REthink Wine Blog

People are drinking more wine. Wine is reaching a larger audience and a wider age groups. There is a larger selection that not only meets peoples’ tastes, but their wallet size as well. Affordable wines, such as the popular “2 buck chuck” allow the masses the opportunity to enjoy wine without damaging their pocketbook. With that said, the supply and demand of is high. People buy more wine when wine is cheap, but consuming more also means more waste.

Tetra Pak (http://www.tetrapakusa.com/) is a packaging company who makes resource efficient packaging. Their packaging products can be used for almost any type of food product, such as dairy products, soups, oil, vegetables, and yes, wine!

I think it’s time for us to change our perception about boxed wine. Aw yeah~ boxed wine is finally sexy.

Here are a few wineries who integrate this new, eco-friendly packaging:
http://www.frenchrabbit.com/
http://www.threethieves.com/

The thought struck me, as I watch a client of ours, Twisted Oak Winery, execute a brilliant promotional campaign called “Take your Chicken to Work Week” (going on now through February 10th with the overview here and details here), that our social calendars are completely and utterly governed by marketing around holidays.

This is, of course, no revelation to anybody that has purchased a bag of Hershey Kisses in the last 10 years. This is no different for winery marketers either as I have been inundated with wine-related Valentine’s Day wine specials. I would have to drink multiple cases of wine in one day to satisfy even a fraction of the promotions that I have seen from wineries and online retailers.

You know the promotional drill: Christmas gives way to New Year’s that gives way to Valentine’s Day that gives way to President’s Day that gives way to St. Patrick’s Day that gives way to Easter that gives way to Memorial Day that gives way to the 4th of July that gives way to “Back to School” that gives way to Labor Day that gives way to football that gives way to Halloween that gives way to Thanksgiving that gives way to, well, we start the cycle all over again.

And, while, these calendar-ized marketing routines that begat social engagement are all well and good and help drive marketing promotions when people have their so-called buying aperture open, there is something to be said for being that salmon that is swimming upstream, or to paraphrase Led Zeppelin, the winery that is going ‘in through the out door.’

What I mean by this is, if you are a winery continuing to muscle your way onto an ever-bigger stage measured by wine club members, direct sales, mindshare online, etc. than different is good.

If you are going to be different, a “Take your Rubber Chicken to Work Week” in lieu of Valentine’s Day promotion is a dandy idea.

And, while we can all pat Twisted Oak winery owner Jeff Stai on the back for continuing a wild streak of creativity that sets his winery apart from the crowd, the reality is that every single winery reading this can do the same. The rules are simple:

1) Tap into the vein that carries your winery DNA and determine what is unique and different about you

2) Maximize that determined differentiation by marketing yourself uniquely and in accordance with your ethos.

That is it, really. Who are you and how do you communicate your unique difference to people?

This sounds great on paper, but it much harder to achieve in real life, just ask Jeff at Twisted Oak, and I am sure he would echo the same, “easier said than done.”

However, here is a place to start: go to Amazon.com and buy a book and CD-Rom combo called “Chase’s Calendar of Events.” This book is called, for good reason, “The bible of special occasions” by the Los Angeles Times. Chase’s Calendar is a global view (representing 194 countries) and a single reference for special events, holiday’s, federal and state observances, this-day-in history notations, and anniversaries. There are 12,500 entries and all are searchable via the CD-Rom.

Today, February 8, 2008, for example, is “Laugh and Get Rich Day,” in addition to being the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America.

The point is, any day that resonates with your winery DNA is a perfectly suitable occasion for promotions, and likely a better clutter-breaking option than the same holidays that others will be marketing around, increasing competition.

So, as your Valentine’s Day promotions die down, and you lament the number of other wineries vying for the same share of wallet from your customer, you may want to celebrate “Laugh and Get Rich Day,” swim upstream and plan your next promotion off the beaten path. A little bit of planning, ingenuity and the Chase’s book can help you break free from the clutter of “major holiday” promotions and truly stand out.

*NOTE* A quick Public Service Announcement: Tina Caputo, formerly the Managing Editor at Wines & Vines and now a freelance writer and wine critic, is accepting samples for her monthly column at Wine Review Online (WRO). WRO is under the radar to many folks online, but their line-up of writers is truly impressive. Likewise, Tina’s an evenhanded pro and if you’d like to submit samples to her, please contact her at: tinacaputo@yahoo.com

Is there a statute of limitations for how long you can talk about the New Year and its attendant resolutions? If there is, if January 17th is too far in, then I am calling for absolution on this pox against self-improvement.

I happen to love the freshness of New Year’s and the opportunity to do some navel-gazing analysis to improve life-love-work. Done correctly, you monitor your resolutions until they become a part of your life.

With that in mind, I suggest to everybody that you pick one single thing to improve upon in your work life—an idea—that can make a difference in your business, no matter your role.

Where to find inspiration?

Everybody loves a good business book—the one with some insight that taps that far away repository in your brain matter that then sends a synapse firing against your memory bank of experiences that creates a new idea. It has been said that there are no new ideas—just ideas that can be manipulated within a different context or ideas that are new to us based on some sort of new understanding. Books help to feed that fire and add to our repository.

Recent business books, full of ideas that have captured the mainstream zeitgeist include “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson and “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath.

But, let’s be honest, reading books takes time, and most of us have, at best, an hour a day for leisure reading—which makes getting through a book, or several books to spark an idea something of a bit of work, and that presumes that we’re choosing non-fiction books and not a bit of escapist fiction.

There are numerous services that offer, for a reasonable fee, business book distillation summaries—a Cliffs Note version of the book—the essential truths and ideas without all of the interminable anecdotes that fill up 225 pages of a 250 page tome. Clearly, this sort of option lets you glean the ideas, quickly, retaining the good stuff and not engaging in the non-productive activity. Google “Business Book Summaries” for multiple options for this type of service

However, the business book summary isn’t the point of this post, the point is to actually highlight a web site with Powerpoint presentation summaries (called Manifestos) from leading authors and guru’s that is FREE and also QUICK TO READ.

ChangeThis, found here, is a web site that features distilled Powerpoint presentations of some of the best leading academic and business thinkers in the world. Gladwell is here. So too is Chris Anderson—they are all presenting ideas, all presenting ideas in short form, for easy consumption.

The January email newsletter highlighting new content for the month includes content from noted marketer Seth Godin and the CEO of Stonyfield Farms, Gary Hirshberg, who has a current best seller called “Stirring it Up” a book about his leadership with Stonyfield Farms, the world’s leading organic yogurt producer.

Hirshberg has many good ideas—including his ChangeThis manifesto that posits that only economic self-interest will create the massive change that is required for environmental conservation. Think about that for a second—capitalism is the key to environmental conservation.

As January gives way to February, let’s not let the resolutions and the freshness of self-improvement give way to another year of status quo. Feed your brain with ideas and implement a single good, game-changing idea in your work.

ChangeThis Manifestos are a good place to start.

With the new year already underway, we are running out of time to write down our goals for 2008. Whether they are brand new aspirations, or goals we failed to accomplish last year that are carrying over, we need a smart game plan that will get us to the finish line. I can’t speak for anyone else, but the biggest reason I don’t always reach my yearly goals is due to the lack of taking effective steps. With the recent birth of my family’s new brand (Grant Street Vineyards) I have a goal of selling all of my wine direct through our website. At first glance this aggressive objective might seem out of touch with industry reality, but with our high quality limited production varietals, and support from Inertia’s Client Development team, I am very confident this goal will be reached. In order to stay on course and be successful this year, I need to be efficient in my time spent, but better yet, spend my time on the right tasks. Let me explain what I mean.

By definition, effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goal. Efficiency is performing a given task in the most economical manner possible. Consider the following:

-Doing something well, yet unimportant, does not make it important
-A task that requires a lot of time is not necessarily important.

In short, no matter how much time and effort we put into a task that has no significance in regards to the end goal, we will not achieve our objective. Going back to my ‘08 goal of selling all wine through our website, I need to accurately come up with a list of tasks that are effective and once complete, will put me closer to the end goal. A great example would be to avoid wasting X amount of hours creating and sending out an email blast to a group of contacts that does not fall into the target market.

So for 2008, let’s remember that what we do is infinitely more important than how we do it. Efficiency is still important, but is useless unless applied to the right things.

Happy Holidays everyone!

One of my favorite Berlin based music producer/group Jazzanova and their record company Sonar Kollektiv has a new collaborative compilation CD with Rainer Trüby (Trüby Trio) this holiday season. The idea behind this record, titled Beats Bites & Öxle, is to pair music with wine and food. The CD is available online as a bundle with a wineguide and a case of the finest German wine selected by Jazzanova and Rainer Truby.

Pairing wine with music has been around a long time, but I’ve never really see anyone pairing wine with urban sounding tunes like this compilation. You can expect to hear a wide range of genres from jazz to soul to house, this is definitely worth checking out.

Sonar Kollektiv is in Berlin so you can’t purchase wines from their site, but if you are interested in the tunes you can purchase the music via mp3. This record is a great way to get a taste of what the hipsters over in Europe are listening to with their wine.

Wine online darling Gary Vaynerchuk from WinelibraryTV continues to grab the wine world by its shirt lapels and give a good, healthy shake.

You may recall that Vaynerchuk spoke at the Wine Industry and Technology Symposium (WITS) in July where he was quoted as saying (in reference to the wine industry’s use of technology in marketing):

“Ninety-nine percent of the people in the wine business are really blowing it,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, director of operations for the WineLibrary, a Springfield, N.J. wine store with a popular interactive Web site. (Quote excerpted from the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat)

I wrote a blog post on this site shortly thereafter that can be found here.

Gary continues to not only lead the charge in creating a brand online for himself and his business by proxy, but he also continues to give advice, good advice, to folks interested in growing their business, any business.

Vaynerchuk did an audio interview with an Internet-based business coach and he provided some additional insights that are not just applicable to technology marketing, but marketing in general. You can find the audio portion of the interview here and a transcript of the interview here.

A couple of the nuggets that I gleaned are:

* Vaynerchuk on putting content out on the web: “If you put out great content, you will be found.”

* Vaynerchuk on leveraging your expertise: “So, if you are the best guy in your law firm in contracts, instead of waiting eight to ten years to become a partner, start (using technology) about what you know. Give away that content for free. It will come back to you in spades 800 times over.”

* Vaynerchuk on tapping your passion: “So you may be good at three or four things, but please site down and analyze where you feel you’re most passionate about, even if that is the most competitive genre, do it because that is where you’re going to win when you really believe it, when it goes through your blood, you’re going to wine every time because even if you’re not seeing the mythical success, your heart and soul is going to be happy. That is going to push through to the point when you will start seeing success.

* The Interviewer on setting lofty goals: “you have to have high ideals. You have to have something that you’re shooting for that’s absolutely spectacular. What you have to realize is that’s the ideal, that’s not the goal. When you achieve a certain level of success, the people that are super successful don’t compare where they get to–to their ideal. The ideal is just where they’re focused towards. To be happy and to be excited about what you’re accomplishing, you have to look backwards to where you were. As long as you make that leap and you look backwards to feel good about yourself then you can keep that excitement going. If you’re always comparing where you are to the perfect (ideal) then it’s very hard to stay excited …

The frenetic interview wraps up with Vaynerchuk’ “Five Steps to Mastering Social Media.” If you replace the “social media” with “online marketing” or just “marketing” the same values hold true. They are:

1) Make sure you want to engage/learn it.

2) Now that you know you want it, spend every living second that you possible can on it.

3) Put your toe in the pool. Get involved.

4) Humble yourself. If you’re the best basketball player in the world, you’re playing hockey now. Put on your skates.

5) Know what you want to accomplish.

As we head into the biggest selling month of the year for wine thoughts naturally turn to 2008 and the unconquered horizon that a fresh start presents. Read the Vaynerchuk interview or simply just ponder the excerpts here and consider what you can do in the new year to accelerate your marketing success!

As an Indian who has spent most of her adult life outside of the country, every trip back home is shocking as I try to absorb all the changes that are occurring ever so rapidly. The recent economic boom in India due to the outsourcing activity has spurred a boom for many sectors and has caused a shift in the urban lifestyle.  A growing middle class with higher spending power, many Indians returning back home and multinationals setting up offices in India has made wine consumption an integral part of the fine dining experience. 

Here are a few facts from local publications:

• Indian wine market grows at 25-30% and is expected to grow at that rate for the next 5-6 years. (Source – Indian Express)
• Recent reduction in custom duties on wines and spirits has resulted in huge imports from France and Australia.
• Domestic wine manufacturers are thriving (Sula vineyards has grown 50% annually) but face intense competition from French and Australian wines.
• The government is looking to establish a new wine policy that will bring uniformity in taxation and duties across states.
• Indian wine manufacturers unite under a common forum to fend competition.

Listed below are my key observations, I would like to mention that these are my experiences in very urban settings and may not necessarily represent the trend in the rest of the country.

• Ask most Indians why they prefer White wine over Red and you get the typical answer that they prefer sweeter wines.
• Most restaurants and bars serve wines by the bottle and not by the glass.
• Several local wines offer promotions in retail stores and restaurants, for example, it was pretty common for someone at the table to ask the server if there were any promotions on wines. During my 3 week stay, two local brands had a buy one bottle get one free offer.
• We Indians still have long ways to go for all things related to wine but the general sense of curiosity and eagerness to learn is high.
• Do not sniff into a wine glass in a restaurant; it makes people stare at you.
• Do not swirl a wine glass in a restaurant; it makes people stare at you.
• Ignore my last 2 comments; a woman drinking a bottle of wine - people stare at you anyway.
• Work for a start-up in the wine industry and you seem like a Rockstar to your 20 year old cousins!

There is no doubt that the Indian wine industry and the wine drinking population will grow exponentially- we are the 2^nd largest population:-) .

So cheers to interesting times ahead!

If you’re interested in expanding your email list and building more direct-to-consumer one-to-one relationships for your winery, I have an easy and simple idea for you.

As one of the few remote employees for Inertia and an ardent wine enthusiast, I joined the “wine” group at Meetup.com for Indianapolis, IN, my hometown.

To say that I’ve been surprised by how active and engaged the members of this group are would be an understatement. I continue to be astounded at how this service is used as an organizational tool for people with a shared affinity for wine, but little other social connection.

In simple terms, Meetup.com is an online organizational and management tool that helps people find others who share their interest or cause, and form local community groups that regularly meet face-to-face.

I see the coalesced organization take place several times a week as the emails roll in with a wine event at a retailer, a visiting winemaker wine dinner, or a wine charity event and a subsequent RSVP tally of folks from the group (now numbering close to 250) attending the event.

As I think about this as a marketing tool for wineries, I think about how this is a non-invasive, friendly way to increase your exposure to passionate wine enthusiasts.

I did a quick audit of member levels in some major metros—and most major metros have several hundred “enthusiasts” signed up for a meetup group. New York City has 2300—that’s a ripe group of collected people to try and get acquainted with.

How would you do this?

There are a number of ways you could get really creative and get engaged with an actual sponsored wine meetup, but my suggestion is to start simply.

Look at your existing customer database and see where you have an existing cluster of wine club members. Or, if you’re just building your list then pick a market that has some interest to you. Join the meetup for that geographical area, and then send an email to the organizer that says something along the lines of,

“Hi Jane. I’m the (owner, winemaker, marketing person, etc.) for XYZ Winery and I wanted to send a note to you to say ‘hi.’ Our winery has quite a few wine club members in the , and I was surprised and excited to see that there are so many wine enthusiasts that get together in your group. Since we already have a good base of wine club members in the area, I know wine enthusiasts in the area enjoy our wine and I wanted to extend an exclusive discount code to your enthusiast group to use.”

Here’s the thing on this email: don’t write it as a blanket email that you send out all over the place, make it meaningful and personal. Customize the email to the person you’re sending it to and craft the email as an open-ended dialogue, as opposed to an email come-on. And, I would wait to give the discount code until after you receive a response from the organizer.

Sampling to the organizer can never hurt either, but you’ll want to be careful with compliance. Wine sampling occurs frequently with wine bloggers, who can fall under the umbrella of journalism where sampling is legal and accepted, but you’ll want to double-check to ensure you’re playing inbounds here.

When you do receive a response from the organizer, you can then set-up a meaningful discount code for purchases that has a short, finite expiration date to drive short-term sales to your site. Then create another code that is longer in length, perhaps through the end of the year. Again, make it a meaningful discount and build an email rapport with the organizer.

I would be very surprised if this tactical effort, across a couple of different cities, didn’t yield more customers to your list either as direct commerce or sign-ups to your wine club.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

i’ve seen this too many times, people cramming as much information and pictures as they can onto a website and visitors lose interest as soon as they open it on their browser. people often think minimalistic sites can’t accommodate the amount of information they want to share, but if you look at the examples below, a simple and straightforward website will actually entice your visitors to spend more time exploring your site.

Preparing Your Business for 2008

What is Your Plan?
It’s that time of year again; time to look back at where you have been, but more importantly, time to look ahead to the new year. While making resolutions is often part of your New Year’s activities, when it comes to running a winery business, setting business resolutions are equally important. Planning ahead by calendaring your marketing campaigns and anticipating the outcomes are key factors in measuring and optimizing your Return on Investment (ROI).

Where are Your Plans Taking You?
If you don’t know where you’re going, any bus will take you there. First, know your business then translate your understanding of your business into attainable goals. Second, what are your sales goals for each channel? Think by and for individual channels – ecommerce, tasting room, wine club, and telephone – and leverage the nuances of each. Create goals and plans to reach those goals for each DIRECT sales channel. Third, plan, monitor, and reassess your goals as necessary.

The first step to setting and achieving your winery DIRECT sales goals is to get on the right bus. What are the key goals to have? Wineries who can execute strategies which achieve all of the following five goals within each of the sales channels have the greatest success.

1. Effectively build your unified database
2. Increase online orders month over month
3. Build loyalty among customers
4. Build your Wine Club membership
5. Reprioritize your time to maximize ROI

How are You Getting There?
Once you know where the bus is going, you can help navigate the best way to get there. Take these five goals and translate them into strategies for each sales channel. Here are some examples that can be utilized in different sales channels:
1. Build your database by collecting 50 new contacts in a month. For your strategy, try putting a ‘fish bowl’ in your tasting room to collect business cards.
2. To increase online orders month over month, set a goal of an increase of 3 additional orders each month. To increase orders, try a promotion for free shipping or a telemarketing campaign.
3. Build loyalty among customers by offering pre-release specials.
4. Build your wine club membership by allocating select SKU’s to reward club members and utilize a club-exclusive area.
5. Reprioritize your time to maximize ROI: Instead of stuffing envelopes and lickings stamps for a mailer, send out a targeted email blast to subsets of your database.

Whatever strategies you decide to implement, calendar your marketing plans in advance to leverage against these goals. Whether it’s email blasts, customer loyalty programs, or winery events, have a plan in place on a monthly basis for the entire year, but continue to reassess and reschedule.

Who is Driving?
Now that you know what bus you’re on and where it’s going, assign a competent driver to ensure your bus arrives where you need it to go. Most wineries are so busy with the overall business management that the person who is in charge of ecommerce is also in charge of fifty other things, the same can be said of the Tasting Room Manager. The romancing of a hospitality employee up-selling in a tasting room is much different than Internet commerce. Their expertise in face-to-face interaction and salesmanship does not translate the same way to a customer behind a computer screen. Both require a different mentality to gain sales and customers in each arena, so ensure your driver is the best for that roadmap.

Save yourself time and energy by being proactive – plan in advance and be organized. Use helpful tools to keep your business goals on track with reminders and a calendar. Make sure everyone on the bus agrees with the destination; then, get down to business.

Remember, DIRECT is the best way to Communicate with, Acquire, and Retain your customers.