Cosmetic manufacturers have been doing this successfully for years. You buy their makeup, and you get a makeup bag with it.
We don’t want to sell hype, but…..
If we want to sell more wine, we don’t want to get caught in the trap of lowering our prices. We want to get into the habit of adding value to the customer’s purchase.
Here’s a marketing truth that’s worth remembering: People make their buying decision based on price only when they think there’s no real difference between the products they’re considering purchasing.
For example, white athletic socks. Honestly….is there much difference between those? Not really. So what do we do? Buy the cheapest! This applies to cars, too. If price was the only factor, BMW would be out of business and Yugo would be the most popular car in America.
People buy VALUE, they don’t buy price.
People buy whatever they think will give them the most value for their money.
Value = The product + other things that come with it. Therefore…..
BMW = Vehicle + high quality construction + prestige. That’s *value*.
If people are basing their wine-buying decision on price alone, it’s because they don’t see any difference between the wines. So you have to increase the value of your wine. And before you say “Hey…our NAME has value!”, that's true, but lately that’s not having as big an impact, so you’ve got to sweeten the pot a little.
How to use value to increase sales
Give the customers something along with the wine. It needn’t be expensive, it just needs to be perceived as valuable.
Here’s a non-wine example, when I worked for Hewlett-Packard, we sold a lot of one of our high-tech products based upon a simple giveaway item (see the photo, below). That’s a “Reflection Calculator”. It gave engineers an easy way to calculate the reflections of radio waves. It made the engineer’s professional life really easy. Those reflectometers were inexpensive. The high-tech product they accompanied cost more than $20,000, and we sold a lot of them because we’d throw in a couple of these reflectomers. The reflectometer was a valuable item that we added to the purchase.
Wine Examples of Value
At a recent tasting event, Jerome Winery (AZ) gave me a card after I’d purchased a bottle of their wine. “Bring this card to our tasting room and you’ll get a free gift”, they told me. Next week I’m heading up to Northern Arizona with a friend for a “weekend vacation”. Usually I don’t go to Jerome, but this time I will. Why? Because I get a free gift! That’s added value. The benefit to Jerome is that I’m coming back and I'm bringing a friend who’s interested in tasting Jerome’s wines.
I was at another tasting festival recently where a winery was offering tastes of their port wine, and pairing it with M&Ms (“here…taste it with chocolate”). You know how I would have used this to sell more port? I’d have brought along several bags of M&Ms and then surreptitiously told the tasters (as if I don’t do it for everyone) “if you buy the port, I’ll throw in a big bag of M&Ms along with it”. I’ll bet any of you that it would have doubled their sales of port. Why? Value! The tasters could then rush off to their friends and say “Try this with chocolate! It’s sooooo good!” (It is, too. Delicious!)
So before you cut your wine’s price:
Think of inexpensive ways to add value to your wine. Perhaps a compilation of recipes that are paired with your wine. It’s easy to format it nicely, and it’s value…most people buy wine to pair with food, so you save them the trouble of looking up recipes. Or perhaps a set of inexpensive wine-glass charms. Or a bag of M&Ms (!) Or even a free gift when they come back to your tasting room.
Add something of value that makes the customer think “Hey…I get more stuff when I buy this wine!” and you’ll never have to worry about losing a sale to someone with a lower price.
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