What I'm Reading in Wine + Marketing This Week
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Friday, 06 June 08 - 03:44 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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Our Brains are Not Built for Multi-tasking
How to Build a Brand through Community
Israeli Microbreweries: Who Knew?
The Next Gen of Social Media: Mobile Internet
Making Google Work for You Even More
How to Distribute Small Production Wines from Israel
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Friday, 30 May 08 - 04:47 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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By now, I hope many of you have seen the nice articles on Israeli wine and food in June's Wine Spectator. I'll have more to say about that with links to wines mentioned there you can actually buy from us, over the weekend.
One of the things Dr. Yair Margalit was quoted as saying in the article was that, "the future is in the small wineries."
And my question (with a lot of self-interest of course!) and I have thought about this one enough to have my biases in place is....WHAT is the proper marketing plan for wines from small wineries, whether they are Israeli wines or not?
If you caught my sort of fired-up YouTube video post earlier this week you may know my answer to this question.
First of all, in any business start-up I believe NICHE is the only way to go.
Niche + Community Development is THE marketing plan.
(Gary Vaynerchuk spoke about this at yesterday's TECH Cocktail event)
I don't think traditional distribution makes much sense for premium small production brands like the ones we're marketing from Israel.
As a general rule DIRECT TO CONSUMER and DIRECT TO TRADE are the right channels for these fine wines.
In fact, a major Napa producer wrote this in response to a note from me asking about his preferred distributors in key states:
Hi Richard,
I love your request. With all due respect, there is no such animal as a distributor that I like. They are a necessary tool but as a small brand fighting for shelfspace, the job is best done by yourself and not by a distributor who is naturally beholden to much larger interests. Sorry to bear this news but self distribution via the internet is the means to survival and success in the new age.
Hope my message is not too direct to digest.
talk soon,
xxxx
This is not a small production winemaker - you'd know his name, you've drunk his wines.
What an unbelievable message from a winemaker who, given his size and scale, needs to work with distributors all across this country and beyond.
Mostly since I believe that small production wines are a labor of love by the winemakers and their families and unless the person on the receiving end of the wines is feeling the love (i.e., the # of intermediaries is either ZERO or something close to zero), no one will give a damn about these dreams-in-a-bottle.
So your marketing plan for these Israeli wines has to answer the question (get ready for this)......
How do we market someone else's love affair? How do we market someone else's Dream? How do we then monetize Passion + Love in the marketplace?
Because these wines are the Dreams and Love Affairs from these winemakers and their families. And that's what we're selling.
There's just not enough juice from most of these small wineries from Israel for a major wholesaler to care - and as the number of wholesalers thankfully shrinks they'll even have less attention span for small production wines, don't you think? I've said before that commercial wineries SPILL more wine than these boutiques produce.
What's a guy to do?
create on-line substantove CONTENT about wine from Israel that's not "salesy" (stay tuned!)
and
create live experiences for more and more people to:
1) TASTE THE WINES
2) EASILY PURCHASE THE WINES
3) SHARE WINES AND WINE FEEDBACK WITH OTHERS
4) MAKE PEOPLE FEEL SOMEHOW A PART OF THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE MAKING THESE GREAT WINES IN ISRAEL
5) FIND WAYS FOR CUSTOMERS TO CO-CREATE CONTENT AND EVEN PRODUCTS (stay tuned for some cool stuff in this area)
6) TALK ABOUT LOVE AND DREAMS
What else?
IWD's Video Cast about The Importance of DIRECT Marketing
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Tuesday, 27 May 08 - 05:37 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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Hey - here's a link to the 3rd videocast I have done to date and posted on our YouTube platform.
The theme is the importance of DIRECT MARKETING and messaging in all of your core life activities...like interviewing for a job, proposing marriage, or.....consumer and trade marketing if you are a small boutique winery in Israel.
Enjoy!
Are there other topics you'd like me to post a video with my opinion about? Let me know.
Kim Marcus of Wine Spectator Loves Clos de Gat Wine from Israel
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Sunday, 25 May 08 - 04:41 PM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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The wine + mainstream media attention to great wines coming out of the re-emerging Israeli wine scene is a blast to watch!
Follow this link to watch a short tasting video from Kim Marcus of Wine Spectator tasting two wines he likes from Israel, including one wine from a winery whose wines we sell Direct to Consumer - Clos de Gat.
Wine + Marketing Links for The Week
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Friday, 23 May 08 - 03:38 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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This week's short list of some things that caught my attention:
How Might the Recession Impact Wine Sales?
How Do Social Networking Sites Work?
Let's Get Upwind of Distribution!
How Meetup.com Can Drive Sales and Database For You
What I've Been Reading in Wine + Marketing This Week
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Friday, 16 May 08 - 02:31 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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This will kick off a (hopefully) weekly list of a few marketing and wine stories that get me thinking during a given week. The titles below tghat link to the stories are mine (so don't blame the authors of the pieces they link to if you get bothered).
FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR OWN LINKS IN THE COMMENTS SECTIONS TO THINGS YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS WEEK.
Wine Wholesalers Think We're All Idiots
Do You Listen to the Whispers in Your Life?
Seth Godin on What We Know About Marketing
Will Someone Please Make Love to Alice Feiring?!
NEED YOUR COMMENTS: How does the new media landscape impact Wine Marketing?
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Friday, 02 May 08 - 06:07 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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One of the blog topics I want to get back to writing about more regularly is how new media / new marketing can be applied to MARKETING WINE.
One of the best thinkers and practitioners about the changing media world is David Armano, who happens to be based here in Chicago.
He recently posted a presentation he delivered to a client called "Micro Interactions + Direct Engagement in a 2.0 World." Follow the link to view and even download the entire presentation.
Armano says the presentation is based on something he wrote:
“We live in a world where the little things really do matter. Each encounter no matter how brief is a micro interaction which makes a deposit or withdrawal from our rational and emotional subconscious. The sum of these interactions and encounters adds up to how we feel about a particular product, brand or service. Little things. Feelings. They influence our everyday behaviors more than we realize.”
I'm still absorbing David's deck of slides, but here are some things he gets you to ponder:
1) consumer conduct is/has changed from passive consumption to active participation in products and brands. A quarter of the Google searches for a brand link you to consumer-generated content about a product or service (i.e., they're taking about you!)
2) people want more from brands - less empty promises and MORE experiences
3) people are networked and streaming their thoughts and opinions LIVE - slide #36 includes a factoid that more text messages are sent each day than there are people alive on the planet!
4) print off Slide 55 for a concise list of how the marketing world is changing
The bottom line is that consumers no longer passively wait for you to tell them about your stuff so they can blindly believe you. In fact, like it or not, they're your new marketing team so watch out!
Consumers want to interact with you and your brand directly and emotionally, and when you let them and the experience is good, they'll be loyal to you and....they'll tell everybody about it in real-time through social media (i.e, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) This works against you, of course, if your products, services, and people suck.
Which gets me back to an earlier OFFER. I want to hear from people willing to host an Israeli Wine House Party (and Twitter live during the event...or use one of our video cameras to film parts of the event and then post it on YouTube.)
HOW DO YOU THINK ALL OF THIS APPLIES TO THE MARKETING OF PREMIUM SMALL PRODUCTION WINES FROM SMALL WINERIES IN A FAR-AWAY LAND?
Israeli Wine HOUSE PARTY!!!
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Wednesday, 23 April 08 - 03:26 PM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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A lot of people have asked about our "marketing plan" for 2008-2009.
Here's one of the things we'll be doing that I am VERY excited about....and need your involvement.
HOUSE PARTY, ANYONE?!
We'll be holding Israeli wine house parties in key states like NY, FL, IL, CA. If you live in one of those states and would like to host exciting house parties with us IN YOUR HOUSE, email me soon. We have several being planned already (LA and Chicago and NYC). We're looking to party with people who could pull together 100+ get-togethers OR 15+ intimate gatherings.
Keep in mind that we want to hang out with people who will buy wine, okay - fraternities are not the target audience for these deals! YES, I know it's selfish of me, but we do actually want to SELL wine - and (shock!) the winemakers want the same thing!
We'll be involved differently in each kind of house party. We're likely to personally show up for the big ones (maybe even with a winemaker or two), for instance. Oh, yeah, and we'll bring the wine!
If you're thinking of hosting a smaller gathering we'll support you a bit differently.
Let me hear from you about this as soon as possible.
Can we please get POST post-Prohibition already?
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Wednesday, 16 April 08 - 06:36 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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It's the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition in the US and we still struggle with outdated state-based wine laws that make it difficult to deliver LEGAL
Heck, I hear it's easier to order pornography and handguns on the Internet in some states than it is to get your hands on some grown-up adult beverages.
Tom Wark, as usual, says it best in a press release yesterday from the Specialty Wine Retailers, an organization that educates and lobbies for free access to wine by adults. I love their slogan --- Wine Without Borders. It's even tougher by the way if you're trying to market imports, like Israeli wine, directly
Specialty Wine Retailers believes that common sense changes to the states’ alcohol regulatory frameworks are necessary to address the evolution in the American wine market over the past seventy-five years. It’s time to give consumers the ability to access the wines they want by allowing wineries and retailers to ship direct to consumers, by instituting proven methods for keeping minors from accessing wine, by providing the means for wineries and retailers to pay state taxes on sales and shipment to consumers and by exploring a system of wine shipping regulation that is truly national in scope.
“Without these needed changes, America will continue with a Prohibition-era system that benefits wine wholesalers’ own special interests, while ignoring the realities of the modern wine market and the needs and demands of consumers,” added Wark.
PRE-ORDER ISRAELI WINE NOW!!!!
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Tuesday, 01 April 08 - 01:50 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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I'll keep this one real focused ----
You can NOW pre-order all of our wines via the sales site.
It's sort of like "futures" but the future is a short way off and the wine is already bottled and on the ship!
While the wine from Israel is sailing we'll likely be offering better shipping discounts than after it arrives. As supplies of certain wines dwindle, costs may go up.
Here's how this will work:
1) Pre-Order any of the wines NOW before the guy beside you drinks it all.
2) You'll be charged for the wine to reserve your allocation at the time you order.
3) The wine will ship to you at the beginning of June.
I don't recommend selecting "UPS Ground" for June given the weather, ok, so consider yourself warned!
Read the Ship-to States closely on the site. We will start in 12 states initially. It doesn't mean we won't be in more states later, it just means we'll be focused at first. Soon I hope to announce to you a unique Direct to Consumer wine process for consumers in NY.
Also very soon I will offer on the site a set of "bundles" you can order - five or six 3-packs of wines I have personally selected and bundled into various wine themes for you...this is a GREAT way to get your tongue wet in Israeli wine if you are new to it. Also great for gifts.
Call me any time at 866-469-8708 with questions, or post them here in the Comments section.
I have a question for you........would you like me to turn on a FORUM function on this site so people can share their tasting notes and responses to the wines they buy from us?
... More items are available in our News Archive
