REthink Wine Blog

Viral marketing refers to a marketing method that uses social networks to produce improved brand awareness.  It is marketing that assists and encourages users to pass along a marketing message freely.  We have all heard the claim that if your customer is satisfied with your product or service, they will tell 3 people, however they will tell 11 if they are not.  Viral marketing is based around this natural human behavior.

The idea that you can upload a video and consumers will not only find but then share your information is exhilarating.  The concept that leveraging these large user bases to introduce and build brand awareness is monumental.  However, it’s not as easy as that.  You still need to do your targeting homework.  According to a report by JupiterResearch, Only 15 percent of viral marketers are succeeding in getting consumers to promote their message.

Like any other marketing campaign, a viral marketer has to follow the basic rules:

1. Know your audience
2. Know how they communicate
3. Know your product

Targeting to the proper market is key in all aspects of marketing and that is no different in this case.  Understanding all the different channels and methods available to you is also important.  Video is not the only method available to viral marketers.  It seems to be the most noted due to the ever increasing popularity of video publishing sites such as YouTube.   Remember that any medium that brings your message to social networks is proper viral marketing.  With the emergence of Web 2.0, mostly all web startups like facebook.com, youtube.com, collabotrade.com, myspace.com, and digg.com have made great use of Viral Marketing by merging it with the social networking.  Take advantage of these networks and their large user communities.

One prime example of viral marketing at its best was in 2000, Slate described TiVo’s unpublicized gambit of giving free TiVo’s to web-savvy enthusiasts to create “viral” word of mouth, pointing out that a viral campaign differs from a publicity stunt.   You can read more about this campaign at http://www.slate.com/id/1006264/.

The true purpose of viral marketing is to get people talking about your brand.  The obvious benefits of course include sharing your information, building brand awareness and enticing consumer engagement.  Take the time to learn this technique.  See what works and what doesn’t.  The benefits speak for themselves.

The Training department has coupled with the Client Development department to create custom direct focused training programs available to you.  These sessions include a strong focus on the business elements of your direct strategy as well as the practical steps necessary for execution of your strategy.  One great strength of these sessions is not only knowledge being shared by the Inertia team, but the participation and knowledge shared from our winery partners.  It’s great to hear the discussions shared between wineries and our team.

Check out our schedule for training programs located on our website at http://www.inertiabev.com/inertiabev/page/training.jsp and keep your eye out for the email invitation to the direct focused training and symposium programs.

Another exciting program we are offering is ReThink Certification.  It’s your opportunity to become a certified RTE administrator.  Learn the ins and outs of managing the Direct channel utilizing the ReThink Engine.  It can be difficult to stand out in today’s wine industry.  More than ever, you need a way to set yourself apart from the crowd.

View the different ReThink Certification programs at http://www.inertiabev.com/inertiabev/page/certification.jsp. 

If you are interested in participating in any of the programs listed here or on our website, please email our Training department at training@inertiabev.com.

I was reading an interesting article about the increase in tasting room sales nationally.  It was sharing statistical data regarding tasting room purchases and charges for tastings.  The article stated that 50 percent of wineries charge for tastings, and only about half apply the fee to purchases made in the same visit.  I started thinking how much opportunity is lost there.  If you are charging someone to taste and they do not purchase at that time, offer them an incentive to come back and purchase later online.  Pass them a promo code listed on a business card and offer them a discount amount equal to their tasting room charges if they purchase online within a two week period.  This is a simple way of maximizing your chances at converting that tasting room patron to a full fledge customer.

The Six Steps of Goal Setting
Although finding a vision can be quite a creative challenge, the process of getting that vision implemented can be fairly easy if you follow the six steps of:
Vision - Goals - Objectives - Tasks - Time Lines - Follow Up:

Step 1 - Vision

The first step in setting goals and priorities is to personally develop what the organization should look like at some point in the future. A junior leader, such as a supervisor or line manager, will mainly be concerned with a department, section, or small group of people. While senior leaders set the vision for the entire organization. However, both types of visions need to support the organization’s goals.

The mission of the organization is crucial in determining your vision. Your vision needs to coincide with the big picture. The term “vision” suggests a mental picture of what the future organization will look like. The concept also implies a later time horizon. This time horizon tends to be mid to long term in nature, focusing on as much as 2, 5, or even 10 years in the future for visions affecting the entire organization. However, leaders such as supervisors or line managers tend to have shorter time horizon visions, normally 6 months to a year.

The concept of a vision has become a popular term within academic, government, defense, and corporate circles. This has spawned many different definitions of vision. But, the vision you want, should be a picture of where you want your department to be at a future date. For example, try to picture what your department would look like if it was perfect, or what the most efficient way to produce your product would look like, or perhaps if your budget was reduced by 10 percent, how you could still achieve the same quality product.

Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th century economist, theorized that most effects come from relatively few causes; that is, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the possible causes. For example, 20% of the inventory items in the supply chain of an organization accounts for 80% of the inventory value.

Some leaders fall into the time wasting trap of going after the 80% of items that only have a value of 20% of the total net worth. Your visions need to picture the 20% that will have the greatest impact on your organization. Although it is nice to have small victories every now and then by going that easy 80%, spend the majority of your time focusing on the few things that will have the greatest impact…that is what a good leader does.

Once you have your vision, it needs to be framed in general, unmeasurable terms and communicated to your team. Your team then develops the ends (objectives), ways (concepts), and means (resources) to achieve the vision.

Step 2 - Goals

The second step involves establishing goals, with the active participation of the team. Goals are also stated in unmeasurable terms, but they are more focused. For example, “The organization must reduce transportation costs.” This establishes the framework of the your vision. Follow the Six Steps of Goal Setting described above.

Step 3 - Objectives

Definable objectives provide a way of measuring the movement towards vision achievement. This is the real strategy of turning visions into reality. It is the crossover mechanism between your forecast of the future and the envisioned, desired future. Objectives are stated in precise, measurable terms such as “By the end of the next quarter, the shipping department will use one parcel service for shipping items under 100 pounds and one motor carrier for shipping items over a hundred pounds.” The aim is to get general ownership by the entire team.

Step 4 - Tasks

The fourth step is to determine tasks. Tasks are the means for accomplishing objectives. Tasks are concrete, measurable events that must occur. An example might be, “The transportation coordinator will obtain detailed shipping rates from at least 10 motor carriers.”

Step 5 - Time Lines

This step establishes a priority for the tasks. Since time is precious and many tasks must be accomplished before another can begin, establishing priorities helps your team to determine the order in which the tasks must be accomplished and by what date. For example, “The shipping rates will be obtained by May 9.”

Step 6 - Follow-up

The final step is to follow up, measure, and check to see if the team is doing what is required. This kind of leader involvement validates that the stated priorities are worthy of action. For the leader it demonstrates her commitment to see the matter through to a successful conclusion. Also, note that validating does not mean to micro-manage. Micro-management places no trust in others, where as following-up determines if the things that need to get done are in fact getting done.

Don Clark - http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leader.html

2006 online purchases topped $100 billion according to the Department of Commerce, which is $25 billion more than 2005. They have estimated another $25 billion to be added in 2007. So what exactly does that mean for you aside from the increase in ecommerce purchasing trends? It means that your customers are communicating with and purchasing from you via multiple channels. They are calling on the phone, visiting your tasting room and visiting your website. Unfortunately, most companies have not incorporated a strategy for this increasingly popular multi-channel consumer into their customer experience and customer data handling. This consistently results in an inconsistent customer experience. As your customer navigates your website or visits your tasting room or communicates with your staff via the phone, an inconsistent experience at any touch point can sour the entire relationship, eventually resulting in lost business.

On the flip side, providing a consistently positive multi-channel experience has benefits that go well beyond a pleased customer.

“Customers who shop across multiple transaction channels provide higher revenues, have a higher customer value, and have a higher likelihood of being more active than other customers,” says V. Kumar in 2005’s “Correlates of Multi-channel Shopping Behavior” in the Journal of Interactive Retailing.

The benefits of a positive experience sell itself.  We can easily attribute higher sales, customer loyalty, repeat purchases and most importantly the willingness to recommend your brand.  Improving the customer experience is no longer an option, it is now critical to the sustainability of your organization.

Plan and execute on a strategy that will bring the multi channel experience and make every customer interaction count.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared September 2007 California Wine Month. In a proclamation, the Governator stated “With more than 2,400 wineries and 4,600 grape growers, California is proud to produce ninety percent of all U.S. wine and to be the world’s fourth largest wine maker. Not only does this mean that our wines are adding distinctive flair to countless meals and special occasions, but also that billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs are strengthening our economy.”

It’s no surprise that with California leading the US wine production, our beautiful weather and amazing scenery, we draw in nearly 20 million tourists annually who come to experience the wines of California.  Visit www.californiawineevents.com for listings of events in California wine country in September and throughout the year.

California Wine Month last September helped increase sales of California wines by 11 percent that month in U.S. supermarkets, compared to the previous summer. So grab the California Wine Month image, post it on your site, get it in you next email blast and celebrate your contribution to an industry that strengthens our economy but lets not forget the most important part, produces some of the most amazing Vino in the world.

Cheers

Perhaps you have heard the phrase Unified database mentioned a few times on this blog, or from Account Management, Sales or the Client Services & Support teams. It is the idea of one central database containing your customers true order history, account preferences, wine club data, and all other information that pertains to your customers.

So what is the true value of the unified database? Many times, customer data and information is dispersed amongst multiple incoherent databases. You may process your wine club through one tool and your ecommerce direct purchases are recorded in another database. And also your tasting room purchases are recorded in yet another disconnected database. A true 3-dimensional look at your customer records is truly impossible in this scenario. Viewing the order history of someone off of your tasting room database is not a true reflection of their purchasing patterns. It does not include data such as club shipments, ecommerce and phone purchases. You have limited visibility to their true purchasing patterns. How do you determine who your best customers are or who should receive your next pre-release email for a particular varietal? Understanding this data is imperative in regards to marketing and creating a lifelong relationship with your customers.

Inertia has worked hard at building relationships with companies in the top of their business such as Wine Tasting Network and POSR and we consistently improve our tools to ensure that managing the Unified Database aspect of your business is a reality. Utilizing the partnerships and tools we offer gives you the ability to understand and get that true 3-dimensional look at your customers and guarantees your success.

Over the next couple of weeks, the Client Services & Support department will be posting methods and true life examples of ways that you can ensure that you get that 3-dimensional look at purchasing patterns and all other aspects of your customers.

Over the next couple of weeks, my team will be conducting a series of blog posts surrounding the topic, The True Value of Customer Satisfaction. Customer satisfaction, is a term used to capture the idea of measuring how satisfied a customer is with your efforts in the marketplace. It is seen as a key business performance indicator and is integral to your success.

Have you ever wondered what exactly customer service and satisfaction is worth? Everyone understands that it is a strategic part of any business, yet we never know the true value.

We all have customers. We provide products (goods and/or services) to our customers in our given marketplace. Now we all know that we are not the only ones providing those products to our customers in our marketplace. Every organization is subject to competition and the marketplace is fierce. So how do you set yourself apart? How do you stand out in the crowd?

One true value of customer services is that it offers you a competitive advantage. You differentiate yourself from your competition through the provision of better customer service. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes the right people, culture, technology and processes.

Stephen Mutch
Director of Support Services
stephen[at]inertiabev.com

Every time you interact with a customer, there is some type of exchange of knowledge. The quality and management of this knowledge exchange directly impacts the quality of the customer experience and great customer experiences are essential for maximizing the lifetime value of customer relationships.

CAPTURE ALL INFORMATION
Some of the knowledge required for a great customer experience are captured during customer creation, online purchases, club signups and mailing list sign ups. However other information is important as well. Capturing and maintaining accurate customer information thorough any customer interaction is vital for getting an accurate understanding of that customer. For example, in a tasting room conversation a customer may mention their dog Spot. Capturing that information and mentioning Spot next time you talk to that customer will assure you create a warm and personal customer experience.

MAINTAIN ACCURATE INFORMATION
Knowledge must be kept up-to-date. That’s why knowledge management should be built directly into your businesses progression. Constantly scrub your data and customer information to ensure its accuracy. Encourage your customers to update any outdated information. This will help ensure accurate delivery of information and help build that positive customer experience.

CONSTANTLY ASSES AND IMPROVE EFFECTIVENESS
To offer great customer experience, it’s important to constantly measure your support performance and constantly evolve your business and customer experience. The process of maintaining a positive customer experience is organic and ever changing. Modifiying processes and procedures according to your business and customers is vital to building that positive customer experience.

In today’s competitive marketplace, excellent customer experience is separating the winners from the losers. That’s why knowledge management has become more important than ever. Set yourself aside from the group by creating a personal customer experience that your customers will remember.

Stephen Mutch
Director of Support Services
stephen[at]inertiabev.com