The rains are fading off and spring events are in full swing. By now most of us have processed our first wine club run of the year. How did it go? Do you know? As you head into the busy selling period, it's important to take a moment to reassess your club successes, failures, and strategies to determine your best selling plan moving forward into the tourist season. Here are some best practices we recommend to improve your club health in the coming year: Continue »
A presentation created for the WineDirect Roadshows that showcase three case studies - one on Facebook Ads, one on email design and one on custom wine clubs. Continue »
A presentation on Facebook Marketing presented at the 2018 Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium with Louis Calli of Echo and Carin Oliver of Angelsmith. Continue »
From keynote addresses on wine and cannabis, artificial intelligence, and state legislation, to workshops on customer service, social media and and wine club optimization, the 2018 Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium brought together individuals from all walks of the wine industry. Every session was filled with individuals looking to industry leaders to share their knowledge on how to maximize DTC efforts. Common questions attendees would ask questions were, “How do I improve my club retention rates?” or “What kind of offers will help my email conversions without devaluing my product?” or “How can I get a customer to purchase again?” I noticed that many of the presenters would turn the questions back onto the attendee, and ask, “What does your data tell you?” and often, the person could not answer them. Continue »
Every year in Q1 our agency get a small flurry of requests to "update" or "refresh" clients' websites. They're often not sure why, or have metrics to support the request. How often should this be done? How many years is too old? Just because you're tired of looking at the same home page, doesn't mean your customers are....right? Continue »
We've turned the page on the calendar, and are already plunged into another year. Here are my predictions for changes to the winery direct marketing landscape this year. Continue »
when all through wine country we pause for a break. (We need one, quite bluntly.) Continue »
We turned on the best Christmas album to get me in the mood to write this post. We just finished Thanksgiving, but Christmas ads are on the TV and displays are in the stores, and shipping deadlines will be here before you know it. Continue »
You hire photographers for your wine, graphic designers to build your emails and printers to print and mail your holiday promotions. You spent hours fussing… Continue »
The holidays are a time for family gatherings, eating too much food…and shopping. Those of us in the sales and marketing business are far too… Continue »
The wine industry is one of adventure, mystery, romance and awe. No, seriously. Our guests want to escape the hustle and bustle of their daily… Continue »
I’m sure the answer is ‘very’. You’re a pleasure to be around. You’re the first person to volunteer when a friend is moving apartments and… Continue »
You’re standing in line at the grocery store waiting to check out and you see a magazine. Not Time or Rolling Stone, but a trashy… Continue »
Having set up almost 50-60 websites with data on Vin65, they asked me to lead a Free Training Friday webinar on best practices for data… Continue »
I was honored to be asked to be on a panel for the DTC Symposium a few weeks ago by Copper Peak logistics. The topic… Continue »
It would be nice if we all had one system that did everything…but that is so often not the case. In many cases, your accounting… Continue »
I was asked to present to a group of winery C-level about why they should care about Social Media marketing, and answer two questions: “What… Continue »
I remember when I was on the team to launch the first “smart-phone” at Sprint. The tech guys were explaining how it would make pagers… Continue »
Right about now we’re all deep into 2015 planning…or finishing up our calendars. This begs the question, what content should we be using for our… Continue »
Happy New Year! We made it through another holiday period….which means you navigated the maze of holiday promotions. This inspired me to do some research… Continue »
With the end of one year comes the beginning of another. For many of us, that means 2015 planning. And some wineries might be considering… Continue »
Do you look at Google Analytics? If you’re like most, it is overwhelming and confusing and once it is set up, you rarely look at… Continue »
Around this time of year, us marketers are typically working on our “Black Friday” messages. This day after Thanksgiving started out as a convenient… Continue »
As you leave the local elementary school sporting the “I Voted!” sticker, consider how easy or complicated the process was for you. Were there complicated… Continue »
Halloween is my favorite holiday. I think because it reminds me of being a kid: choosing what costume to wear, watching scary movies, and of… Continue »
Unless you’ve been drinking far to much of your own product, you know that an earthquake hit the Napa Valley this past week. In the… Continue »
Well, the guest post on label design certainly generated some passionate discussion! So much so, that my friend and colleague Cindy Deutsch, who knows more… Continue »
I recently ran a quick analysis for a client considering a new Wine Club. After 20 minutes of diving into their backend system (which happened… Continue »
If you cringe when databases and “CRM” is brought up in marketing conversations, you are not alone. Many wineries are confused about this area of… Continue »
What is it about Spring that makes one take on more challenges than is humanly possible? Something about the warmer weather inspires us to… Continue »
We have a special “Guest Glass” post today: Courtney Holmes from Talk is Sheep Marketing, a wine marketing design firm specializing in wine label design. … Continue »
Clients ask me all the time about what/how often to post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other Social Media channels. I typically flip the question… Continue »
My wonderful husband, who has worked for 17 years at AAA, was sent to a conference last week in San Diego. He returned with a… Continue »
Below is a presentation I finally got around to posting on slideshare. It is a presentation given at the Wine Industry Network conference last December… Continue »
As February draws to a close, we start to come out of hibernation and look at the busy spring, summer and harvest seasons. The… Continue »
Happy New Year! This past weekend was the Chinese Lunar New Year. It’s the Year of the Wooden Horse. According to Chinese beliefs, the ‘Year… Continue »
I was all ready to provide another list of ideas this week to follow up on last years blog “Ten Ways to Give Thanks for… Continue »
With the holidays coming, we are all busy planning holiday events and sending holiday emails, but don’t forget that millions of busy little elves are… Continue »
I’ve been doing a fair amount of SEO project lately and the more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn. SEO is… Continue »
This is the second part of a two-part blog on Data Collection Strategies. The premise is that many wineries don’t have an understanding of what… Continue »
I work with a variety of wineries to collect customer data. Most understand why this is important, but few have a documented, or even widely… Continue »
I know I’m old school. I’m not so old that I experienced Mad Men, but I did earn my chops as an Account Executive at… Continue »
Most customer care people will suggest you communicate with customers in the manner to which you were first communicated. This makes sense, as they initially… Continue »
No doubt there are financial pressures being in the wine business. As a winery owner you have put out thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of… Continue »
Sorry, for the long blog post, but, I need to vent. At the risk of being cliché, I feel the need to use my recent… Continue »
We hear a lot about “quality”, “authenticity” and “relevancy” when developing Direct to Consumer strategies. But we also talk a lot about metrics, Google… Continue »
Guest post for WWS about their upcoming Rosé event. I have a confession I am obsessed with Rosé, and have been for some time. Oh, sure,… Continue »
This is a guest blog post I wrote for Vin65 which can also be found here. They just announced a suite of new features for… Continue »
Statistics, and Direct Marketing This week we’ll dive into two of my favorite things and see what kernels of wisdom we can find for ourselves…. Continue »
I haven’t written a blog post in a couple weeks. The reason is… well, my dog died, and I haven’t much felt like writing. Most… Continue »
Another consultant told one of my clients recently that they needed more tofu. Top Of the FUnnel offers, (or TOFU, get it?) are commonly dangled… Continue »
I just got a new credit card in the mail this week. Not because I asked for it, and not because the old one had… Continue »
I had a wonderful time, as usual, at the Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium in San Francisco last week. Blog posts will follow about… Continue »
Selling via an allocation method is commonly associated with the higher-echelon of wineries. But just because we all want our wines to command the demand… Continue »
2012 was heralded by many as the “Year of Customer Service“. Now widely noted the #1 success criteria, many are hyper-focused on getting this area… Continue »
Isn’t this what marketers are supposed to do this time of year? I feel pressured to make predictions…so here it goes. My top 5 are:… Continue »
T’was the day before Christmas when all through the valley all the wineries were cheering an end-of-year rally. This year had been different, from ones… Continue »
Whew, what a year. This has been an interesting year for the wine business. While not exhaustive, let’s look back on some of the key… Continue »
Do you know how Coke got started? Back before big pharmaceutical companies, you’d go to the druggist and get your powdered medicine. And it… Continue »
By now there isn’t much you can do but process holiday orders. Emails should be sent, websites updated, cards mailed. And shortly, sometime about December… Continue »
Typically we gather together in small family and friend groups this week, huddle around the soothing warmth of the television, and drink and eat… Continue »
Social media might be the most helpful customer service tool to come along since the telephone. But nobody wants to run into a ticked off… Continue »
I was having drinks with my friend the other night, and we were griping and venting the ways good friends do, when my friend suddenly… Continue »
Like many fans in the bay area, our baseball teams inspired me this year. The Giants and the A’s did a great job all year… Continue »
Email marketing is a staple among wineries trying to communicate to wine clubs, provide holiday offers and reach new customers. If you’re like most,… Continue »
It is no secret that Direct Marketing has gotten more complicated. Printed communications have given way to digital communications, and digital communications are splintering into… Continue »
The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 166, has designated the first week in October, as “National Customer Service Week” since 1992. When George Bush Sr…. Continue »
It is important to be genuine. I write a lot about customer “engagement”, “authentic” marketing and “touch-point” analyses. This is because a major goal with… Continue »
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger Welcome to Wine Glass Marketing – same services, same experience and same snarky blog. Just a different name…. Continue »
One of the most common questions businesses ask about direct marketing is – how often should we talk to our customers? Controlling the frequency of… Continue »
Social Media is a Communication Channel. CRM is a Strategy. If you’ve read my blog, you’ll realize I am a passionate believer that having an… Continue »
What is Web 2.0? Recently a client asked me to look over their website and provide a subjective audit on what they could do to… Continue »
Segmentation 101 The question of segmentation comes up very frequently, as it should since it is the most important success variable in any direct marketing… Continue »
Whether you work for a small winery or or a large international beverage company, there are certain things that are common among all of us:… Continue »
I’m staying with my Mother in the hospital while she’s getting her knee replaced. I’m exhausted. She’s miserable. So far, according to her, the room… Continue »
Call and Response The responses and subsequent discussion about the now infamous NextGen article “Why Every Social Media Manager Should be Under 25” has been… Continue »
Indians...Indiana, what’s the difference? When my husband and I were in Paris last April, there was a series of chain restaurants called Indiana Café. Friday evening, Continue »
When someone says CRM what do you think of? If you’re in IT or operations you might think of the software that holds your company’s… Continue »
You might be surprised the week before the Wine Industry Technology Forum, or with all my technology background, to hear this statement from me. Of… Continue »
I was struck at the Ship Compliant conference last Thursday how lucky we are in the wine industry to have such a high caliber of… Continue »
I’ve always been a confident person. I can’t help it. I had good parents and decent opportunities to capitalize on so when it gets down… Continue »
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