Jessica Kogan is the co-founder of Cameron Hughes Wine and oversses the digital strategy for Vintage … [+] Wine Estates brands.
Ron Sellers
Jessica Kogan knows how to get wine in front of customers. She and her husband, Cameron Hughes, founded and launched Cameron Hughes Wine—a company that sells bottles from North America, Europe and New Zealand direct to consumers, exclusively online through a négotiant model.
Kogan is also the chief digital officer for Vintage Wine Estates, a collection of independent wineries from Napa County, Sonoma County, Oregon and Washington State including Clos Pegase, Cherry Pie Pinot Noir, Owen Roe, Tamarack Cellars and B.R. Cohn.
Back to Cameron Hughes Wine for a moment. In the decade-plus that it’s been around, it’s grown to be a company known for a positive digital customer experience and for providing access to affordable gems. The site is balanced by customer reviews which appear alongside background information on a wine’s particulars, including region, vintage and why it was chosen by Cameron Hughes Wine staff.
Take, for example, Jess’s Picks, a section of the website featuring Kogan’s favorite wines. It’s an affordable range of eight bottles, six of which are priced under $10. Lot 622 2016 Columbia Valley Riesling, (all of the wines are named with a lot number, and there’s never a tie to the grower or exact source on the label) one of Kogan’s picks priced at $8.40. Packed into the wine’s listing, buyers find tasting notes, technical information, background on why and how the fruit was sourced and a video of Cameron Hughes, tasting the wine and speaking through the details of his immediate experience. It’s not unlike being right there with him—unscripted and personal.
This sort of internet-scale intimacy flourishes in other aspects of the global buying environment, such as fashion, beauty, toys and gaming. In these industries, unboxing and purchase “hauls” function as massive drivers of YouTube watch counts, which pay off for makers and sellers by entertaining viewers. Still, it’s not a common tactic in the equally sense-driven wine industry, where many wines sold online have little more to represent them than a bottle shot, downloadable technical sheet or sparse paragraph of tasting notes.
And yet, the direct to consumer (DTC) marketplace is becoming increasingly more important to the wine industry. According to Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) State of the Wine Industry Report 2019: “DTC sales make up 61 percent of the average family winery’s revenue today, and almost all of that growth is dependent on a consumer first visiting the winery’s tasting room.”
But what if there’s no tasting room, no option for the consumer to meet winery staff in person, to taste the wine and make an emotional connection? For companies such as Cameron Hughes and collaborative organizations like Vintage Wine Estates, opportunity knocks when ease and connectivity compel the right buyer in the vast digital sales and marketing space. This opportunity is mutual for customers as well—promising enjoyable storytelling, competitive pricing, efficient service, and (perhaps most compelling) more choice when it comes to the wine they bring into their homes.
SVB’s 2019 annual report assessed how many wineries employed a dedicated staff member to manage their customer database and to analyze consumer data. In other words, investment in attention to customers beyond the time they spend enjoying face-to-face interactions. Eight percent of respondents had a full-time person in that role, and 25 percent used a part-timer in the position. “For the two-thirds of wineries that don’t have that role covered, this is a good year to start,” states the report.
Kogan recently chatted with me about her perspective of digital marketing in 2019 and beyond. Here she shares her thoughts on a topic that I expect we’ll hear much more about in the upcoming decade:
Jill Barth: In your role at Cameron Hughes, you handle direct to consumer business. How important is this aspect to wineries (and consumers) in 2019 and 2020?
Jessica Kogan: It is beyond important for all wineries, but specifically most important for small to medium size wine companies—there has been so much distributor consolidation which means lesser known brands do not get attention. By going direct and understanding digital marketing, wineries can bypass distributors and retailers and connect directly with consumers.
JB: Digital marketing requires something in place of actually tasting the wine, some tangible context to help wine consumers understand what they are buying. What are the key elements to making the digital experience meaningful for the customer?
JK: The experience from the moment a consumer enters your [online] store is a reflection of the type of “tasting experience” you would like the consumer to have. Is it easy to find information? Can I navigate to wines that interest me easily? Is there good, creative and entertaining content? Is the checkout smart and easy? All of these parts take the place of “actual tasting” and give you a feeling about what the wine might be like to convince a customer to try the wine because their online experience has been so amazing or what they expected/hoped for.
JB: How important is collaboration to your work at Vintage Wine Estates? Is there a commonality that brings together all the wineries represented?
JK: Collaboration is everything to us and with Vintage Wine Estates we have brought together digital and hospitality in a way that is very unexpected. Through technology in the tasting rooms we are driving customer advocate marketing that supports the wineries digital and offline presence—digital reviews help customers make better decisions on our ecommerce sites and offline we are able to bring to life the experience of the tasting room with customer comments on review-driven boards like Yelp!, TripAdvisor and Google.
JB: I believe consumers want to know that their wine comes from a business they feel proud to support. Vintage Wine Estates only represents independent wineries. How important is telling the stories of these producers? How can digital marketing bring that alive?
JK: I AGREE! I feel digital is the most amazing and immersive way to tell the vineyard story without actually being on the property. In the case of Cameron Hughes wine to make you feel like you are in Cam’s virtual tasting room. Our job online is to make you feel connected to our process, our philosophy and our dreams. I really don’t think you can have this same experience at retail unless an individual who represents the brand is speaking directly to you.
JB: Talking trends: what are your winemakers excited to make this year? What new offerings can consumers expect to see in the near future?
JK: Our winemakers are into blending—red, white and even special infusions. Pinot remains incredibly hot and super fun in terms of the multiple styles we can develop from coastal to county. The appetite for this varietal continues to grow and grow.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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