Organizations and individuals are scrambling to figure out how to use social media to build brands, establish online thought leadership and create long-term, high-value customer relationships. Joining the social media scramble feels non-optional... We have Facebook and Twitter accounts. We write and visit blogs. But so far no one has really cracked the code on how to use social media in a clear, consistent way to deliver measurable results. In spite of the excitement and the hype, social media remains a platter of often-confusing options and combinations rather than a well-designed, seven course affair that delivers value. So while the talk continues to swirl around social media, the action continues to rely on the most ubiquitous online medium: email.
What we’ve done at GroupVine is stay where the action is, but stretch this familiar, proven environment to make it contemporary and better-suited for today’s requirements for immediacy and visibility by pulling the “social” into email.
GroupVine’s Interactive Email transforms email into an action-oriented and engaging medium by making it:
- social,
- real-time, and
- frictionless
A Winery Becomes a Community: Raptor Ridge’s Experience with GroupVine
Raptor Ridge, is one of Oregon's most dedicated boutique producers of premium and super premium Pinot noir and Pinot gris wines. From the beginning, the focus of Raptor’s founders/owners, Annie and Scott Shull has been quality not quantity. This has been their approach when it comes to customers and relationships as well. With the tremendous growth of the Raptor’s business over the last 15 years, production has gone from 500 to 6,500 cases annually, and the winery’s customer base continues to expand across the country. Annie and Scott Shull, the proprietors, needed something more than the standard quarterly, paper newsletter to engage their growing customer base with the same level of connectedness they had been able to practice before.
In an early attempt to deepen customer relationships and create a sense of community around the Raptor Ridge offerings, Annie and Scott launched the Raptor Ridge Flight Club. Flight Club members receive benefits such as the first glimpse of releases on the horizon, invitations to events at the winery, as well as special offers and discount shipping. Additionally, Flight Club members are viewed by Raptor Ridge staff as a sort of extended family with special ties to the vineyards and the wines that are produced.
Raptor Ridge’s Dilemma: Designed to extend the dynamic, vibrant feeling of community so prevalent onsite at the winery, the “Club” struggled to take off. Instead of a community, it subsisted as a silent, distant audience.
Despite Annie’s efforts to transition Flight Club members from printed newsletters to online newsletters, the vitality of the club was difficult to gauge and often seemed flat or disengaged. Communications were one-way with no ability to pull in the customer voice and feedback. Regardless of content, the newsletters were unable to generate any sense of community between the winery and its customers or among the customers themselves. The customer energy, excitement, and connection so present at the winery tasting room, at events, and during tours vanished the moment the visit was over.
Raptor Ridge and Interactive Email -- a vibrant community is activated!
With Interactive Email, Annie discovered that the energy and the community experienced at the winery was out there. It was just a matter of giving it all a space to come alive.
According to Annie, “It’s really interesting to see the enthusiasm. Our customers are very involved, we’ve created this great community through our tasting room and through hosting local events; but the thrill for me was to see that same authenticity of community coming through and jumping out of the email right at me. That is how I want our wine club to feel whether or not they live close enough to the winery to come visit with us. I want members to feel that closeness and camaraderie and that kind of collaboration.”
Raptor Ridge and Interactive Email -- expanding value as Raptor Ridge continues to grow.
Annie has just begun to build and experience the long-term value of her expanded customer community. According to Annie, “We’ve drastically increased our response rate and I’m getting extremely articulate responses that I can use in my marketing materials, not only to this same audience going forward but also to my other audiences. It crosses over to all aspects of my business so that when I’m out working with distributors in the market, I can quote something a customer said about my Cuvee for example.” With Interactive Email as a launching pad, it’s possible to reach people in a way that sustains the sense of being involved in authentic relationships.
Additionally, Annie’s looking to leverage Interactive Email to other parts of the business. Annie, “I’d like to carry this over to my sales reps and my distributor teams. I have been thinking about how to create similar collaborative community amongst this very important community. They have a chance to experience this kind of thing during trade events such as Oregon Pinot Camp, but mostly are focused within their own markets. So I think if they were able to converse about sales techniques that work for Raptor Ridge across all markets, we can give them a richer tool chest, and thereby build loyalty more and more with this very mercurial audience as well. That’s the next phase for me.”
Annie’s hopes for the future include, “capturing and harnessing the same authenticity that people have when they visit the winery and extending it to our community at large. We want them to feel that they are a part of the Raptor Ridge family. That their opinions have an impact.”
Below is an interview with Annie Shull on using Interactive Email to build community around Raptor Ridge...
GroupVine founder, Darren Lancaster, speaks with Annie Shull, Raptor Ridge Co-Owner, about Building Community:
(DL) What were your original communication methods and what were your original goals in shifting toward email communications, and eventually to GroupVine’s Interactive Email?
(AS) My original goals were to communicate information about the current shipment of wines, tasting notes, update from the winery on what’s happening there, some interesting factoids about Oregon wines, winemaking, or news. It was unidirectional. I didn’t know if my audience ever even read what I wrote. Our original mode was hard-copy 2-page newsletter with pictures in the shipping box. Then we moved to an email version only. The third phase was moving away from unidirectional and into bidirectional communications that gave us feedback (hopefully) about what people wanted to see. The first couple of attempts were not very successful.
(DL) What were the most challenging aspects of the shift to email-based communications?
(AS) Getting my head out of the “content rich” space to realize that all of what I was writing, which was very content rich and was what I thought customers should know, was probably not being read or appreciated. The scatter-shot method of providing a variety of topics was ingrained in me, and I needed to step away from being the one doing all the telling - with GroupVine’s encouragement. Once I did, however, it was very freeing. Less time was needed to come up with the newsletter, but they still felt very content rich and more fun, I was able to be less stuffy and formal and more myself. The true persona of Raptor Ridge (and Annie Shull) felt like it was finally coming through.
(DL) How did you position the switch to you customers?
(AS) Saving trees, getting the info to them sooner, allowing them the opportunity to tell us what they wanted to hear and see, getting them involved in the quality and future of the product. Just another way to boost the feeling of community that had already organically begun around the quality of our product and the authentic experiences people have in our Tasting Room or when they meet us on the road.
(DL) How have your customers reacted to Interactive Email? challenges? concerns? complaints?
(AS) It was slow going at first, but it really helped this time to do some seeding (of the Interactive Emails) with about 10 loyal followers/power users. They really got the ball rolling.
Annie struggled with how to expand her business and maintain the authenticity of customer relationships she experienced at face-to-face winery events.
(DL) Did Interactive Email allow you to tap into information/feedback that was inaccessible with direct mail and regular email?
(AS) Yes. As an owner, my daily focus has been on other audiences. I have been out of touch, not in front of the direct consumer audience in the Tasting Room for a long time. I am now able to get the kind of feedback virtually, information that I would have to spend hours and hours in the Tasting Room to collect ordinarily. For me to be able to, in a moment look, at an email response and be able to see these quotes coming through and identify who it’s coming from is invaluable. It will inform a lot of my ownership decisions on future wines and offerings.
(DL) What kind of data were your able to gather?
(AS) Opinions that are going to influence our vineyard purchasing decisions, blending trial focus, and enable me to use some of their reactions with other audiences to promote my wines.
(DL) Were there any surprises in what you learned?
(AS) Yes, we knew our members appreciated our vineyard designates, but what was news to us was how much they like our Cuvees, or blended wines, and the reasons why. This lead to an immediate validation for a marketing shift we were already contemplating, and a new product was born.
(DL) And how does this data, the unexpected surprises and Interactive Email impact your business decisions?
(AS) We wiil continue to utilize Interactive Email as a virtual voting platform that will draw our visiting members and our out of state members together next month to cast their votes and give a collective opinion on three different blends to determine a new Raptor Ridge “Democracy Rules” blend for wine club members only.
(DL) How would you have gotten this data if you didn’t have Interactive Email?
(AS) Probably a very tedious survey that may not have gotten enough responses.
The next challenge for Annie: How to sustain a responsive, engaged community
(DL) What has been your biggest indicator of success with Interactive Email?
(AS) The most powerful feedback is that they respond. We’ve drastically increased our response rate and I’m getting extremely articulate responses that I can use in my marketing materials, not only to this same audience going forward but also to my other audiences. It crosses over to all aspects of my business so that when I’m out working with distributors in the market, I can quote something a customer said about my cuvee for example.
(DL) Your open rates have historically been quite high, averaging over 50%. And you’ve been able to achieve a 15% response rate overall, with nearly 27% of your customers who opened your emails responding to your interactive elements. How do you think you’ve been able to make that happen?
(AS) The topic that was the most successful was something that gave them the feeling of directly shaping their own future. They were asked what their favorite vineyard designates are, and told that, “No promises, but we may tailor future flights based on your responses.” They wanted to take responsibility for their own future, you might say. Then, the next successful question was open ended and asked for what specifically it was that made them vote the way they did. Everyone loves to give their opinion, feel like an expert.
Interactive Email’s expanding value as Raptor Ridge continues to grow
(DL) Now that you’ve tried Interactive Email for this part of your business, are there other areas of your business where it could add value?
(AS) Yes, definitely. I’ll be calling you in to help me with that. I’d like to carry this over to my sales reps and my distributor teams. I have been thinking about how to create similar collaborative community amongst this very important community. They have a chance to experience this kind of thing during trade events such as Oregon Pinot Camp, but mostly are focused within their own markets. So I think if they were able to converse about sales techniques that work for Raptor Ridge across all markets, we can give them a richer tool chest, and thereby build loyalty more and more with this very mercurial audience as well. That’s the next phase for me.
(DL) What are your hopes for Interactive Email heading into the future?
(AS) More bi-directional rapport built with out of state members, capturing and harnessing the same authenticity that people have when they visit the winery and extending it to our community at large. We want them to feel that they are a part of the Raptor Ridge family. That their opinions have an impact.
