Top 6 Marketing Tips for Selling More Wine
June 29, 2010
With the vast selection of quality wines in Portugal, how can a small or lesser-known wine brand stand out from the pack, be visible and increase sales?
This was the “million” dollar question looming over the minds of the producers we met at the Lisbon Wine show in November. We’ve had these folks on our mind and thought we’d focus on a few key marketing points that could help this important industry.
The New Playbook selling wine
{note: you can read the original article here}
The 6 Key Points:
First and foremost, two necessary ingredients must exist: You have to love what you do: making great wine. And second: You need to communicate and share the quality of your craft.
Since Portuguese wines have quality, uniqueness and diversity, they’re able to compete against many international brands, so quality is not the issue. Recognition however is another story, and this unfortunately comes down to lack of good marketing. So the real issue isn’t the product, but the right marketing and communication strategy for our new, highly informed and connected generation.
Once the first two ingredients are in place, here’s what’s next:
01: Understanding your ideal customer
02: A creative name
03: Label design
04: Website
05: Blogging
06: Adegga.com
1) Your Ideal Customer
First and foremost, consumers are looking for good wines to pair with food. Today, consumers are more sophisticated and informed than ever before, hence their food choices are more dynamic and experimental. So, small and lower priced wine producers need to throw out the old playbook – and assess the right market for their wine. A good example are the folks behind Wine That Loves
Producers need to decide what type of customer they want to appeal too, and who they don’t. What got my attention at the Lisbon Wine Fair was that 95% of the wines had the allure of a high-end snooty type (the likes of 100+ Euro bottles), yet a large percentage were very reasonable and wonderful. This clearly demonstrates few wines are marketed at younger drinkers who buy reasonably priced bottles, but buy often. So a strong market who is ready and looking to buy regularly, is over looked – for one that’s highly competitive, limited and already saturated.
As a wine enthusiast, with some wine-jargon, and a customer of “reasonably” priced bottles, I would use these words to describe wine in more modern terms: fun, sexy, spicy, fresh, adventurous … however at the fair, 99% of the wines communicated:
Serious, traditional, stuffy, snooty – from branding message to wine name and labeling. Few deviated from the “traditional” theme, but the few who did, definitely got noticed! So let’s be honest, not every wine is “serious, traditional and stuffy” and that’s ok — some wines should be wonderfully bold, fresh and new to appeal to a new customer. Communicating individual character in creative new ways is the path to the new wine drinkers lips, and the parting of the red wine seas of “serious” wines.
Here’s a solution: When marketing wine, producers should look at their ideal drinkers through personas, then make sure they communicate to the needs and wants of this group.
2) A Creative Name
Choosing the right name is a delicate science similar to producing the wine. The wrong name on a bottle could completely turn off the targeted customer.
Today’s customers tend to be more traveled and informed, yet less formal. We want to be surprised, delighted and have our pallet tickled with a creative edge and freshness, so naming and labeling a wine is vital to its marketability.
Here’s three examples:
1. Fat Bastard Wines
2. Dirty Laundry
3. Dancing Bull
Two key points when it comes to naming:
01: individual and unique
02: not overly difficult to pronounce.
3) Bottle design and story
Imagine standing in front of a shop, with endless rows of wine bottles and having to pick a wine for dinner. This is a nerve wracking experience for most people, so one of two things happens:
01: they pick up the same bottle they always do or
02: take a huge leap of faith and bet on something new.
Part of the goal in marketing a wine is seducing the customer. Since potential buyers can’t taste the wine, the bottle design and labeling needs to communicate cues of visual sensory to help attract a potential customer. If a customer isn’t seduced by the bottle, branding and label, then the sale is lost, and only hope is personal recommendations.
As cost is always a factor, we recommend a simple bottle with a creative, clean and beautifully designed label. This doesn’t have to be expensive. For example, see how a successful Portuguese producer turned his children’s art work into a wonderful wine label:
Wine Label
Key points to remember for bottle labeling & design:
01: Tell a story about the wine
02: Help solve the shopper’s problem by giving suggestions for food pairings
03: Don’t assume the customer knows how to pair wines with food
04: Label design should be fun, different and aimed at the ideal market group
4) Web Strategy
To date, Portuguese wines haven’t taken advantage of promoting themselves through the web. This is a mistake! The web is the key source of information for today’s culinary aware and those looking to learn more. This is an invaluable sales and marketing tool.
The good news – the web is here to stay, so wine producers can turn the web into their best friend and take advantage by quickly reaching millions of people…real people, who love to drink wine! It all starts with a dynamic website and visibility strategy that is loved by humans and respected by search engines.
5) Blogging
Blogging doubled Stormhoek sales in less than twelve months.
Blogging scares and intimidates many, but it shouldn’t. A smart producer has two options: become friendly with the wine blogging community, or start one himself, we actually recommend both. This is a fantastic way to get closer to customers first hand.
A well-designed blog can be an invaluable marketing tool:
01: Help build a community around your wine
02: Higher search engine rankings
03: Media & press exposure
04: Better brand recognition
05: Low cost
If you’re unsure about blogging and would like to know how to star a blog, or would like us to set one up for you, contact us. We also recommend, you read this article.
Here are examples of good Wine blogs:
01: Pinot Blogger
02: Stormhoek.com
6) Adegga.com
Adegga is a play on the word “adega” (only one “g”) which means cellar in Portuguese.
It is a place where friends come together to talk, share and learn about wine.
For Portuguese wine producers, here you have a captive audience of Portuguese wine drinkers and this would be an opportunity to get feedback about your wine, build a relationship with a group of influencers and naturally from this will come word of mouth. If your wine has all the ingredients in place, then naturally it will be talked about and people will carry that conversation offline at cafes, dinners, lunches and etc.
If you don’t know where to start, go to Adegga.com and get your wine’s listed for free.
If you’re serious about selling more wine nationally, across Europe or around the globe, then by all means get started on the above. And if you need our help, we will be more than happy to advise and help you with each step.
Moses Mehraban
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/top-6-marketing-tips-for-selling-more-wine-402094.html
what is the best type of red wine and how much is it?
June 25, 2010
Well, the question really explains itself. What is a good red wine and what would the price range be?
This is strictly my own opinion.
You should not buy a red wine under $10 for a 750 mL bottle. So therefore, when I buy a red wine, whether it be a Cabernet Sauvignon ( my preferred varietal), or a Pinot Noir, or even a shiraz, it can’t be less than $10. There are plenty of good wines under $20.
I like La Crema. Their Pinot Noir usually retails for $20 or less. I liked Rosemount Shiraz, and I had paid like $11 for that, in the supermarket. If you really want to go cheaper, the only brand I would suggest then would be Smoking Loon, and they make a number of different kinds of reds and whites. Those are good “everyday” wines.
You can of course invest in some of the Burgundy or other french wines, but I wouldn’t pay more than $40 for one of those. Unless you come across, say, a bottle of 1995 Mouton Rothschilde, which might just set you back over a grand!
Hope this gave you some ideas!
Alcoholic recipes that involve red wine, Cognac, and whiskey?
June 24, 2010
and soda pop.
1) The easiest for red wine is a spritzer. Take 3/4 glass of red wine with 1/4 glass of sprite. (depending on how strong or how sweet you want it, you can do 1/2 and 1/2 for a sweeter drink)
2) Pour Cognac into a glass about 1/4 of the way, pour Blue Curacao into the glass to fill it 1/2 way up, then top off with sprite and you have an incredible hulk. Tasty!
3) A. Whiskey (just about any type will due) mixed with a splash of sweet and sour, a splash of lime juice, and a splash of coke will give you a Snakes Rattle. Yummy, but you have to like slightly tart drinks for this one.
B. Whiskey shot topped off with beer. (Boilermaker)
C. Whiskey and MountainDew. (A Dew)
Classifications of Red Wine – Learn Before You Taste
June 21, 2010
If you’re a lover of red wine, but you don’t know how it’s made, or what varieties there are, then this would be a good time to read up on it. There are certain wines that go best with certain foods, and in order to really enjoy your wine, it would be beneficial to gain some knowledge as to the classifications of red wine.
It is actually the grape skin that gives red wine it’s color. Red wine is made from either red or black grapes, with the skin left intact during the fermentation process called maceration. The longer the skin is left on the grape, the deeper red it will result in. Rose wine is a pink colored wine, because the skin is only left on the grape for a short period of time.
Red wine may be sweet, dry or fruity. The dry wines have very little residual sugar, whereas the sweeter red wines have a sweeter taste, and are considered dessert wines. The following wine list can help you determine which wine goes best with your meal, and is one method of classifying your wine:
Merlot: This red wine tastes rather like black cherries or plums. It goes well with pasta dishes served with red sauce, lamb or prime rib.
Cabernet Sauvignon: This red wine tastes like black current or chocolate. It goes well with beef dishes, such as stroganoff or steak, or with pasta with red meat sauces, and also with duck or salmon.
Pinot Noir: This red wine has a raspberry, cherry or strawberry taste on your palate. It goes well with pork, turkey and soft cheeses such as brie or camembert.
Shiraz/Syrah: These wines taste like blackberry or licorice. They go well with tenderloins, onion soup, or BBQ ribs and roasts.
Now that you know the best menu choices for your red wine, let’s take a look at the other classifications of red wine. One way to classify wine is by taste. Each wine leaves a primary impression on the taster’s palate. Depending on the variety of the grape used, there will be a different aroma and taste of different compounds for each type of wine.
Another way to classify red wine is by their price. Vintage wines determined by the year in which they were harvested, will determine the wine’s worth. Some wines improve with age, and the older they are, the higher in price they are. Other wines spoil when they are stored for too long. Basically, when shopping for wine, you get what you pay for.
The last way to determine classifications of red wine is by each unique style, such as dessert wines, fortified wines, fruit wines, rose wines and sparkling wines. Each method of wine making differs from the rest, and each offers a lovely bouquet, or aroma, and is pleasing to the palate.
Ian Pennington is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about classifications of red wine [http://matchingwinewithfoodsite.info/classifications-of-red-wine-learn-before-you-taste], please visit Matching Wine with Food Site [http://matchingwinewithfoodsite.info] for current articles and discussions.
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French Red Wine Beef Stew Recipe.flv
June 19, 2010
http://www.vihow.com For those of you always adding salt to your food, this recipe will make your beef stew extra salty. Add an extra salty flavor to your beef stew with help from a head cook in this free video on stew recipes.
Duration : 0:1:22
