Edna Valley Vineyard
Nestled only 5 miles from California’s central coast, Edna Valley Vineyard has been crafting delicious, food-friendly wines for over 40 years, with a strong reputation for their award-winning Chardonnay. The idyllic location creates the perfect conditions for these grapes to thrive, with long, sunny days, followed by cool nights and chilled by a strong coastal breeze that coats the vineyard each day with a reliable morning mist. With a focus on savoring life and embracing joy, the relaxed nature of Edna Valley Vineyard’s region shines through in every bottle with refreshing, fruit-forward and approachable wine flowing into every glass.
The relaxed nature of Edna Valley Vineyard’s region shines through in every bottle with refreshing, fruit-forward and approachable wine flowing into every glass.
Strategy
When shelter-in-place orders restricted customer contact and shut down Edna Valley Vineyard’s iconic tasting room during the COVID-19 pandemic, kabookaboo’s strategy was two-fold: act quickly and maintain customer engagement with feel-good, at-home experiences. With no in-person contact possible, all communication would be digital, with a focus on social media and in particular, Instagram. Edna’s food-friendly wine offers endless possibilities for delicious pairings and at-home recipes, so a focus on easy-to-make dishes took center stage. In addition to new recipes, kabookaboo strategized a way to help followers enjoy life and savor each moment, a cherished element of Edna’s wine experience, with an engaging winemaker video series.
Digital Presence
With a strong emphasis on Instagram, kabookaboo immediately focused on delivering a value-added, uplifting experience to Edna followers through a regular, home cooking series. The series was posted to Instagram at the same time every day and made accessible so that followers could return to a particular recipe or search through past postings. In addition to the home cooking series, kabookaboo developed a weekly live Instagram series featuring Edna’s head winemaker, aimed at offering viewers an opportunity to wind down over a glass of wine just as they would if they could go to the tasting room.
Content Generation
With both Instagram series productions, a strong focus was placed on video. For the home cooking series, kabookaboo partnered with a local chef to curate special recipes that would be easy, delicious and complementary to Edna’s food-friendly wine. Between 3-4 minutes long, the recipe videos were both engaging and easy to implement, and more importantly, showcased the flavors and style that Edna patrons enjoy. For Edna’s winemaker series, Wednesday Wine Down with Kamee, live video was used for a truly authentic experience that would make viewers feel as though they were in the tasting room with Kamee. Posted regularly, these live videos provided another layer of feel-good content that gave Enda followers a small taste of the winery and a much-needed break from their day.
RESULTS
Because of the quick action and pivot towards an Instagram home cooking series and live winemaker series, Edna’s customer engagement increased immediately and continues to grow. Within the first two months, the recipes garnered over 1 million impressions and Edna Valley Vineyard gained a significant number of new followers. Each video recipe received an astounding 40% completion rate. This increase in viewers and engagement hit the bottom line as online sales skyrocketed and allowed Edna to shift their attention away from in-person offerings and instead focus on a more robust social presence.
