What Activities and Events Might Drive Customers to Your Tasting Room? Part 1

By Dr Kathy Kelley--Professor of Horticultural Marketing and Business Management, Abigail Miller-- Master's student in the Penn State Plant Sciences Department, and Dana Ollendyke-- Extension Associate


In 2014, researchers at Penn State, Rutgers, Cornell, and New York University collaborated on a wine marketing study funded by the USDA. Data were collected through a 15-minute Internet survey (22-24 October 2014). Participants residing in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania were screened for not being a member of the wine industry, being at least 21 years old, and for having purchased and drank wine at least once within the previous year. A total of 977 participants qualified and completed the survey.

With approximately “81% of [Pennsylvania wine] sold directly from wineries” (http://bit.ly/1LygxFl), one of the issues we investigated in last year’s survey was what a winery could offer to encourage winery tasting room visits and increase the frequency of these visits.  While, in some cases, we investigated broad categories and factors, we have plans to delve deeper in an upcoming survey to see what could motivate consumers to visit a winery tasting room and barriers survey participants feel prevents them from visiting.

Interest in winery activities and events

Today’s visitors do much more than just taste the wine at a tasting room; rather, there are opportunities to tour the vineyard and the wine-making facility, participate in classes, attend festivals, and much more (http://bit.ly/1JtOEHK).

But should a winery go through the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating an event or activity?

Data from a study conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University and Sam Houston University showed that, for Texas wineries, there was “a positive correlation between wineries that offer services such as tasting rooms and tours and gross sales… [thus] the more tourism services a winery offers, the higher their potential for gross sales” (http://bit.ly/1NSBgRx),

OK, so, with all that could be offered – what activities and/or events might garner the greatest consumer interest?

Though not an exhaustive list, we focused on activities and events that were more commonly found when we investigated wineries online and also based on popular press articles. As an example, an event that has been offered at some wineries and restaurants is a “Paint Nite,” during which attendees paint a certain picture by following an instructor while enjoying wine or other alcoholic beverages (for example, https://www.paintnite.com/). We were interested in learning if this activity appealed to our participants, and, if so, how much. Below is a table with data pertaining to the level of interest our participants expressed based on the seven activities/events that we tested.




As you can see, “tasting events,” “tour of the winery and vineyard,” and “food vendors from local restaurants,” were the three activities that had the highest level of interest (86.3%, 83.0%, and 78.9%, respectively), and are often interdependent of each other.

It makes sense that if someone is going to visit a winery tasting room that they would be interested in tasting the wine, but there are opportunities to offer “tasting events” that go a beyond the norm – perhaps they could be based on a theme, focus on your new release, be an exclusive tasting with limited seating, or your winery tasting room could be one of the stops on a local food tour.

And, although separate categories in our survey, winery tastings and tours are a natural pairing. Most likely you already offer a tour and subsequent tasting, but can you take your standard tour and split it up into several? The goal of this strategy would be to encourage even more frequent visits.

Château Élan Winery & Resort located in Atlanta, GA offers six different tour options, five are private and one is offered on a regular basis. While all six tours end in a tasting, each is unique with a different focus (http://www.chateauelan.com). The private tours focuses on each of the following: 1) the vat room, 2) the wine making process, 3) the vineyard, 4) an experience with the wine maker, and 5) a session on other Georgia food products.





More data on winery activities and events will be discussed in part 2 of this series.




Additional Research and Thesis Advisory Team Members:


• Jeffrey Hyde, Professor, Agricultural Economics, The Pennsylvania State University


• Denise Gardener, Extension Enologist, Department of Food Science, The Pennsylvania State University


• Brad Rickard, Assistant Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University


• Ramu Govindasamy, Professor, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Rutgers University


• Karl Storchmann, Clinical Professor, Economics Department, New York University; Managing Editor, Journal of Wine Economics


• Rob Crassweller, Professor, Professor of Tree Fruit, The Pennsylvania State


University



The project “Developing Wine Marketing Strategies for the Mid-Atlantic Region” (GRANT 11091317) is being funded by a USDA Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program grant, whose goal is “to assist in exploring new market opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural products and to encourage research and innovation aimed at improving the efficiency and performance of the marketing system.” For more information about the program, visit http://www.ams.usda.gov.

Brags and Blunders!

Often the conversation amongst direct-to-consumer farm marketers can turn to “So, what are you doing that’s new and exciting?” I was fortunate to be able to hear some new and exciting ideas recently.

As part of our recent Are You Crazy? bus tour we had a brief session titled “brags and blunders.” The purpose of this session is for everyone to have an opportunity for describing the very best and/or the very worst marketing idea they ever implemented. This session was a great way to learn from each other and get conversations going. I relate here what I heard.

Invisible Fence Maze

Yes, they buried that invisible pet fence in a maze pattern and turned the kids loose. They did replace the buzzer with flashing lights before they started. This project was discontinued after two years. The kids had to crawl along the ground for the collars to sense the buried wire. Blunder!

Burning Fire Truck

Who doesn’t like a fire truck? Well these folks wore a big floppy foam fireperson hat and were driving around when the truck started burning. Of course, the fire extinguisher had been removed recently, so every one at the farm watched as the fire smoldered. Blunder!

Pumpkin Cannon

Have you heard about Punkin’ Chunkin’ celebrations? The one I am familiar with is in Delaware the week after Halloween. A bunch of clever folks tinker up some mechanical devices for flinging pumpkins way down the field. This marketer did the same thing, except after the season was over they decided to see how far they could send a pumpkin. After fanfare and the launch - they never did find the 1^st piece of that flying fruit. Blunder!

Ground Hog Pumpkins

I don’t know about your fields, but ours can be full of ground hog living quarters. One year it seemed like most every pumpkin in this one field had ground hog damage. A few bites here and a few bites there. These folks told the touring elementary students to hunt up some of the “pumpkins with the ground hog autographs”. Well, the teachers later heard from the parents that if they were going to a farm could they at least find one that had decent pumpkins. Blunder!

Peach Smoothies

Many multi-generational farms experience family conflicts from time to time. At this roadside stand the elders did not think much at all about the new generation suggesting they start a peach smoothie enterprise. “Too much trouble!” “Who would buy that?” You might imagine the conversations. However, the younger folks persisted and today they can hardly keep up with demand for their simple and healthful recipe. Brag!

Zucchini Storm

Couple years ago when hail hit this farm they found themselves with what seemed like thousands of hail damaged zucchini. They were quite concerned if they would recover any of their production costs. Well, they advertised “zucchini storm” in all sorts of variations and sold every last fruit. Funny, but today they find it as difficult as you do to market perfectly good zucchini. Brag!

All my kitchen knives went to New York city

Many years back people were just beginning to build the NY Green Market. This country family saw the market potential but had no experience of actually being in the city. They had heard all the terrible news on how dangerous NY could be. On their very first market day at a brand new site they took every kitchen knife they owned as protection from whatever it was they might find. Today, over 20 years later they can laugh at themselves. They not only helped start the NY Green Markets movement – they continue to enjoy the experience and benefit from their efforts. Brag!

Selling butterflies

Wouldn’t you know it! Just as the potted plants in the greenhouse are ready to market an infestation of

caterpillars eats all the leaves and makes the remaining sticks very unattractive. Not one to let an opportunity pass, these folks decided to market the potted sticks as “buy a butterfly”. They quickly sold every last plant they had, and to this day still hear from customers what a wonderful time their families had raising their own butterflies. Brag!

“When’s the baby due?”

‘nough said. Blunder!

It goes to show – an excellent opportunity might be right around the corner, or maybe not.


For a photo series on this year's Tour, visit Are You Crazy Tour 2014

Agritainment Offers Opportunity to Diversify and Increase Income

By Michelle Kowalewski, Extension Educator, Susquehanna Co.

Zembrzycki's have diversified their dairy farm enterprise to
include a roadside farm market and now a corn maze.

(All photos from Zembrzycki's Corn Maze
located in Herrick Center, Susquehanna Co.)

Farmers have learned that diversity in agriculture is a must; and agritainment presents a rising opportunity for agriculture in Pennsylvania.  "Agritainment" is simply providing an opportunity for entertainment in an agricultural setting.  Visitors, or customers, can supply a wide range of revenue-generating opportunities for farms.  Agritainment creates opportunities to entice visitors to your farm, provide education about agriculture, and increase your overall profits.  Examples of agritainment enterprises include pick-your-own fruits and vegetables, farm markets, festivals/fairs, interactive animal displays, corn-maze enterprises, for-fee fishing, bed and breakfasts, and farm-stay vacations.  Many agritainment enterprises have an educational component to teach consumers about 'where their food comes from.'

The first step of considering an agritainment enterprise should be to check whether your proposed land use conforms to your local zoning regulations.  As with any new venture or enterprise, developing a business plan is an important next step.  If you currently have a business plan, revision will be necessary to consider the impact of the new enterprise.  Having a written business plan helps ensure that you have considered all issues pertaining to operating an agritainment enterprise and can help in obtaining financing.  The business plan will also highlight your marketing plan and marketing is a key component to your business's success!


When marketing and advertising your agritainment enterprise, it's important to thing about what will attract customers.  Your agritainment operation needs to be eye-appealing, easy to navigate, and above all - safe.  The first impression will be the customer's last impression and should be positive.  Providing information and attractive signs for guidance will enhance the experience of the customer.  Signs help keep customers within designated areas, well-maintained pathways also provide guidance and safety.

Remember, you are inviting customers to your operation.  Provide a variety of entertainment to encourage return visits.  Listen to your customers and provide them with what they need and you will have a successful entertainment business and add to your income and business story.

Information from this blog post provided from Agricultural Alternatives: Agritainment

Penn State Extension offers some great resources for entrepreneurs looking to expand their horizons in the agritainment industry.