Sampling
Beverage marketing is a multi-headed beast, and there are many different approaches. However, getting the liquid on customers’ lips is always the most cost-effective way to persuade them they will enjoy it…
ecoSIP offers a new way to get your beverage and your customers together for the least possible cost – far lower, in fact, than shipping full bottles, in-person tastings, trade shows, or competitors’ sampling solutions.
Cost, Waste & Carbon Footprint
The cost is far less than competing solutions, especially when considering postage, and the combination of sampling, QR codes, short-format vertical video and time-limited discounts gives you the ability to influence far more cost-effectively, driving higher engagement and follow-on sales
Waste reduction is a huge deal too. How many full bottles have you sent to prospective customers, only for them to take a sip, decide to pass, and throw the rest away? While customers may ultimately need to see the full packaging to make a final decision, filtering out the time wasters is a huge benefit. Using the Coravin Vinitas solution, which we offer for small batch sampling, you can reduce costs by nearly 40%, or with ecoSIP, it can be a 70% saving!
The cost of a small sample of your product, of course, is far lower than a full bottle and there’s no opportunity cost from no longer being able to make the margin on that bottle too. Furthermore, there’s the cost of replacing smashed glass bottles which happens far too often in shipping.
Today, we all have ESR commitments we want to fulfil. That means eliminating anything unnecessary from our processes. A great place to start is with your sampling activities! Again, using Vinitas, you can reduce the carbon footprint of your sampling activities by 75% vs sending full bottles, or a whopping 96% reduction with ecoSIP.
Scale
You can also sample your product at an unprecedented scale for maximum impact. Rather than targeting just a few overloaded buyers with sample bottles, why not give away 100,000 or more samples of a new product to as many end consumers as possible to drive demand, removing the gatekeepers? Think big, learning lessons from industries such as perfume who give away samples with magazines.
With ecoSIP this is possible, thanks to our incredibly low labour and material costs. Are you a wine merchant? Why not affix a sample inside a brochure sent to your customers? Or target a new vintage release at people who have bought that product previously.
Large wine clubs are a great opportunity for sampling. What a fantastic perk: to receive free samples of your latest offerings, either monthly, quarterly or with every new order. The additional cost is marginal, and it can drive a follow-on sale much faster.
Tasting Events
In-person tasting events will likely always be the way to form the deepest connection with a few critical customers. But the cost and time to get these influential buyers to give up half a day or more to attend your tasting means you’ll always be limited in scope, and it will favour those geographically closer.
Rather than ignoring anybody outside your key catchment area, offer the chance to attend virtually. You’ve paid the experts to speak about your product; your winemaker has flown over specially.
Extend the scope of your tasting event to anybody, worldwide, who finds it otherwise too much of a burden to travel in person. Journalists and buyers who live outside of the big cities will appreciate it enormously.
Also, why not become a bit “stickier” by giving in-person attendees a sample to take home with them and try in person? That chance to review your wine might be the difference between a huge win and missing out!
Sample in Post
ecoSIP is the only way you can send a sample of wine in an envelope (where permitted by law). This unique offering allows you to fit 50ml of wine and an information card into a package less than the UK’s Royal Mail “Small Letter” limits: 24 x 16.5 x 5mm and <100g.
Alternatively, you can send up to 6 x 100ml samples as a “Large Letter”, weighing less than 750g in total.
Custom Branding
Putting your products in front of a new customer is an incredibly important occasion, so you want it to look its absolute best! ecoSIP offers unique branding opportunities. For high-volume runs, custom-printed flexible materials are available. From 1000 units, fully-custom cartons are available, with a variety of inks and finishes, to provide branding opportunities on all faces of the sample.
The rectangular shape of the ecoSIP carton allows it to be stacked together into a huge variety of packs, from simple and plain all the way through to luxurious solid board with advanced features such as hinges, magnets and gold foiling. Everything is possible!
Even for the smallest volume projects, we can always customise the products by affixing high-quality, colour stickers with your branding and product information.