If you look around the winery talent pool and you can’t find content Creators you may need to hire a “ghost writer” for you or your winemaker or whoever that persona is you want to be positioned front and center on your social site; remember that more people view videos and photos on-line than articles and blogs.

Additionally, you will need Editors who will edit content created by others or submit content created by others. Critics are a plus, not a negative. If you make good wine you should not have to worry about criticism of your wine. Nobody likes mean-spirited hackers and, if lacking spam-filters, most SNS’s have applications for the community to self-police, register complaints and remove disruptive miscreants (ex.: Craig’s List). In the social atmosphere critics comment on the content submitted by others, such as, photos, videos and jokes that may have surfaced at your last wine tasting event.

You want lots of Sharers who will forward content to others. If your Creators and Editors are engaging your membership then you will attract more Sharers. Finally, you need Consumers. This is the silent majority who are attracted to your site, contribute to traffic but only passively consume content and either post by personalizing it, OR NOT. The graphic up above shows the levels of influence and impact of participants in a social networking community. Think about it, the guy snapping photos on his smart phone at your tasting bar is a creator. 1st try to get your wine label in the picture and then ask him to post his photos on your site.

Remember that you are creating your social site for your friends. Provide some incentives for your friends to contribute content, edit, share, and invite other friends to your site. Free invites to events at the winery always get attention and here’s an idea featured on Oprah. Invite your content contributors from anywhere in the world to a Skype wine tasting. Now that is what I want to do next time I’m flying cross country on a crowded 757!

CHALLENGE:
Van Ruiten Family Winery is a family owned winery in the Lodi appellation. A grower for 50 years selling to large wineries like Mondavi and Gallo, the Van Ruiten Family expanded in 1999, constructing their tasting room and diversifying into bulk wine sales, custom crush facilities and services to other wineries, in addition to wine sales under their own labels.

The winery was experiencing intense competition in California, compounded by a lack of attention from its biggest distributor on its line of Van Ruiten Family Winery brand. While the winery intended to expand distribution of Van Ruiten wines on the East Coast in 2008, it was concerned that its existing plans would not achieve the desired sales results.

Van Ruiten needed a comprehensive plan to improve its overall business and increase case sales of Van Ruiten Family wines to wholesale and retail accounts. The winery needed new avenues for growth, and it needed to insure that its product and sales plans would achieve its objectives.

SOLUTION:

As part of its overall initiative to increase wine sales, Van Ruiten Family Winery engaged WineCircle Consulting to develop a comprehensive sales plan, which included the following elements:

On-site business review meetings to review in detail:
- Product positioning/value proposition
- Competitive products and positioning
- Pricing and margin models
- Current and future distribution plans
- Current sales and marketing strategy and tactics

Recommended sales and marketing strategy for the distribution and sale of Van Ruiten Family wines
- Product value proposition
- Varietal production strategy
- Channel margin and pricing
- Sales presentation
- Complete Channel plan including which channels and why, and recommended timelines

BENEFITS:

With five months of consulting and channel sales support and by implementing WineCircle’s proven techniques into their sales and marketing strategy, Van Ruiten Family Winery was able to increase their wine sales by more than 25% in 2008, using a combination of additional labels and additional depth in key varietals. They were able to increase sales through their tasting room, increase their distribution through grocery chains in California, more than doubling the number of doors carrying their wine. Van Ruiten also added new distribution across the United States, which will be a platform for continued growth.