No winery can have too many brand ambassadors. People who will tell the world about your wine. Usually we think of brand ambassadors as customers who are connected to your winery and love your wines. However, all your winery employees should be brand ambassadors for your company, for the wines and for the service you provide.
To create effective brand ambassadors, it’s important to train your employees in how they can be effective in this role. After all, your employees know the business, they know their jobs and if their friends and neighbors are looking for ideas for what wines to buy, or where to take visiting guests wine tasting, who better to ask than someone who works in the industry and lives on the same street.
With the right information and training your employees can be a great addition to your marketing and public relations efforts. It is up to management to train employees in the arts of brand ambassadorship.
Communicate
Does everyone who works for you, from the cellar crew and office staff to the hospitality staff and part time workers (either tasting room or crush) who work occasionally, have all the information they need to become a brand ambassador?
In training sessions ask the staff members to write down the mission and vision of the company. Or ask the staff to answer two questions:
- Who are we?
- What do we do?
Collect the statements they have written and read them out loud (without identifying the writers).
This will give you a good idea of everyone’s interpretation of your mission and vision statements.
Encourage a Social Presence
Hold a social media training session with guidelines that provide the information on what may or may not be shared on social media. Encourage your employees, in their role as brand ambassadors, to post information about exciting, interesting or funny things that have happened at the winery.
Share Information
Put out one email each week (or more if needed) keeping everyone up to date on what is happening in the company (photos, news, videos), etc. Employees can share this information with their followers.
If you have a blog or other content you post to your customers, feature information about individual employees as they are more likely to share this information with friends and family.
A tip of the glass from me to you.
E Column
by Elizabeth “E” Slater, In Short Direct Marketing
A recognized expert in the fields of direct marketing and sales in the wine marketplace. Slater has taught more wineries and winery associations how to create and improve the effectiveness of their direct marketing programs and to make the most of each customer’s potential than anyone in the wine industry today.
