REthink Wine Blog

It’s only July 1, so you’re thinking you have plenty of time to get your site ready for the holidays – think again. Now is the time to plan and implement the changes to your site so that it is optimized for the traffic that is soon to come your way.

Do it now

Within the next month or so, rethink your keywords and keyword phrases with holiday shoppers in mind. Put holiday keywords in place months ahead – they can take time to propagate with search engines. “Christmas” is, undoubtedly, the most commonly used search term, along with “holiday gift”, “Christmas gift”, and “gift for dad”. Also try “wine-lover’s gifts”, “gifts for red-wine drinkers”, and “wines to go with Christmas dinner”. Be creative and use keyword phrases which are often better for SEO that just stand alone words.

To do in October:

Add seasonal categories to your store— they can be turned on as soon as you need them. Use categories that describe the recipient: “Gifts for Geeks”, “Gifts for Chardonnay Lovers”, “Gifts for the Connoisseur”. Do the heavy lifting for your customers. Many shoppers already have some parameters in mind when they get to your site: “I need to get a gift for my aunt and I don’t want to spend more than $50.” Help online shoppers find gifts for different budgets: “Gifts under $50”, “Gifts over $75”. Avoid generic categories: “Gift baskets”, “Wine and Food Gifts” etc.

To do on November 1:

If appropriate, Dress up your site for the holidays. This could be as simple as changing pictures but may also include a new home page banner. This tells holiday shoppers that you’re ready for them. Follow suit with an email template that echos the same look and feel.

Update your content with holiday shoppers in mind. As the holidays approach, your home page text can be updated with more specific material for shoppers. Use relevant titles and keyword-rich copy that search engine crawlers like. Make sure that changes on your site get transferred to tasting room and other marketing materials.Give shoppers what they want right away.

Most holiday shopping is done for someone else. So, use kickers to help shoppers locate gifts from your home page; don’t make them have to search for gift ideas. Give them shipping information, such as costs and delivery times, right away (on the home page, at the top of the shop page and in every email). Let them know what your return/refund policy is. Answer their questions before they have to ask … or before they decide to leave for the next site. If need be, update the information as it gets closer to your critical dates.

Getting a jump on the holidays necessitates that you start planning now. If you need design or content help you’ll want to get that on the calendar. Planning ahead can be the difference between a very profitable holiday season and one that falls flat.

Think Again.

Many of our winery partners say they’d like to start a blog which can be a good thing if you know what you’re getting yourself into; your customers are out there, critics and supporters, and they want to talk about you and with you. A blog is a good way to connect and can help drive traffic to your site. As Jeff Stai from Twisted Oak and Clark Smith from GrapeCraft can attest, there are several good reasons to start a blog and many more reasons not to:

Blogging is a commitment. Most of the winery personnel I know do not only the job they were hired to do, but a few others as well. The perfect voice for your blog is a brand ambassador; someone who knows your message well, is reliable, a very good communicator, and has the time to post daily.

Blogging takes time. Linked to the need for regular updates is the fact that this takes time. The best bloggers, in addition to posting daily: moderate and respond to reader comments on their own site; read other blogs; and respond to commentary regarding their product or winery on other sites.

Blogging demands a thick skin. Not every comment or post is going to be positive. You’ve got to roll with the punches and keep your cool when responding to criticism.

One word… Spam. Are you and your IT department ready for the barrage of junk mail you’ll receive?

Blogging is as easy as writing a letter to two people; someone you know very well and someone you haven’t met yet. Which is not easy at all. Company blogs must be carefully written with those two audiences in mind, with just enough information to entice new customers without giving away the store, and something new and non-repetitive for existing ones.

There is no kiddie pool for bloggers - just the deep end. Your words are out there - thoughts, opinions, feelings - with all of the typos, misplaced prepositions, and missing conjunctions. Just like your website, a blog is a reflection of your brand, but in a much more visceral way. Make sure that you and your company are ready to take the plunge.

With the economy in the dumper, consumers are cutting the fat. Unfortunately for the wine industry, one of the first things to be cut is wine club memberships. At our Club workshop last week, most wineries reported a higher-than-average attrition rate. With this in mind, we discussed steps that wineries can take now to mitigate a drop in membership.

1. Be good to the members you still have.
The members that you do have are worth more to you now - what are you doing to take care of them? Throw in some extra goodies with their wine club shipment, a tee shirt, an aroma wheel, or some wine glass charms. Let loyal members try top level club benefits for a prescribed amount of time - for free. Throw a party for your club members just to thank them for being a part of the family.

2. Take advantage of your repurchase program.
If you are not following up your Club “sample program” with an opportunity to repurchase, you are missing out on sales that could make up the difference in a time when attrition rates are higher. Offering your member the opportunity to buy the wines they just sampled is another way of taking care of their needs.

3. Give exiting members another reason to stay.
Create a new, entry-level Club and offer them a “step down” in membership as another way to stay involved with the winery. These, entry level, clubs may ship only once or twice a year and may include only one or two bottles but are a great way to keep members involved.

4. Offer to put them on hold indefinitely.
If all else fails, ask a member who’s thinking about leaving if you can put them on hold until their finances get better. On hold members can still use their club discount for that occasional purchase, will still receive news, and invitations for winery events.

5. Keep a list.
If members absolutely must leave, don’t delete them from your database. Keep past members on a list so that you can follow up with them later - they may want to rejoin when the economy picks up.

Think of times like these as opportunities - to be creative, to touch your customers, and to offer exemplary customer service.

Most wineries fall into a trap of thinking their wine club revenue is simply the number of members multiplied by the cost of the shipment. If that’s all you are looking at, you’re letting money slip through your fingers!

There are four things to think about when you are putting a value on your club:

1. View your club shipment as a sample program and get your club members to repurchase the wines you’ve just given them the opportunity to taste.

2. Know your average decline rate (for club runs) and keep it under 10%. Clubs that are managed well have lower decline rates. If you find that your club’s decline rate is higher than 10%, you have some cleaning to do. Implement a deactivation plan for those members who are continually non-active and a three-strikes-and-you’re-out clause for perpetual declines.

3. Have a repurchase plan and execute it 2 weeks after your club shipment has been sent. This reminds your customers to purchase the wonderful wine they just consumed. More often than not, wineries condition their members to wait for their shipments - and do nothing else. Successful wine clubs condition their members to open and consume the shipments they receive so that they know how many bottles/cases they should repurchase.

4.  Understand and increase your club member value. Keep track of all the purchases your club members make: in the tasting room, online, over the phone, and with club shipments. Once you know the value of a club member you will have a good idea of what an increase in membership will do to your revenue stream. This kind of knowledge will help you plan for Club specific events, loyalty programs, etc.

We encourage you to take the time to evaluate what your true club member value is and set goals to increase both your membership and their re-purchase rate. Remember that the more accurate your club membership is the better you are able to successfully market to active customers and continue to increase your bottom line.

Pairing wine with food is not a new concept,and the meal that is the best occasion to pull out all the stops is Thanksgiving - it’s also the most fun. But step lightly here, with so many palates at the table (think Grandma June), you have to play it a bit on the safe side.
Thanksgiving marries sweet and savory, with practically every course. That gives you several opportunities to drink great wines with your favorite dishes. Mix it up and try a few styles at once; set the bottles out on the table for your guests to taste and sample (followed by a glass filled with a favorite.) On our list of possibles are four classic wines: Gewurztraminer, Pinot Noir, Rose, and Chardonnay. Here are some food pairing suggestions with wines we particularly favor from Inertia’s winery partners:

The spicy, fruity character of Gewurztraminer is a perfect match with everything from Butternut Squash soup to Roasted Turkey with Sausage and Raisin Stuffing. This particular wine is fruit forward with a crisp, clean finish. Try Londer Dry Gewurztraminer, Radog Dry Gewurztraminer, or DeLoach Early Harvest Gewurztraminer Russian River Valley.
Pinot Noir is the go-to wine for dishes, like stuffing, that mix mushrooms and herbs, roasted root vegetables, and Barbecued Breast of Turkey. Try Amity Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, August Cellars Pinor Noir, or Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.
Roses are great food companions, especially when the meal includes cranberries or fruit with roasted meats. Try Terra Valentine Rose of Cabernet Sauvignon, McDowell Grenache Rose, or Fort Ross Rose Fort Ross Vineyard.
Chardonnay loves corn and cream and butter - the perfect accompaniment to Curried Corn Bisque, Polenta with Mascarpone, and the old standby, cornbread sage stuffing. We love Rodney Strong Reserve Chardonnay, Sonoma Cutrer Russian River Ranches Chardonnay, and Mi Sueno Chardonnay.

We can’t stop at just the main meal - there’s dessert, too! Winners in the all-around great sip with anything from pumpkin pie to chocolate cake are Rimon Pomegranate Wine, Andrew Rich Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, and one of California’s grand-daddy wines, Dolce.

Here’s to food.

Probably one of the biggest misconceptions about websites is that they are consumer magnets. I think of them as lemonade stands… in the middle of the desert. If the stand is not right next to a busy highway and there are no HUGE billboards pointing in the direction of the lemonade stand, chances are no one is going to find it - or even look for it. Even more likely is that there are millions of other lemonade stands, just like yours, dotted here and there on the landscape. How will you differentiate yourself from the throng? Selling pink lemonade might not be enough.

Make sure someone is in charge.A website (ecommerce) is another channel (like a tasting room) that resources must be allocated to. Not only should part of the marketing and operations budget be alloted for this channel but so should personnel. Too often the tasting room or wine club managers are asked to handle ecom, almost as an aside and the channel doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Hire a direct sales manager to: maintain your “virtual storefront” including keeping products up to date with those available in the tasting room, cultivate loyal customers by communicating with them on a regular basis, and deliver information (on your site) in a consistent and effective manner.
Make sure there are lots of signs, with arrows. Point people towards your site; tell the world. Make sure all collateral materials have your URL printed on them, including labels and corks. Let your tasting room visitors know they can purchase your wine after they return home - on your website. In addition, keeping your content fresh and changing it often along with good keywords will help your SEO and keep your customers returning again and again.

Unfortunately, building a website will not generate sales, but treating your Direct-to-Consumer channel as an extension of your tasting room is a step in the right direction.

Inertia’s ReThink Engine is a CRM tool, a Club tool, an Email Marketing Solution, and a Content Management System that can manage your online store, allocate wine to your best customers, and report back to you.
And as if that weren’t enough it all comes with a sympathetic, hand-holding business Partner - your CDM - Client Development Manager/Consumer Direct Manager - take your pick.

You’d think that all of those (software) benefits would be enough - the ReThink engine does a lot. No other company can boast as much about all of the things that their software delivers (with free upgrades) than we can. But we go one (or two) steps further - we don’t just upload some software and walk out your door. Think of us as your partners in Direct.
I like to think of Client Development Managers as the “what and the who”. What kind of campaign would be most effective for my brand? Who is my target audience or segment? Think of them (or us) as your strategic partner - the person who will remind you (and help you) plan for success in your direct to consumer channels.

Wait, there’s more…

They come from every profession - some are bankers, plastic surgeons, race car drivers, and ex-movie stars. All were wildly successful. Now they want to be in the wine business.

It’s a glamorous lifestyle, this wine thing, making sure gophers and deer (and the glassy-winged sharpshooter) don’t get your crop. Yes, the Napa Wine Auction is very glamorous. Although, red leaf and root louse and powdery mildew are all concerns. But, the vintners all live in really nice houses and hob nob with other cool people. And then there’s the weather.

It’s kind of a Green Acres conundrum - Manolo Blahniks worn with overalls.

Unfortunately, what happens in the vineyard is not the half of it. Once the wine is in the bottle it has to be sold. This part makes the farming thing seem like making mud pies. A friend of mine, a great Winemaker for many years, decided to bottle juice under his own name. Now he questions that decision. What seemed like a good idea at first, is actually another full-time job - and then some. The market is teeming with wines; the competition is more fierce than ever.

Herein lies the cruxst of my biscuit, so to speak. The wine business is not a good place to retire. This business will take all your money and business acumen just to stay afloat. You can hire a broker or a distributor but it is a full time job to manage them. On top of that, you’ll give away a large portion of your profits.

At Inertia, we help you keep a bigger piece of the pie. Selling wine directly to your consumers is a way to build relationships and your brand and has a bigger return on investment. But, I did say investment, of time, and resources. The most successful wineries are those that are adequately staffed and put some money behind the direct channel.

I’m not saying you should throw away your high-heeled shoes - there’ll be plenty of parties. Just be ready to slap on those old sneakers, too, and roll your sleeves up. You didn’t get rich in that other job over night. It ain’t gonna happen here, either.

As if bungs, thiefs, brettanomyces and barriques weren’t difficult enough to wrap your mind (and your tongue) around; start selling wine Direct and now you’ve got Tech speak and Business jargon to contend with. Get a URL and the RTE to sell DTC – then watch your KPIs and at EOD you’ll have a great ROI;-)

I’ve got to admit that this way of speaking seems silly at first – it did for me. Why say push-back when you can use one perfectly good, unhyphenated word, resistance? Now the word just pops out of my mouth. You’ve heard of viral marketing? This stuff is catchy, too.

Some terms are hard to figure out – either because they are so general or because they are so foreign. Best practice is a strange term – and over used. Whose best practice? The industry? Who decides? Aren’t we still figuring this all out? I finally figured out what a Webinar was. I think I heard the word about 6 or 7 times until it sunk in and, of course, I felt like a dolt for not getting it in the first place.

References that used to be used only for software and hardware applications now apply to humans. Why do I have to interface with someone when all I really want to do is talk? And what about downloading (with a person)? In my world we call that dumping on them!

If you feel like you are stuck in the last century (or wish you could stay there) you’re not alone. If you’re ready to join us in these REvoluntionary times then get yourself a dictionary or a techno-geek for a friend. In the meantime here are a few terms and their definitions:

URL – Your web address

RTE – Inertia’s REthink Engine – think of it as the engine that makes your Direct business GO!

DTC – Selling Directly to the Consumer – build relationships, keep your profit

KPI – Key Performance Indicator – a way to define and measure progress towards goals

ROI – Return on investment – profit after expenses

Webinar – Seminar broadcast over the internet

EOD – End of Day – when all is said and done…

Getting (and keeping) good customers is not unlike fishing. Standing by the shore will not work. Using a net from the shore won’t either. You gotta get your feet wet – or pay for a boat… and don’t forget the good lures and bait.

Make room for the big fish. Get rid of the guppies.

Clean up your database. First, try a promotion to see who your buyers really are. If you have mostly physical addresses, send a note in the mail. Give your customers a promo code that allows them to make a one-time (within a prescribed period) discounted purchase or have them check out your site and update their own information. Capture email addresses! This is also an opportunity to pick up the phone and call top buyers (or another segment) on your list. Ask for their updated information. Tell them about an event or new release. Ask if you can send them some wine. If, after repeated attempts, you find that some contacts are not going to become customers, drop them from your list – make sure you tell them you will do so and why.

Give the line a tug every once in awhile.

Make sure the hook is still engaged. If you neglect to stay in front of your customers they will forget about you. If this is a good customer for you, chances are they will be a good customer for someone else, and if you are not top-of-mind, that other winery will be.

A good rule of thumb is to send an email monthly (or bi-monthly) to stay in front of your customers. Segment your list and send targeted emails. To your contact list (those who have never bought) send something to incent them to buy – offer discounts on shipping or a first purchase. Give your most loyal customers a reason to get their friends into the fold. If you are going to be in Florida for your nephew’s Bar Mitzvah, let your customers in Boca Raton know you will be at XYZ Wine Bar on Friday night.

Every email should include a call-to-action: visit the website and log in, join the wine club, or buy wine. Vary your correspondence; email, printed piece, phone. Find out what your customers respond to and measure efforts against returns.

Use your good lures.

You can’t just put your line out there and expect the fish to swarm. From tasting room, to printed piece, to web presence, keep your message clear and consistent. Make sure everyone in your organization knows what that message is. Give visitors to your tasting room a reason to visit your website: web-only special pricing, event information, recipes to accompany wines. Make sure that all printed pieces include web address and target web features. Keep website content fresh – give your customers a reason to visit your site again and again. Use keywords to keep your site at the top of the search engine list.

Fishing takes time – and patience – but it all pays off when you reel in the big one!