Image via WikipediaAs wineries explore social media, one of the decisions to be made is sampling wine bloggers. Like the traditional wine press, positive reviews from bloggers can provide good content for customers searching for your wine online. But a bad review can be damaging and continue to show up years after the review was posted.
Since wine reviews are subjective, wineries risk negative reviews every time a sample is sent out so making the call on bloggers is similar to traditional wine critics. My rule of thumb is if you sample critics then also sample wine bloggers and vice-versa. But it’s not always so clear cut and there might be good reasons to only sample bloggers.
The most successful wine brand to follow this strategy is Stormhoek. Three years ago they started sampling bloggers and did not submit any samples to critics. The result was a global conversation about their brand and an increase in sales as these online blogger recommendations got people to try their wine.
The thing that made Stormhoek such a compelling story was that it delivered surprisingly good value in it’s price category. Although South African wines had a market position, particularly in the UK, Stormhoek wines tasted more like they came from Australia or New Zealand. European bloggers began posting about these wines and the next year similar results were realized as the brand was introduced to U.S. consumers.
But what makes the Stormhoek story interesting from a marketing viewpoint is they didn’t target wine bloggers in their outreach. Instead, they sent samples to any blogger who requested them and sponsored “geek dinners” and other technology events where they supplied the wine. In effect, the wine became secondary to the discussions at these meet-ups.
So what the folks at Stormhoek really did was sample their potential customers and not actively seek reviews from wine bloggers. Think of it as an extension of the winery tasting room.
But sampling potential customers may not be cost effective for all wineries so other tactics such as sponsoring parties or events with bloggers is another way to get the online conversation going. I’ll be exploring this strategy in a future post with a case study.
Comments 4
You can actually see it happen on social networks like MySpace. Wine is a hot topic on MySpace, hundreds of small wineries making friends with wine lovers and growing their online communities.
The next step for the wineries is to extend their tasting room by offering their social network friends’ wine samples and get the online conversation going.
To maximize the ROI on those wine samples, wineries should try to target their most influential friends who have highest word-of-mouth impact.
Check my website for more statistics about MySpace wineries and other goodies you can use.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 1:45 am ¶Very interesting statistics Udi. I didn’t know there were that many wineries on MySpace.
Do you have experience with any social network related sampling programs?
Thanks.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 8:38 am ¶I believe one of the oversimplifications in this post is that you have defined “critics” as something that they are not. The idea that “critics” (for the rest of this rant I am talking about NATIONAL critics, local and region critics are a whole other ballgame) are relevant now or have mattered in the last 15 years is a myth. They don’t matter. Well, that’s a lie!… 2 or 3 or 4 of them matter, the rest will just get you distribution, but REALLY we are talking winery-direct sales here, right? And if you are a small-to-medium sized producer in California, making a product that is not flawed, and are a nice guy/girl finding distribution is not an issue. In all my time as a retailer, sommelier, and winery-direct-sales guy not one person has said “I read about in .. I WANT TO BUY!”
This never happened for a lot of reasons, I’m sure. Most of these publications are behind the times and the wines they are reviewing have long been sold out, a lot of them only review large-production wines (5,000+ cases production) and lastly these publications don’t often stick their respective necks out and take a stand. It could be anything, but most of these publications are happy being mediocre and publishing mediocre reviews that no one reads. Stand for something, love a style, hate a style… give something above 96 points.. do something…
The simple matter of fact is that the only national publications that can sell wine to customers and make them pick up a phone, visit a website or go to their local wine shop are: Wine Spectator, Robert Parker (The Wine Advocate), and The New York Times. You can’t doubt me all you want, but ask any retailer in the country. They will tell you the same thing.
SO, the question I would ask to bloggers is:
Posted 15 Jul 2008 at 4:36 pm ¶-In a world where anyone can do what you do, why do you matter?
-How is sending wine to you going to help me?
-If the traditional wine review doesn’t work, what does?
Josh,
I’ve been thinking about your comment for a few days now and think I can now respond with some answers.
First, great points all around. I’ll go a step further and say that only two publications matter in the U.S. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and The Wine Spectator. If you are in Europe, then Decanter and whatever local language publication is all that is relevant in the market.
But your point about if everyone is a “critic” then “what makes you matter” is the main thing I wanted to respond to.
You are correct, wine bloggers only “matter” to their community which can be from a few dozen friends to tens of thousands. Reviews posted on these blogs do result in sales for wineries; I know because many have told me this directly from some reviews I have posted at Winecast.
The bottom line is that wine bloggers have an audience and more people looking for wine recommendations are discovering them. This is the evolution of word of mouth that used to be limited to the individuals’ social circle. Today a blog greatly amplifies their potential audience.
Lastly, if you don’t believe in sampling the 3 or 4 critics that have some power today, then I would not advise you to sample any wine bloggers. I think I already said that in my post.
Thanks!
Posted 20 Jul 2008 at 8:20 pm ¶Post a Comment