The Social Media Phenomenon

As you may have noticed from my earlier posts, I’m a fan of e-marketing. I’ve been doing what I call e-marketing 1.0 for the past several years. This has consisted of sending occasional email blasts and weekly or monthly newsletters. The results were favorable and the ROI was always something I could crow about.

It used to be that if you had a good website, you were at the bleeding edge of the e-marketing curve. Email blasts were a great way to cheaply launch direct response campaigns and to gain insights into what’s working and what to let go.

These days things are changing and changing fast. Email campaign response rates are down and periodic e-newsletters, while still a very effective way of keeping in touch with your customers, are so ubiquitous that many people are opting out due to the mailbox overload.

For so many years consumers have been bombarded with advertising messages. The number of ad messages an average consumer sees each day is difficult to nail down, but during an “exhaustive” research session, I found the range to be from 250 to 1,500! With so many messages and so many companies telling you what their product does or offers, the gravity of those messages have been diluted to the point that they are at best merely suggestive and at worst “downright lies”. It will not surprise you then that the word most associated with advertising is “false”.

Enter social media.

Social media is not advertising. It is word-of-mouth. People have caught on to the advertiser and no longer see ads as the way to learn about a particular product. So how do they find out about a product? They ask their friends. OR they go to sites like YELP to find out what other people have to say. One industry has also recognized this fact and, while they still make TONS of commercials, their commercials are NOT for prospective buyers. Try to guess which industry I’m talking about. There’s a commercial virtually at every break in a tv show and at the end of the commercial you know next to nothing about the product. Have you got it? It’s the auto industry. Those commercials with cars zipping around sideways on wet tarmacs or the ones with beautiful women telling you how the car makes them feel are not for prospective buyers. They’re for current owners. The auto companies are providing talking points for current owners so that when their friend asks them, “How do you like your car?” they can reference the commercial! The auto companies get it.

What does this mean for the small to medium sized winery? It means that you’ve got to “get on the bus” or get left behind.

Below I’ve included a link to a presentation entitled “Wrapping Your Head Around The Social Media Phenomenon” along with a few stats. The presentation is a great way to see what’s out there and to understand why social media is the next wave of customer contact. There’s no doubt in my mind that social media is right for a winery. It’s relatively cheap, it’s relatively easy and it’s fun!

• “False” is the term most associated with advertising


• Email response rates are dropping due to Social networking


• Social network member communities are now the 4th largest sector of online traffic


• Fastest growing segment on Facebook? - women over 55

“Wrapping Your Head Around The Social Media Phenomenon”

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/755315580

More on e-Marketing and Small Wineries

Small wineries certainly can't market their product the way the big companies do, and they shouldn't! The appeal of small wineries is that they are special. They make a product that is given extra attention throughout the wine making process. Full page ads in national lifestyle rags do not say "This is a special wine". Because of this, I don't see small wineries competing for, "a slice of the marketing pie" with the big operations. It's just not the same pie.

Small wineries need to be savvy with their marketing budget. They need to be acutely aware of who their customer is and target that market ferociously. Straying outside their demo is just a waste of money unless there is clear and measurable plan to win a new market. The "carpet bomb" approach is clearly unsustainable for a winery with a limited budget! Knowing exactly who your customers are will allow you to focus those marketing dollars accurately and get your message in front of the right eyes.

For the money, there is no better medium to reach your specific audience than the internet. Every demographic is represented with thousands of sites where advertising is relatively cheap on a click-through basis and social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace have hundreds of thousands of members. Small wineries can make their own "groups" and invite people to join them. Soon a community will form and your brand is getting noticed. This e-Marketing approach is not for everyone. It's far less expensive than print, but It takes time and dedication. Like the vine, your on-line community needs to be tended to if you want it to grow. If you think you can plant a few seeds and then sit back to watch you’re going to be less than amazed at the results. But with the right effort your e-Marketing will begin to bear fruit.

Wineries and e-marketing

So you made it through harvest and crush and your wine humming along nicely. Everything is coming together and you’re on target to have 10,000 cases ready to bottle by mid-Summer. Problem is, your distributor still has 3,000 cases unsold and sitting in their warehouse.

With 6,000 brands all competing for shelf space there’s no way you’re going to get repeat customers without a constant give and take of relevant information between you and your customers. They may pick your label out of the sea of labels once or twice, but it’s not likely. With so many choices, why would they? Who wants to go on the same vacation over and over?

These days it’s essential to have an online presence. The internet is a powerful tool. It can reach millions of potential customers with a minimal amount of investment of either time or money. The number of wineries that don’t use this medium to its fullest extent just amazes me. Okay, pretty much everybody has a web page or site that has a pretty picture of the winery and maybe a shot or two of the cellar. Usually there is an “About Us” page that tells the story of the owners and the unique way the winemaker plies his craft. Some have on-line ordering through PayPal or an 800 number to call to order. This is good. It’s a great start. But it’s by no means the end of the story!

You need an e-marketing strategy.

The beauty of e-marketing is that you can custom fit the medium to your specific needs. And the most important aspect of the medium is that you can track the campaign in real time to see if you’re going in the right direction! You can communicate with your target audience instantly and you may even find an audience you didn’t think you had.

So what’s the trick to getting the most out of your e-marketing budget? The answer is different for everyone. You have to figure out what your reason for being online is in the first place. Are you trying to make a buzz in the community to attract walk-ins? Are you looking for a way to take your brand national? Are you trying to make your brand appeal to a younger audience?

Once you’ve answered this question, you can begin to build an online strategy that works for you.

Good luck, and get online!

Recession Red

The economy sucks. Everybody knows that.

But what if you're a small winery and you've got to move 5,000 cases in a market that is literally awash in comparable product? How do you "make lemonade" out of the lemon that is a completely saturated market? How do you do this without damaging that brand that you've fought to build?

All serious questions.

In these troubled times more and more people are passing over the expensive wines and going with their "second choice". This is a time when the savvy winemaker should think about using the public zeitgeist and start "making lemonade". We like to see that someone understands us, that someone cares about where we are and what we need. We want someone who's on our side. When I see a favored wine that I can no longer afford on the shelf for the same price it was when I was making twice as much moolah, I cringe. "Those were the days" I say to myself, and with great resignation I reach for my "second choice".

Thus, I introduce "Recession Red", a tasteful yet not too pretentious blend of fine varietals that would have been selling for twice as much in better times. Recession Red understands me. Recession Red knows that when things get better, I'll remember it's commitment to my palate and I'll remain a loyal fan. I like Recession Red. When things get better I'll remember we went through hard times together and now we both are ready to move up to the brand it was sprouted from.

So there you have it. My little contribution to the winemakers with too much product and a rock-solid brand that more and more people are passing over for cheaper alternatives. When I see Recession Red on the shelf, I'll buy it. And whoever does choose to make it for me, I'll be a fan forever.

I Take The Leap

So, I've been around. I'm by no means a neophyte to thrill-seeking adventures. I used to promise myself I'd do at least one "crazy" thing a year. One year I did a two week solo camping trip in Glacier National Park. Another year I signed up for a sailing race from San Francisco to Hawaii. Both these experiences were daunting and at least one time each I felt my life was in serious jeopardy.

Nothing, though, could prepare me for the sheer terror of going to my first party in Napa where I had to bring a bottle of wine.

I knew there would be people there who had lived in Napa for years and there would be at least one or two "industry insiders". What to do? I didn't want to look like a fool or a "newbie" and I was attending the party with my (then) brand new girlfriend who was also a Napan (is it Napan?). If I showed up with an inferior bottle I'd be scoffed at, ostracized. My girlfriend would be embarrassed and would probably give me that dreaded doorstep line, "I'm really tired. I think I'm just going to go to bed."

This was not going to happen to me!

So, what does one do when he or she has never really thought about buying a "good" bottle of wine? Simple. Go to the grocery store, find the wine section, and look up.

Don't look down! That's where the cheap bottles are. And when you've got nothing to go on the best strategy is to let the distributors do the choosing for you. You see, the distributors and stores always put the more expensive wines on the top shelf. The mid-priced wines will be staring you in the face and the cheap bottles, well, they're "down there".

Once you've located the expensive bottles (you ARE in Napa don't forget) how do you choose a good one? I know I'm going to get flak for this, but here it is.

You look for the coolest label.

What? the label? C'mon. I can hear you say it. But it's true. The label on a bottle of wine will tell you all you need to know. A serious wine will have a sophisticated label. The letters will be elegant and loopy, like they were lifted straight off the Magna Carta. Other quality ques they will have are the names of varietal (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir) , the region it where it was made, and maybe even the appellation.

An appellation is the very specific region where the grapes were grown. In Napa we have several appellations including Stag's Leap, Carneros, and Atlas Peak. If you choose a bottle with an appellation, your probably going to get it right. Be sure to discuss the appellation with your friends! Ask them what it is they like/dislike about this particular appellation and why. At least you won't be seen as a total newbie! You'll be an interested newbie. Not as bad, for sure.

So anyway, I chose a bottle from the second from the top shelf (hey, I'm not Donald Trump!) and I made sure it had at least a region and a varietal listing. I went to the party with my girlfriend and my purchase in hand. I must have done well too. We've been married for almost two years.