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On this vigorous episode of The Gross sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount welcomes Patrick “Pops” Garrett, Founder & Chief Consuming Officer of DrinkCurious, to discover the distinctive intersection between bourbon tasting and gross sales engagement.
Key Takeaways:
– Digital Tastings as Gross sales Hooks: Digital bourbon tastings turned an efficient “hook” to draw attendees to gross sales demos, webinars, and shopper conferences, growing engagement and serving to to interrupt by typical gross sales communication noise.
– Engagement and Phrase-of-Mouth: The interactive and academic nature of DrinkCurious’s tastings fostered memorable experiences that spurred word-of-mouth promotion, resulting in elevated shopper requests.
– Vacation and Retention Use: Drink tastings are in style not just for prospecting but additionally for worker rewards, shopper retention, and vacation gifting, with choices for digital occasions that shoppers can report and revisit.
– Bourbon as Cultural and Historic Icon: DrinkCurious incorporates bourbon’s cultural historical past into tastings, educating members on bourbon’s evolution, manufacturing, and the way it has influenced American tradition over a long time.
– Gamification in Tastings: To extend engagement, DrinkCurious consists of gamified components the place shoppers guess the bourbon or earn rewards, which may additional join the tasting to the shopper’s gross sales targets.
– Occasion Flexibility: DrinkCurious offers each digital and in-person tastings, together with choices for commerce exhibits, non-public gatherings, and post-conference occasions, accommodating varied shopper wants.
– Constructing Shopper Connections: Tastings assist set up rapport between shoppers and gross sales groups, offering a memorable, relationship-building expertise that provides a robust basis for ongoing conversations.
– VIP and Unique Gatherings: DrinkCurious organizes unique, high-end tastings for VIP shoppers, providing a tailor-made, premium expertise that enhances shopper relations and creates distinctive enterprise alternatives.
The Energy of Expertise
Gross sales groups immediately face an ever-increasing problem to seize the eye of their shoppers and prospects. In a world crammed with automated emails, digital promoting, and competing messages, it’s straightforward for outreach to get misplaced within the noise. DrinkCurious, a novel firm specializing in bourbon tastings and whiskey experiences, has discovered a technique to break by this litter. Based in early 2021, DrinkCurious makes use of digital and in-person bourbon tastings to assist gross sales groups have interaction with shoppers in a memorable, private method. By mixing training, leisure, and a little bit of gamification, DrinkCurious offers a inventive, impactful answer to the challenges of recent gross sales outreach.
Origins of DrinkCurious
DrinkCurious originated as a daring step from its founder, who left a conventional promoting profession to pursue one thing he was captivated with: whiskey. With a mission to create deeper, extra significant interactions between corporations and shoppers, he developed a technique to make use of bourbon tastings as a hook to attract in shoppers and preserve them engaged. These tastings are extra than simply sampling totally different spirits—they’re interactive experiences that educate shoppers concerning the historical past, tradition, and science behind bourbon. By serving to folks perceive the product, DrinkCurious creates a shared expertise that builds rapport and leaves a long-lasting impression.
The Digital Tasting Resolution
One in all DrinkCurious’s main choices is the digital tasting, which turned a preferred possibility through the pandemic. Many corporations had been searching for new methods to interact shoppers when in-person conferences and occasions weren’t attainable. The digital tasting shortly turned an answer to this downside. By providing shoppers and prospects a enjoyable, interactive expertise that may very well be loved from wherever, DrinkCurious helped gross sales groups preserve relationships robust even throughout a time when in-person interactions had been restricted. The tastings provide varied components, from Q&A periods to gamified guessing video games that encourage interplay, making these occasions each informative and pleasant.
Producing Optimistic Buzz and Phrase of Mouth
A key advantage of DrinkCurious’s tastings is that they permit shoppers to interact with their prospects in a memorable method, which regularly results in word-of-mouth referrals. DrinkCurious experiences that their shoppers obtain overwhelmingly constructive suggestions, with many attendees saying it was the most effective digital occasion they’ve skilled. This constructive buzz typically results in repeat engagements, as increasingly more corporations look to make use of tastings as a way of holding shoppers and engaged. This method not solely helps with rapid engagement but additionally strengthens long-term relationships, as attendees proceed to speak concerning the distinctive expertise with colleagues and buddies.
Versatile Purposes for Shopper Engagement
Past shopper engagement, DrinkCurious tastings are additionally used for prospecting, worker rewards, and shopper retention. For instance, corporations can use these tastings as a vacation reward to specific appreciation to prime shoppers. As a substitute of a typical reward, like a bottle of wine or a present basket, a digital or in-person tasting provides a extra private, interactive expertise. Shoppers don’t even should be in the identical location to take part, which makes it a handy possibility for corporations with a dispersed buyer base. As well as, the periods may be recorded, permitting shoppers to revisit the expertise or share it with others who couldn’t attend.
Why Bourbon? The Attraction and Historical past Behind the Spirit
The attraction of bourbon has been on the rise for years, and DrinkCurious makes use of this pattern to its benefit. Bourbon, a distinctly American spirit with a wealthy historical past, is gaining reputation as folks uncover the number of flavors and complexity it provides. DrinkCurious incorporates this historical past into their tastings, giving shoppers a timeline of bourbon’s journey and explaining its deep connection to American tradition. From its early reputation within the mid-Twentieth century to its decline and eventual resurgence, bourbon’s story is filled with attention-grabbing twists and turns. The founder additionally highlights how mixologists, popular culture, and even TV exhibits like Mad Males contributed to bourbon’s current increase in reputation. This context provides depth to the tasting expertise, making it greater than only a informal drink however a journey by historical past and tradition.
Gamification in Tastings for Elevated Engagement
DrinkCurious provides gamification components to their tastings to make the occasions extra participating and aggressive. Contributors are sometimes invited to guess the bourbon they’re tasting, with prizes like reward playing cards or bottles for individuals who guess accurately. This small contact of competitors provides pleasure and retains attendees actively taking part. Typically, shoppers use these occasions as incentives by providing follow-up tastings or demos for individuals who loved the occasion, making it a superb device to advance the gross sales dialog.
Choices for In-Particular person and Unique Gatherings
Along with digital tastings, they provide in-person tastings at conferences, commerce exhibits, or non-public gatherings. For instance, DrinkCurious has hosted unique tastings at giant business occasions, even taking up pubs or non-public suites to create a VIP expertise for choose shoppers. These intimate gatherings provide corporations the prospect to attach with shoppers on a deeper degree in an unique setting.
The Worth of Experiential Advertising and marketing in Gross sales
The rise of DrinkCurious showcases the potential of experiential advertising and marketing as a technique to deepen shopper relationships and stand out in a crowded market. By combining leisure, training, and personalization, DrinkCurious helps corporations create a long-lasting impression that goes past conventional outreach strategies. With every tasting, shoppers achieve not solely a greater understanding of bourbon but additionally a stronger connection to the corporate internet hosting the occasion.
Making Each Sip Depend
In a world the place consideration is difficult to seize, DrinkCurious has discovered a technique to make each sip rely. The experiential method it provides by bourbon tastings offers a possibility to kick off relationships on the fitting foot and create tales value sharing. DrinkCurious proves {that a} memorable, personalised expertise could make all of the distinction.
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