Wine Direct

December 29, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

The Web and Darwinism

These thick lenses on my glasses are not from the late night studying in college or from reading the entire Jane Austen collection in my poorly lit bedroom. They are the result of growing up in the “Age of Advertisement” - watching way too much TV when I was a kid. And of course, commercials were my favorite. Soon after graduating college, I joined one of the biggest advertising firms in New York, and my life became nothing but “Sell! Sell! Sell!”

Unfortunately along with the glamour came the discovery of “the truth” - not everything they say in the ads are true! (I am sure you are more than aware of that already. THAT is advertising.)

So what does the Web have to do with Darwinism?

Out of curiosity, I purposely made a list of the last 20+ things I bought - from a new suitcase to Japanese curry mix - and why I picked that particular brand/product over all the others on the same shelf. What I realized is that more than half of the things I bought were recommended to me in the past from people I know who have given their thumbs up.

So what does my little non-scientific research mean?

As many of you have heard over and over again, the Web has given “people” a voice - people who actually bought and used the products; People who were not paid by the producers to, on occasion, exaggerate or fabricate; People like you and me.

Recommendation will be single force that drives sales in an age where “the truth” about a product will sell it. Not how big your marketing campaign budget is. “We” will no longer listen to “the man” who makes the stuff. “We” will listen to the hundreds and thousands of people who actually bought the stuff, and “we” want to hear what they have to say about it.

So in the end, “survival of the fittest” will become the new model of e-commerce because very soon, only the best products will sell.

Here’s a final thought - spend the money on product development and listen to what the people have to say about your products. Put your ego aside and improve your products - give people what they want. Stop wasting money on hiring some guy to make your products sound good. Make them good.

Dec 29, 2007 at 3:40 PM

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December 18, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

Those two little words

The holidays are always busy. Between selling holiday presents and wine dinner pairings and organizing your own holiday celebrations and getaways it’s easy to forget about the reason you have so much to celebrate.

Take the time to thank your customers. Thanking them for their continued support and loyalty throughout the year is twofold. First, a “thank you” goes a long way – it is common courtesy and makes a customer more likely to repurchase when you’ve shown that you truly appreciate their business. Second, positive brand recognition is key this time of year. A nice little thank you note will reinforce your brand in a positive light. When it comes time to pay the credit card bills in January, you can bet they’ll continue their wine club membership with you over a brand who hasn’t taken the time to thank and appreciate their customers.

These two reasons should be plenty to get you contemplating a thank you email or snail mailing to your customers. But if you need one more reason (albeit a little more selfish) to send a thank you note - use it as a purchase trigger. Add a little extra incentive into your “thank you” to purchase one more time this year. It’s a great way to squeeze in a few end of the year sales while satisfying your customer at the same time.

Ask your client development manager if you need help sending a thank you email before the end of the year, those two little words are much more powerful than you think!

Dec 18, 2007 at 3:42 PM

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December 17, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

Beheading Champagne

For your information, I’m the resident frog at Inertia - that means I’m French :)

Growing up in France I was raised with a fun New Years’ Eve tradition: “Sabrer le Champagne“. This means beheading a bottle of Champagne with a saber/sword. It sounds as cool as it is.

Last week, I was part of a fantastic Champagne tasting group. Among the many fine bottles was a magnum of Pierre Gimmonet 1999 Champagne. As this was the only magnum of the bunch, our delightful host thought it would be in bad taste not to follow the Napoleonic tradition of decapitating a magnum. Having had some experience with this - and wanting to make up for bringing the only corked bottle of the night (1990 Comte Audoin de Dampierre) - I volunteered to be the executioner. Here’s the video:

Champagne Sabering in San Francisco

Before you attempt the coolest trick of the holidays in front of a crowd, you should know practice is recommended. Here are the easy steps:

Prepare the field: remove both the foil and the wire cage covering the cork of you well-chilled bottle of bubbly.
Find the neck: locate one of the two vertical seams running up the side of the bottle. Where the seam meets the lower lip of the bottle is the point where you will strike.
Get ready to strike: grip the bottle firmly around its base. Point it at a 30 degree angle away from all people, windows and pets. Now take your saber (or the back edge of a chef’s knife or even a heavy metal tablespoon if you are feeling cocky) and lay the blade flat just below the lip at the weak spot.
The crucial moment: Draw the sword back along the seam and then swing with full force away from your body, upward and into the bottom of the lip. Don’t forget to follow through (as with any sport, see the cork popping, be the ball). To minimize spillage, turn the bottle upright immediately afterward.
Victoire! : if executed properly, the cork and bottle top will fly a few feet in the air (this is why you must aim carefully), you will not lose much Champagne but gain massive respect. This is your moment!

Dec 17, 2007 at 3:43 PM

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December 10, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

The Attraction of a WineClub

I recently had dinner with a thirty something couple that lives in Oakland. During our conversation they asked if Inertia had a certain winery from Mendocino on our platform. I said no, but why the interest? They belong to the wineries club, and raved about the experience. For five minutes they talked about how friendly the people were, the great events they have twice a year, and so on. They never once said anything about the quality of the wine.

That got me thinking about wine clubs in general, and specifically why do people join. My net opinion, it’s not about the wine, it’s about the inclusiveness. I know of two different couples that belong to a club from a popular Sonoma winery, that does not sell their wine in the general market. One couple lives in So. Cal, the other in Upstate N.Y. Both couples drink good wine, and have pretty good pallets. Both are effusive about this winery. The truth is the wines are average to mediocre, and definitely over priced. However, the winery experience is outstanding, as is the job done by the club manager in staying connected with their members.

So the moral of the story? Love your club members. Let them know they are special. Give them unique insights into life at the winery. Get them to feel invested in your success. They will not only stay on your club list, they will be your best ambassadors for future growth.

Dec 10, 2007 at 3:48 PM

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December 7, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

eCommerce is powerful, but it’s not magical

he way we shop has changed significantly during the course of commerce as we know it. The first Sears Roebuck catalog was delivered in 1893. The concept was revolutionary, and the goal was to deliver products, through the mail, to consumers without channeling them through numerous wholesalers along the way. $400,000 in sales in the first year and $750,000 in sales two years later, proved the concept. That’s roughly the equivalent of $8,000,000 and $15,000,000 respectively in today’s economy.

Can we parallel the Sears Roebuck catalog to today’s e-commerce “catalog”? I think we can. But instead of the 300 plus pages in the Sears catalog let’s say there were a million. The power of E-commerce is evident as sales increased 19% versus last year and wine sales increased at an even healthier rate of 35%. Purchasing wine on-line is fairly new; it wasn’t until 2005 that on-line wine sales really took off. I would be comfortable saying that sales are increasing at about the same incredible rate as the Sears Roebuck catalog. But the common misconception around e-commerce and wine sales is that placing a web-site on the net is going to cause your inventory to magically disappear. The numbers show the power of on-line wine sales but without proper marketing and sales strategy, you’ll have a great site that’s standing idle. Here are a few ideas to start with:

*Take advantage of social networking to build your customer database
*Holiday market and e-mail blasts
* SEO: Search Engine Optimization – It’s free and helps direct traffic to your site
* Affiliate Marketing - Links
*Read Wine Industry Blogs!

If you have your winery web site up and running and orders aren’t pouring in, it’s because E-commerce is powerful but it’s not magical.

Dec 7, 2007 at 3:50 PM

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December 6, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

Five Steps to Mastering Online Marketing

Wine online darling Gary Vaynerchuk from WinelibraryTV continues to grab the wine world by its shirt lapels and give a good, healthy shake.

You may recall that Vaynerchuk spoke at the Wine Industry and Technology Symposium (WITS) in July where he was quoted as saying (in reference to the wine industry’s use of technology in marketing):

“Ninety-nine percent of the people in the wine business are really blowing it,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, director of operations for the WineLibrary, a Springfield, N.J. wine store with a popular interactive Web site. (Quote excerpted from the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat)

I wrote a blog post on this site shortly thereafter that can be found here.

Gary continues to not only lead the charge in creating a brand online for himself and his business by proxy, but he also continues to give advice, good advice, to folks interested in growing their business, any business.

Vaynerchuk did an audio interview with an Internet-based business coach and he provided some additional insights that are not just applicable to technology marketing, but marketing in general. You can find the audio portion of the interview here and a transcript of the interview here.

A couple of the nuggets that I gleaned are:

* Vaynerchuk on putting content out on the web: “If you put out great content, you will be found.”

* Vaynerchuk on leveraging your expertise: “So, if you are the best guy in your law firm in contracts, instead of waiting eight to ten years to become a partner, start (using technology) about what you know. Give away that content for free. It will come back to you in spades 800 times over.”

* Vaynerchuk on tapping your passion: “So you may be good at three or four things, but please site down and analyze where you feel you’re most passionate about, even if that is the most competitive genre, do it because that is where you’re going to win when you really believe it, when it goes through your blood, you’re going to wine every time because even if you’re not seeing the mythical success, your heart and soul is going to be happy. That is going to push through to the point when you will start seeing success.

* The Interviewer on setting lofty goals: “you have to have high ideals. You have to have something that you’re shooting for that’s absolutely spectacular. What you have to realize is that’s the ideal, that’s not the goal. When you achieve a certain level of success, the people that are super successful don’t compare where they get to–to their ideal. The ideal is just where they’re focused towards. To be happy and to be excited about what you’re accomplishing, you have to look backwards to where you were. As long as you make that leap and you look backwards to feel good about yourself then you can keep that excitement going. If you’re always comparing where you are to the perfect (ideal) then it’s very hard to stay excited …

The frenetic interview wraps up with Vaynerchuk’ “Five Steps to Mastering Social Media.” If you replace the “social media” with “online marketing” or just “marketing” the same values hold true. They are:

1) Make sure you want to engage/learn it.

2) Now that you know you want it, spend every living second that you possible can on it.

3) Put your toe in the pool. Get involved.

4) Humble yourself. If you’re the best basketball player in the world, you’re playing hockey now. Put on your skates.

5) Know what you want to accomplish.

As we head into the biggest selling month of the year for wine thoughts naturally turn to 2008 and the unconquered horizon that a fresh start presents. Read the Vaynerchuk interview or simply just ponder the excerpts here and consider what you can do in the new year to accelerate your marketing success!

Dec 6, 2007 at 3:53 PM

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December 5, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

Are you putting your money where your mouth is?

If you believe that the Direct Sale Channel is the most profitable and growing, what are you doing to make sure you’re making the most of this?

Most wineries spend a majority of their budget furthering the wholesale channel and few funds are allocated to the Direct Channel. What a different place the wine industry would be if budgets were adjusted to allow for hiring more high-powered marketing managers to oversee the wine club, tasting room and ecommerce. Imagine if the ideology that the Direct Channel is second best (and thus does not deserve the same resources) was changed and now winery staff is not tasked with wearing multiple hats to try and do the work of three people or more!

A traditional industry is slow to change, but you can make the most of what you have to work with. Think by and for individual channels – ecommerce, tasting room, wine club, and telephone – and leverage the nuances of each. Create goals and plans to reach those goals for each DIRECT sales channel. Plan, monitor, and reassess your goals as necessary. Have a plan in place on a monthly basis for the entire year, but continue to reassess and reschedule. Plan down to the detail – not only plot out what wines will go in the club shipments for the year, but what emails will you send, when you’ll send it, and what you’ll feature; plan your emails as far in advance as possible to coincide with events, wine releases, accolades, etc. If you have a solid plan with tactics and resources in place, you can take the stress out of the day-to-day.

If you believe that the Direct Sale Channel is the most profitable and growing, then plan, monitor, and reassess your methodology and tactics to grow this channel. Put your resources behind the channel in the most effective and efficient way possible to make the most return on your investment into the Direct Channel.

Dec 5, 2007 at 3:54 PM

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December 4, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

India, Globalization and Wine..

As an Indian who has spent most of her adult life outside of the country, every trip back home is shocking as I try to absorb all the changes that are occurring ever so rapidly. The recent economic boom in India due to the outsourcing activity has spurred a boom for many sectors and has caused a shift in the urban lifestyle. A growing middle class with higher spending power, many Indians returning back home and multinationals setting up offices in India has made wine consumption an integral part of the fine dining experience.

Here are a few facts from local publications:

Indian wine market grows at 25-30% and is expected to grow at that rate for the next 5-6 years. (Source – Indian Express)
Recent reduction in custom duties on wines and spirits has resulted in huge imports from France and Australia.
Domestic wine manufacturers are thriving (Sula vineyards has grown 50% annually) but face intense competition from French and Australian wines.
The government is looking to establish a new wine policy that will bring uniformity in taxation and duties across states.
Indian wine manufacturers unite under a common forum to fend competition.

Listed below are my key observations, I would like to mention that these are my experiences in very urban settings and may not necessarily represent the trend in the rest of the country.

Ask most Indians why they prefer White wine over Red and you get the typical answer that they prefer sweeter wines.
Most restaurants and bars serve wines by the bottle and not by the glass.
Several local wines offer promotions in retail stores and restaurants, for example, it was pretty common for someone at the table to ask the server if there were any promotions on wines. During my 3 week stay, two local brands had a buy one bottle get one free offer.
We Indians still have long ways to go for all things related to wine but the general sense of curiosity and eagerness to learn is high.
Do not sniff into a wine glass in a restaurant; it makes people stare at you.
Do not swirl a wine glass in a restaurant; it makes people stare at you.
Ignore my last 2 comments; a woman drinking a bottle of wine - people stare at you anyway.
Work for a start-up in the wine industry and you seem like a Rockstar to your 20 year old cousins!

There is no doubt that the Indian wine industry and the wine drinking population will grow exponentially- we are the 2nd largest population:-) .

So cheers to interesting times ahead!

Dec 4, 2007 at 3:57 PM

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December 3, 2007 | WineDirect Admin

Agile software development

“Agile Software Development is a conceptual framework for software engineering that promotes development iterations throughout the life-cycle of the project.” Wikipedia

The Agile Software Development Method completes a full iteration of a software project. Instead of scoping out a full software release which may be a six month project it breaks it down into various phases or iterations into more manageable parts, which may last from two to four weeks.
Iterations include a full software lifecycle from planning, analysis, functionality, to designing, coding and testing but the scope of the features and bug fixes are smaller and the release cycles are shorter and more frequent.

Benefits of using an Agile Development Method / Product Life Cycle

Continuous improvement and increase frequency of features deployed
Manageable spec documents that remain current through the iteration
Fewer test features to QA; increase efficiency of testing and stability of product
Increase predictability of delivery and reliability of new features or fixes

This is another example of IBG adhering to best practices to deliver continuous improvements to our Clients.

Dec 3, 2007 at 4:01 PM

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