A wine supplier recently asked us about our Sampling as a Service ROI. We thought it an odd question given the ROI of any supplier spend is largely unmeasured. Ultimately, case counts are the only measure being considered by the spirits and wine industry.
However, when you’re launching a new category, in our case digital activation, you have to educate people to new language.
We’re using this post to layout an example of sampling as a service ROI. In the graphic below, you see a table featuring hard metrics, these are measurable metrics. Soft metrics are important and in this case, much of what is included surrounds messaging and the relationship building part of brand awareness.
Let’s go through a tangible example.
Let’s assume there is a Umani Ronchi featured campaign launched for $1000.00. It’s currently on a menu for $10 a glass.
Shared Spirits converts 70% of these marketing dollars into deployable drink credits. So in this case, there would be 70 drink credits for Umani Ronchi made available.
The drink credits would be deployed out to a select network of pre-approved Ambassadors of the restaurant and/or brand. Let’s assume that these drink credits went to 14 Ambassadors who each had 5 drinks to share with their connections.
This is a significant part of what our technology does. This is what we mean when we say, “we compliantly convert marketing dollars into drink credits.”
At this point, 14 key Ambassadors have been exposed to your brand and the key account.
They will distribute the drinks to their connections. We encourage them to keep one for themselves. An additional 56 people will receive a drink credit featuring your brand.
All recipients will be redeeming the drink credit at the participating key account. We track the sharing internally. If someone isn’t sharing or they share to participants who don’t redeem within the appropriate period, we pull the drink credits out of the app and deploy them elsewhere.
Redemptions lead to additional guests, additional drink orders, food orders, and revenue for the key account all while your brand is featured in the campaign. In this case, with an average ticket of $55 after a couple of drinks and appetizers purchased by the redeeming guest, the participating establishment sees possible revenue of $3850.00.
Bonus! In addition, in order for your brand to be featured in the campaign, it has already been added to the Shared Spirits app by the restaurant allowing anyone with the app to purchase it for a connection, friend, or family member.
So in summary, assuming your typical .750 bottle renders 6 pours, the campaign will require additional stock of 12 bottles. If the campaign is initiated by a sampling or tasting event, the purchased bottle count will have to be higher. If there is a retail offer available, perhaps even higher.
The exposure of one’s brand to 70 great connections experiencing the brand in a key account that is shown this level of support is extremely meaningful as well.
As redemptions in the key account restaurant occur, we also share calls to action inviting the customers to purchase at retail where applicable.
Ongoing marketing on behalf of the restaurant and brand may occur as well. For the first time, brands have a mechanism to begin building ongoing relationships with key accounts, provide new programming to distributors to take out to accounts, and also build relationships with the consumers who actually drink their products.
We have no knowledge of a brand’s margins per case or bottle so true ROI is impossible to truly measure on our end.
Our question would be, “what’s the ROI of other initiatives?” How might we be able to compare what current spending looks like in the context of all the added value of Sampling as a Service software?
For more information reach out to our CEO, Sherman G. Mohr by setting up a date and time here.
