REthink Wine Blog

Over the last year, and particularly the last few months, Facebook Fan Pages have quickly risen in popularity. In fact, several of our winery clients have asked about putting Facebook Fan Pages on their websites.  Since Facebook provides an icon and code, the task is as simple as copying and pasting directly into the content editor or kicker on your website.  John from Olson Ogden Wines did this successfully on his own last week and is using his Facebook Fan Page to announce news and communicate promotions, events, pairing, etc.  Take a peek!

Some tips that make an effective Facebook Fan Page are listed below and were taken from several articles on the web including one written by Spencer Spellman.

• Make your fan page pop.  Many fan pages fail because they don’t grab the user’s attention.  Successful fan pages have at least some html or flash that is graphically appealing to users.

• Offer incentives.  Make your fan page a resource for people and they will return.  You might create regular promotions on your products and use the fan page to answer questions from your fans.

• Run contests for fans as they help build a loyal audience.  Some contest ideas might be to invite your customers to send in pictures of them enjoying your wine or food pairing ideas.

• Leverage your resources.  Your customers and friends may be using Facebook and be unaware that you have a fan page.  Use your website, email, instant messaging, printed material and other social networking sites to drive people to your fan page.  Rather than competing, consider collaborating with your neighboring wineries.  A group of Silverado Trail wineries joined together  to create a multi-branded product offering which they advertise to their expanded list of customers. In another example, Ackerman Family Vineyard described how they collaborate with other select wineries to host a Winemaker’s Dinner event  in which each winery represents a specific varietal to pair with one of the dinner courses. Combined efforts can oftentimes make a bigger impact than trying to do it all on your own.

• Interact and have fun with your fans which can help spread and promote your fan page virally. A fan page is a fun way to show your corporate personality.  For brands that want fan pages to have added value but don’t want to become a resource portal; consider offering consumers a reason to join by including Facebook only promotion codes.  There’s no way to make sure the promotion code is given to only Facebook fans, however you can require an email be sent to you and email back a promotion code.  If you are networking at an event and hand out take-aways that promote your Facebook page, the potential to reach new fans is exponential to the number of friends each of these new fans has on their list.

Creating a Facebook Fan Page is simple, though it will take some time, dedication and planning. Remember to build good content which is easily accessible, and let people know about it. While you may not have a huge following immediately, over time your community will begin to grow.

I attended a great webinar last week that covered some tips on Email Marketing
I wanted to share.

Consider these tips before sending your next email campaign

• Think “above the fold”  (preview pane).  You have your email subject + 3 lines
  of text to get attention…..use it wisely.

• Use a compelling subject line

• Use specific, measurable calls-to-action (links)

• Keep it simple – avoid complicated HTML design

• Start with a good email list and keep it clean

• Test, preview, measure and test again

• Personalize where possible; send from bob.smith@abcwinery.com  and include
  the recipient’s name in the template

• Size Accordingly: Keep width to a maximum of 600-800 pixels

• Length Recommendation: Short is good, titles
• 50% of email clients disable images by default, so think about how your email will look
  without the images.

I also learned some items to avoid:

• Excessive punctuation and capitalization

• Avoid SPAM filter catch words such as free, guarantee, credit card, security

• Don’t just send one big image (maintain low “image to text ratio”)

• Don’t ignore CAN-SPAM requirements

Have you noticed these days that whenever you do a search on Google, Yahoo or MSN that articles from blogs are often at the top of the search results? Do you know why? One important reason is that these search engines LOVE regularly updated websites. But they DON’T LOVE static websites. This doesn’t mean you need to go out and start a blog, but it does mean that if you want more visits to your website you need to UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE.

In part this means just keeping the timely information you have on your site fresh. A few suggestions for keeping fresh…

• Take down old events from your “Events Page” and replace them with upcoming
  events.
• Consistently rotate, replace or add to the recipes on your “Recipe” pages
• Update your wine descriptions when you’ve been awarded a competition medal
  or a great wine score or review
• If you do have a blog, make sure you are adding new entries at least twice a week

Inertia’s REthink Engine makes it incredibly simple to update your website. So put that little sticky on your computer monitor that says, “UPDATE WEBSITE” and remember to think about how you can do this on a daily basis. Doing so will help get your site higher in the search engine results and drive more visitors to your website. Let’s face it, your website isn’t a billboard, it’s the place you want folks to actually go to. A search-engine friendly website helps accomplish that goal.