Don’t forget the Tried and True

These are my principles.  If you don’t like them, I have others.   Groucho Marx

As we’re all very much aware, shifting market trends have made it a tough time for wine sales.  Eric Asimov summed it up in a recent article for the New York Times when he stated “Cash may be trickling, but anxiety is gushing forth.”  And while uncertain economic times may make it tempting to pull back on marketing spend or concentrate resources on the latest and greatest trend, it’s worth remembering that huge benefits can often be gained by focusing on the basics.   The essence of marketing is to understand the needs of your customers and develop a plan for meeting those needs.  With that in mind, I believe that all marketing efforts should fall into one of four buckets:  1) Building Equity, 2) Generating Demand, 3) Garnering Loyalty, or 4) Enhancing Channel Sales and Profitability.  By compartmentalizing in this way, all promotional tactics are focused on specific goals and objectives, allowing you to more easily measure results and plan for the future.

Build Equity:  Put simply the focus here is on acquiring new customers.    This includes all efforts to gently guide potential customers through the relationship cycle: from awareness, to contemplation, to preference for your wines (and your brand) and finally to loyalty and word of mouth.  Several tactics fit into this bucket, including but not limited to the following:

• Focus on direct marketing and list building strategies.  Maintain and stick with a promotional calendar.
• Reach out to both traditional media and the wine blogging community.
• Social Networking is a great way to attract new customers of every age (most notably younger generations), to add a human touch, and to build good will.  Whether developing a Facebook page, joining the conversation in Twitter or utilizing YouTube, you will need a strategy for both participating in and monitoring conversations. 
• If you’re feeling adventuresome, consider developing an online video.  Video can be used for many purposes:  winemaker interviews, culinary productions, or telling your story in general.  It can add a whole new dimension to your marketing effort.
• Build traffic to your website using SEM and SEO.  SEM is an often overlooked method of paid advertising which if approached correctly can be very powerful both in building brands and in generating demand.  Use it to build awareness for your winery, as well as for short term promotional efforts.  Focus on niche keywords, your winemaker, your winery and other terms which are important to your brand.

Generate Demand:    This involves the use of promotional methods to generate sales and increase the average spend per customer.

• Focus on the tasting room:  invite people to events, sponsor other local events and work with neighboring wineries if feasible.  Capture information that will allow you to approach these visitors in the future:  incentivize them to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list, and always encourage wine club participation.
• Recognize that tourists are looking closer to home and reach out to locals.  For California wineries, this might mean anyone within a three hour radius.
• Build upon your eCommerce strategy.  Remember the adage that “Content is King” and revisit your web site.  Make sure that content is up to date and product images and descriptions are clean and well thought out.  Also be sure that your site is frequently updated, with news, events and other happenings.  Don’t allow it to get stale or give the appearance of nothing more than an online “brochure”.
• Consider different techniques for increasing average order value:  offer product bundles, case discounts, or shipping incentives on volume orders.

Engender Loyalty:  The use of creative methods to increase the lifetime value of customers and club members

• Attack email campaigns and club promotion strategies with renewed vigor (use geographic and other forms of segmentation to ensure promotions are focused).
• Examine ways in which you can add value to club memberships.  Acknowledge milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, club longevity.  Offer “members only” events, tours, and tastings.  Include re-order materials with your club shipments.
• Focus on current club members and solicit updated credit card information when necessary.
• Revisit your customer service policies and customer relationship management strategy and ensure club members are treated accordingly.  In turn, this will allow you to rely on your customers to help with marketing - happy customers and the word of mouth they generate can be very positive.  And remember that social media is not just about acquiring new customers; it is also a great tool for generating customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Be sure to utilize relevant metrics so that you always understand the value of your customers.

Enhance Channel Profitability:  The pursuit of new growth opportunities and customer acquisition strategies via expansion into new and profitable sales channels

Direct to Consumer Opportunities:  As new marketplace opportunities become available, the landscape for direct to consumer sales will begin to change dramatically.  Participation in these marketplaces, whether Inertia’s new direct to consumer marketplace “CollectiveVine.com”, or via a Marketing Agent provides many benefits, namely:  1.) A captive audience and the ability to introduce your wines to an expanded customer base.   2.)  New opportunities for market research and testing without the traditional costs associated with them.  3.) Costs for participation are significantly lower than through traditional channels, resulting in better margins.  4.)  Customer acquisition: participation in winery direct programs means that customers are delivered to you for future marketing opportunities.  5.)  An opportunity to build brand equity:  today’s wine buyers are savvier and are accustomed to searching out preferred brands.  Online marketplaces provide an excellent opportunity for building awareness.
 
Direct to Trade Opportunities:  Wine REvolution, our direct to trade marketplace provides an opportunity to reach restaurant and retail buyers directly via an ecommerce platform, providing several benefits:  1) Access to new markets and trade accounts, 2) Control over your brand and 3) Increased profitability.  Make the most of your participation and aid trade partners by providing complete product data.  In short, make it easy for partners to sell your product.

Finally, as you reach out to new customers via channels which have not been available in the past, I think it’s important to remember that you are building a brand. With that in mind it is essential that you maintain a consistent customer experience across all sales outlets:  from sales collateral, product descriptions, prices, and the content and images provided to online marketplaces all the way through to the customer service experience.  Customers should know and respect your brand regardless of the touch point.