In digital marketing, quality content is key to attracting, engaging, and retaining an audience, and video is one of the most powerful tools available. The high speed connections available on mobile devices today mean that videos can be watched anywhere at any time – and they are. Five billion videos are watched every day on YouTube alone, and more than half of them from mobile devices.
Video creation is also more accessible than ever before and within the means of most wineries who want to start reaping the benefits. Jordan Vineyard & Winery is an example of a winery that has done very well using video as part of their overall content strategy, and they continue to build on their success.
Every year they create a music video spoof with high production value that receives thousands of views. Their Blurred Vines video from 2013 has been viewed over 50,000 times on YouTube alone. However, effective use of video doesn’t all have to be big, resource intensive productions.
Lisa Mattson, Director of Marketing & Communications for Jordan said that the YouTube account consultant assigned to them by Google because they have over 13,000 channel subscribers, suggested that they create some serialized content that would allow for a steady and streamlined flow of content for their viewers.
The Jordan Uncorked series sprang from this recommendation, and was designed to work with their other programs and marketing strategies. Starting February of this year, every month Jordan Winery has released a new Jordan Uncorked video with Associate Winemaker Maggie Kruse and Assistant Winemaker John Duckett tasting a wine from the Jordan cellar, discussing the wine, the vintage, and the ideal window for drinking the wine, often including a pairing suggestion. The featured wines are selected based on customer requests.
This simple format not only allows them to talk about the Jordan wines, but also build search engine optimization. “People searching on the web are looking for what and how-to’s, like ‘when should I drink a certain vintage,’” Mattson explained, and Jordan Uncorked videos can be helpful in answering some of those questions.
With the format dialed in, the production process has become quick and seamless for the experienced team. Mattson, Kruse, Duckett, and Kendall Busby, Digital Media Coordinator for Jordan Winery filmed the two latest episodes of Jordan Uncorked in under an hour, and it’s clear that they each know their part well.
Under the direction of Mattson, Kruse and Duckett follow the formula, drawing on their knowledge and expertise with seeming ease and barely any need for retakes. Meanwhile Mattson and Busby focus on the technical and cinematic elements.
The set was outside at mid-day, but in the shadow of the winery, so that there was strong and uniformly distributed lighting. They used three cameras, two with fixed angles, and a third handheld. Audio was captured with a boom on an external recorder, and Busby edited the video and audio together with Adobe Premiere afterward.
Watching the video, you can see how the frequent cuts between the camera angles creates visual interest and keeps the viewer engaged. They also change the set location between the shoots, so that every episode doesn’t look exactly the same.
Much of the same effect could be achieved with two cameras or only one, if you’re willing to edit together multiple takes, which takes more time and can cause more continuity discrepancies to be aware of.
“We’re considering upgrading the older of the cameras to match the quality of the new ones, because there is a slight discrepancy in look,” Mattson said.
It’s a discrepancy that most people probably wouldn’t notice watching the edited video, but it shows the team’s attention to detail. Another example happened during the shoot when one of the gardeners had to be asked to stop what he was doing to avoid contaminating the video with background noise.
Most of the engagement with the videos comes from Jordan Winery’s Facebook followers, and many use Twitter to make suggestions for vintages to try, but the content is used across channels, including Instagram, and on their blog. And Mattson spends a little money promoting the videos through Facebook and Instagram. “Jordan makes a little bit of money on the ads on the videos,” she explained, “which goes back into funding for the program.”
These videos don’t have the high number of views that some of their bigger productions have, but they provide a constant stream and play to Jordan’s loyal base, who have already bought the wines. “The video content is also used in our monthly newsletter,” Mattson said, “which was a desire expressed from our loyalty team.”
Mattson and Jordan have been recognized for their high quality work in video production with a Born Digital Wine Award for Cab Wars: The Fruit Strikes Back, and when Mattson was awarded the North Bay Business Journal’s 2015 Chief Marketing Officer of the year award, it was in no small part for her video marketing work at Jordan Winery.
The big productions are impressive and draw a lot of attention, but are also a more resource heavy. The latest Jordan Winery music video, Despacito Embotellado, took a day and a half to film and required many more team members’ involvement. However small productions can also have a great impact.
Mirabeau Winery produced a simple video on opening a bottle of wine with a shoe, which went viral and received over 11 million views on YouTube. However, don’t expect to be an overnight sensation. Mirabeau produced videos for years before they had their hit, and most of their videos still have less than 1,000 views.
The value is not just in the off chance of a hit video, but in consistently engaging your core and high value audiences, and using the increasing popularity of video to reach new customers by creating something of value that speaks to them and their questions.
By Kim Badenfort
