Yes, I’m that guy. Like so many fitness enthusiasts, I quit my local gym when the pandemic began and ordered a Peloton in March 2020. After a two week wait for delivery, my new bike arrived and at first I was skeptical. I sampled a few different instructors and classes and eventually found my guy Alex Toussaint and was hooked. 

Alex is a Peloton instructor whose own life story is inspiring onto itself. Somehow at only 29 years old, he has insights and maturity well beyond his years. Taking one of Alex’s classes is not just about fitness for me. It verges on a therapy session mixed with a spiritual undertone, all set to blood pumping music. It’s now a key part of my daily routine.

Make The Customer The Hero

So what makes Peloton different and why the heck am I so hooked?

It’s really simple, they have great marketing and your winery could learn a lot from it. In his book Building A StoryBrand, author Donald Miller explains that the key to telling an effective brand story is to “make the customer the hero of the story.” He goes on to explain that nobody cares about the fact your grandfather started the business decades ago and what your history is. A history is not a brand story and too many wineries confuse this simple fact.

Peloton is the model for making the customer the hero. Check out their social media accounts, website, tv commercials, and ads. It’s all about the customer, not about Peloton. They could easily run ads saying, “We’ve revolutionized at home fitness by creating the first exercise equipment that combines best in class construction and live streamed classes from the country’s top fitness instructors.” That sounds pretty compelling and makes you want to learn more, right?

Instead, check out the screenshot below from their current Google ad. The copy says “Your best workout is just steps away. That means more time for what matters.” Stop and read that again. Did you see any mention about the features? Anything about when they were founded or their celebrity instructors? The customer is the hero, not Peloton. 

Once you start using the bike, the narrative continues. It’s not just part of their acquisition strategy, they live this matra with every piece of content they produce. One of Alex’s signature lines is “validate your greatness.” After a really hard segment of the class, he encourages you to “clap it up for yourself” and that “you can’t wait for someone else to celebrate you, you need to validate your own greatness.” It would be easy for Alex or Peloton to pat themselves on the back. Instead when you use the product, you the customer are still the hero “just for showing up.” 

Even better, Peloton encourages continued use by celebrating your achievements as a rider. Through their smart gamification of their app, you can sign up for challenges and try to hit milestones. 

Once you hit 100 rides, Peloton sends you an email to claim a free 100 ride t-shirt and welcomes you into their century club. Hit this 100th ride during a live class and you may get one of the coveted shoutouts from the instructor! 

Personalization

With a robust app full of thousands of classes, there are unlimited ways to personalize your workout. Peloton lets you customize your experience from the type of music to the intensity of the workout. Instead of Peloton saying “You have to take this class because it's the class of the day,” they let the customer choose what works best for them.

Overtime, Peloton uses your data to customize and suggest classes they think you’ll enjoy. In their public filing Peloton explained, “We use performance data to understand our Members’ workout habits in order to evolve and optimize our programming around class type, length, music, and other considerations.”

For too long, wine clubs have been a one size fits all approach. They force customers to buy the wines the winery wants to sell, not the wines the customer wants to buy. I personally quit one Sonoma wine club because the winery refused to let me customize my shipment and include more expensive wines. Think about that level of idiocy. Why are you stopping your customers from getting what they want and spending more money?

In Commerce7’s 2021 annual report, they noted that 28% of customers will edit their club shipment if given the opportunity. When they do, on average they increase the value of their shipment by 20.7%. Even better, when customers customize their shipments the churn rate (rate at which users cancel) goes down from 18.5% to 12.3%.

Just like Peloton, Commerce7 is leading the innovation for the DTC wine industry and built their own personalization feature which uses winery and consumer data to automatically suggest wines consumers should buy on your website. When wineries utilize this feature on their website, the online conversion rate goes up 5.93x. It’s a no brainer, yet less than 15% of Commerce7 users utilize this tool.

Build A Community

One of the things I miss the most about in-person workouts is the community it built. When working out in the comfort of your own home through a screen, it’s hard to imagine how you can build community. Well, Peloton figured it out. 

They created a leaderboard so you can see other users working out at the same time and see how you rank against them. Should you choose to be competitive, you can race against other members of the Peloton community and try to hit a personal record for total output in a ride. It’s hard to explain, but knowing there are 5,000 other riders taking the same class as you at the exact same time is comforting. 

Just last year, they also introduced tags so you can filter other users by tags and form your own community within Peloton. Naturally, I ride under the popular #Pelo4Wine tag. Other tags include #vets, #PelotonDads, #PelotonNurses, etc. 

During your ride, you can see who is taking the class live with you and reach out to give them a virtual high-five. It might seem silly, but there is something about getting a slew of virtual high-fives during a hard part of class that keeps you going.

So why does any of this matter? Well, Peloton has built such a strong community that they proudly boast a 95% retention rate and and their “average net monthly connected fitness churn was 0.76% during the latest quarter” according to CNBC. 

Commerce7 reports the average retention rate for wine clubs to be only 82.6% within the first year and an average churn rate of 2.73%.

Offer A Referral Program

Do you know what the lowest cost marketing channel is? Referrals.

Peloton has turned their customers into brand evangelists. To incentivize users to spread the word, Peloton offers a “refer a friend” program. For every friend that you get to purchase a Peloton bike using your unique referral link, Peloton gives you a $100 gift card to order Peolton apparel and swag. The new Peloton customer gets $100 off their order of accessories for their new bike by using that link.

I can relate as I was first introduced to Peloton by a dear friend in Napa and she kept pestering me to buy one. At first I dismissed it and then eventually went to her house for a test ride. Needless to say, she did a good enough sales pitch because I asked for her referral link so I could buy a bike. 

Once I got my bike and was hooked, gosh darn it I wanted me some swag. I convinced my Dad and my best friend to each buy their own Peolton bike and now they too are addicted. I signed onto the Peloton website, got my referral link, sent it to both of them, and now I am the proud owner of an extra snuggly Peloton sweatshirt which I proudly wear around town further advertising their brand. 

It is such a simple concept, but one Peloton has mastered. Instead of paying sales reps, they have deputized their customers to become the sellers of their bikes and financially reward them for it.

For too long, there was no automated way for wineries to offer such a referral program, but thanks to the new app Vimbibe which is exclusive to Commerce7’s platform, wineries can run their own Peloton-like referral program. With Vimbibe, a winery’s customer gets their own unique referral link to share with friends. The winery can determine what the incentive is for the new customer such as a product discount or shipping offer. When a new customer makes a purchase from the referral link, the original referring customer can get a digital gift card. The winery can set the value of the reward gift card and it’s automatically sent by Vimbibe.

Believe In Your Mission

With a market cap today of $42 billion, it’s easy to assume Peloton was always a smashing success, but it wasn’t. Co-founder John Foley started the company in 2013 with a Kickstarter campaign which raised only $307,000 and then spent three years pitching to over 400 investors who turned him down and dismissed his concept.

He admits his first few prototypes were flawed and the company has faced many ups and downs since. They famously released a tone deaf holiday ad in 2019 which was criticized for being sexist. With the massive demand the pandemic has created, Peloton has struggled to keep up. Their social media accounts are full of upset new customers who cannot get their new bike delivered in a timely manner. 

No business’s path to greatness is smooth, but behind each great business is a belief in their product and more importantly, their mission. 

The company website states the missionas “Peloton uses technology and design to connect the world through fitness, empowering people to be the best version of themselves anywhere, anytime.” There is no mention of bikes or celebrity instructors. Their mission makes the customer the hero and they use this statement to guide everything they do. Just last week, Peloton announced a $100 million investment to improve their delivery infrastructure. They knew they were falling short of their mission, took responsibility, and invested to fix it.

For those that are interested in buying a Peloton bike, be sure to use my referral code VTUF5M to get $100 off accessories. Yes, I want more Peloton swag.

Do you need help clarifying your mission or want to discuss how to apply these learning to your winery’s marketing?

Simon Solis-Cohen is the founder of Highway 29 Creative, a leading digital and creative agency serving the wine industry. He challenges clients to think about the future and constantly innovate. The agency chases data, not fads, and provides one-stop shopping for wineries looking to enter or jolt their direct to consumer sales. Their approach starts by designing and building a website focused on conversion (wine sales, club sign ups & tasting room reservations) and then dives into each digital channel with consistent and effective content and messaging. What to learn more or looking for advice? Shoot Simon a message at simon@hwy29creative.com.