Researching for this article made me feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole — each FaceBook discovery and answer led to a NEW FaceBook discovery and answer! It was NEVERENDING! But on the flip-side, it also made me more excited than ANY OTHER MARKETING OPPORTUNITY has!!!!!
Where else can you easily set up a virtual business front, actively track down your target market and ask them to become part of your potential client pool just by having them do something as simple and unassuming as becoming your ‘fan’? I truly see this as an opportunity for you small, boutique and micro wineries to gain the same popularity as the larger wine brands — you just have to take the time follow through on it!
1) The 35-54 year old demographic) is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report
2) The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate
3) The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months
4) For those interested in advertising alcohol on Facebook, there are 27,912,480 users 21+, representing 66.3% of all users
5) Miami is the fastest growing metropolitan area (88.5%) and Atlanta (6.4%) is the slowest
6) There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook – 2.2% are of unknown gender.
7) The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds (40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago.
So now you have ‘proof’ that FaceBook is a pool of potential customers just waiting for you to reach out to them!
Glossary of FaceBook Terms
FaceBook has created a lot of its own terminology, and I found myself constantly scratching my head trying to devine what such words as ‘Poke’ or ‘Gifts’ meant — which lead me to this wonderful FaceBook Glossary.
Types of FaceBook Accounts
Currently, FaceBook has 3 types of accounts: Profile, Page and Group.
In a nutshell, FaceBook ‘Profiles’ are for the individual, ‘Pages’ are for a business or brand and a ‘Group’ is made up of a group of people united around a common issue or interest. ‘Pages’ are a relatively new FaceBook feature so if you think you already created one, make sure. Its possible you may have created a ‘Profile’ instead and still need to create an official ‘Page’ for your winery.
For the purposes of this particular blog, I’m going to focus on the FaceBook ‘Page’. (But know you will need a profile in order to actively recruit a following for your business ‘Page’, so recommend setting up a profile at the same time you set up your ‘Page’.)
How to Setup Your FaceBook Page
Setting up your FaceBook Page is INCREDIBLY easy! Just go here and fill in the appropriate fields and check the appropriate boxes. (I had considered putting together a step-by-step tutorial with pictures on this initial process but felt if wouldn’t be necessary. If you’re having problems signing up and feel I should rethink the tutorial PLEASE let me know and I’ll add it.) But for now, here is the first screen in the ‘Page’ creation process:
Once you’ve followed all the steps you are taken to your new, blank ‘Page’ and your first order of business is to upload a picture and edit your information:
When uploading a picture, I know most of us are just going to put up our logo, (that’s what I did), but here is a little article I read by Nick O’Neill I think you’ll find interesting:
I honestly believe that this is one of the most important components of a fan page. It’s a simple component yet within the confines of a 200 pixel wide box, you would be surprised with the creative ideas that people come up with. Recently Rob Banagale, a guest author on AllFacebook, published an article entitled “5 Creative Ways to Hack Your Facebook Profile Photo“. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you check it out. More impressive than the photos included in the tutorial are the photos that numerous users posted at the end.
I cannot tell you how many standard Facebook Pages I’ve seen in which the basic logo is displayed. If your company has more than one employee (has extra resources), there should be no excuse for not creating an engaging photo for your Facebook Page. It’s one of the first things users look at and it has the potential to leave a lasting impression so make it good!
The photo posted above is a unique user profile photo but I think it illustrates how you can develop creative photos that take advantage of the awkwardly positioned border. If you have other creative profile photos or Page photos that you’ve created or seen please let us know about it.
So now, (if I can find the time), I’m going to try and come up with something a little more interested then my blah logo!
Now that you’ve uploaded your picture and edited your information, I want to explain a little bit about your new ‘Page’. The initial page you are brought to is called your ‘Wall’, which is where you and your fans can post messages. After that is your ‘Info’ tab and by clicking on the ‘+’ next to your last tab you can add even more tabs.
The tabs you can choose from are pretty self explanatory and what is really cool about them is you can link directly to any of your tabs. For example, if you just had a successful wine club event you may want to send an eNewsletter to all your club members with a link to the photo album you created of the event.
You can also see, off to the right on your ‘Wall Page’, a link for ‘Settings’. This is where you can update the overall settings for your FaceBook Page.
The only setting you may want to consider changing is your default landing tab. Right now, your default landing page is your Wall.
But what if you don’t want the first thing everyone sees are all the messages posted by you and your fans? In this case, you can choose to have visitors initially go to your ‘Events’ page, ‘Photo Gallery’, ‘Info’ or to any other Tab you have set up.
Now that you have a basic understanding of what makes up your FaceBook Page, you should be able to add some pictures, post a few updates and then start hunting for ‘fans’ (which I’ll explain more about in the next section).
One more note on setting up your Winery ‘Page’: If you’re like me, you may want to get ideas for your ‘Page’ by checking out some of the more successful Winery Pages on FaceBook. So here is a list of the top 5 winery pages (per Richard Beaudin):
Explaining how Twitter can help you attract potential wine buyers, make your current customers more loyal and help your website’s Search Engine rankings — along with ways to gain more followers and some free tools you can download to make Twitter more manageable.
I have to admit, even though I have a Twitter account and have posted a bunch of tweets, until today, I really wasn’t sure what to do with it! I knew to send out a new tweet every time I posted a new blog topic or finished a new design, but other then that — what could I possibly post that people would be interested in? And then I read ‘Twitter Demystified for Business Users’ by Nancy McCord and Boy, were my eyes opened!
Getting to Know You
Twitter is not just about telling people what you had for lunch, its about expressing your personality and allowing your followers to get to know the real you!
Now I’ve met MANY of you small vineyard and winery owners and so know from personal experience what an interesting bunch you are! You come from all walks of life, a myriad of careers and life experiences and you use this rich personal history in your approach to the vine and/or wine making process. You want to share this with your Twitter followers!
So, if you were a history professor in a previous life and have decided to use your knowledge of the past to make wine using a little known historical technique, tweet your ideas and progress to your followers. (And since you can send in tweets from your cell phone, you can’t use "I’m never near a computer" as an excuse! )
Or here’s an interesting scenario I’ve run into a few times — a husband and wife team who’ve both worked full time jobs for a million years and have finally decided to make a leap of faith and start their own winery. Who WOULDN’T be interested in hearing about the trials and tribulations you experience during this grand adventure?
Tweet about how long you had to wait for label approval, what a nightmare it can be getting state shipping licenses or how your adult children won’t answer your phone calls anymore because they’re afraid you’re going to ask them to help trim vines!
Not only is this interesting, but it can also be fun and informative too!
Another thing I just learned about Twitter is you can tweet with pictures using http://twitgoo.com/. Just the fact that you ARE a vineyard or winery means you have access to a LOT of photo opportunities that wine lovers would find interesting. So, if you’re in the middle of bottling, take a picture of the line and ‘tweet’ it!
Your followers will LOVE it!
Power of the Millennials
Another reason to embrace Twitter is to reach out to that growing Millennial market we’ve all been hearing so much about. This is especially important to you small, boutique and micro wineries because according to Leah Hennessy’s phenomenal article ‘Where Millennials Are Buying Wine: Some Tough Love For The Wine Industry‘ most Millennials have NEVER been to a winery! They mainly buy their wines from grocery stores!!! So unless you’ve netted yourself a great distributor, you NEED to focus on Millennial Outreach!!!
"Talk to your favorite wine shop, encourage them to reach out to this age group. If you are a winery and the shop carries your brands, offer to hold a tasting there geared towards younger drinkers. If you are a retailer, look into social media – even if you’re intimidated, all it really takes is a Facebook page. Throw events, reach out to younger social groups in your area, get creative. I know of a young BOOK CLUB in LA that has all their meetings at a wine shop with a tasting bar." (This is a quote from the Leah Hennessy article referenced above and be sure to think of Twitter as part of your social media repertoire.)
Search Engines
Search Engines (especially Google) do index Twitter (in fact, because the content is updated so frequently, tweets probably carry more Search Engine weight then web pages!) and so you want to be sure to link to your site in your tweets.
For example, if you’re offering a 2 hour Twitter sale on your ‘Willamette Valley 2005 Pinot Gris’, then be sure to link to your 06 Pinot Gris ‘Buy’ page. This way, when the Search Engines index all the various tweets your website will be ranked along with the keywords ‘Willamette Valley’, ‘Pinot Gris’ and so forth. (You can learn about more about Search Engines in my Demystifying Search Engines for Winery Websites post)
Getting Followers
Now that you’ve committed yourself to the Twitter experience (riiiiiiigggggghhhhhhttttttt), your next step is to attract ‘followers’. Here are a few ideas to make it happen:
Post a link to your Twitter account on your website so visitors can immediately start following your ‘tweets’
Make sure your Twitter username is on all your print materials.
Start posting regularly!!!! (This is something I’m trying to do myself!)
Be sure to respond to any tweets sent directly to you.
Completely fill out your Twitter profile with a link to your main website and a picture (I won’t follow someone who doesn’t have a profile)
There are TONS of wine enthusiasts using Twitter to express their love of wine — these are the people you want following you! So once you have your profile set up and a few tweets under your belt, use Twellow to search for Twitter profiles that involve wine and ‘Follow’ them. This alerts them to your presense and if they like your posts, they will probably follow you right back.
Use the ‘hashtag‘ (#) in your posts. (I’m still trying to figure this one out, but I take it to mean words that are prefixed with a # are grouped and can be found and tracked back to you — and if I’m wrong, somebody PLEASE correct me
‘Retweeting’: Per Wiki Answers, to "retweet" is to repeat/quote someone’s tweet. Usually when you come across an interesting tweet and want to publish it as your own tweet so that people who follow you see it too – you retweet it. The syntax of your tweet should start with the abbreviation RT or the word Retweet followed by the username of the person who tweeted it and then finish with the content of the actual tweet. Example: RT @WineryMarketing Rachell is the greatest wine marketer of ALL TIME!!!!
A little nicety that can spread good will amongst new followers is to reply directly to each new follower with a little note saying something to the effect “Thank you for following us!”
Free Twitter Tools
Here are some of my favorite Twitter tools
and ones I’ve just learned about and plan on using regularly (I’ve listed them in order of importance — to me anyway
http://tweetbeep.com
Keeps track of conversations that mention you, your wine, your winery, anything — with hourly updates! You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like bit.ly or tinyurl.com).
http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta
TweetDeck works like a ‘Twitter’ browser that allows you to organize the people you follow into various groups and then displays their tweets within each group to help make some kind of order out of what could very possibly be twitter chaos. I have the following groups set up: Wineries, Marketing, Technical and Fun.
http://tinyurl.com/
Shortens long urls so you can add them to your Twitter posts and still stay under the 140 character limit.
http://useqwitter.com
Qwitter emails you when someone stops following you on Twitter — it will even let you know what was the last post they read before they quit! So if you see a bunch of people quit after you posted "Robert Parker SUCKS!!!" you’ll know you have a lot of Parker fans out there and may have some serious making up to do.
http://twuffer.com
Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose a list of future tweets, and schedule their release.
http://twitter.grader.com
This is just a fun application that allows you to see where you stack up against other Twitter users. Twitter Grader measures the power of a Twitter user based on followers, number of updates, and posting frequency.
http://twitterfeed.com
Posts your blog posts directly onto Twittter and other microfeed sites.
http://twitoria.com
Twitoria finds your friends that haven’t tweeted in a long time so you can give them the boot!
So, are you sick of everything ‘Twitter’ yet???!!!!! Until I wrote this article I never realized how many things started off with ‘tw’ and am thinking of adding a few of my own: ‘twittercide’ (death by twitter), ‘twitterphobi’ (afraid of everything twitter), the ‘Twitter Defence’ (Twitter made me do it) and
‘twitted out’ (sick of twitter).
But as much as it may overwhelm you, or even if you’re already sick of it, Twitter has proven to be an incredibly effective marketing tool. So why don’t we all just bite the bullet (I’m including myself here), and give it a shot?
Oh, and while you’re here, could you help me out and let me know what kinds of posts from me you’d be interested in? As some of you may or may not know, along with my passion for marketing, design and helping small vineyards and wineries, I also have 2 teenage sons, a housefull of animals (including a pig and a possum), a co-dependent relationship with my pug ‘Pugsley’ and volunteer regularly with at-risk teens and non-profit animal organizations.
So, should I be tweeting about EVERYTHING? Or only things relating to the wine industry? Please check what things you’re interested in in the pole below (because who wants to hear about the pig getting into the pantry when all you really want is more wine marketing advice! Select as many answers as apply.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
Regularly sending out eNewsletters is a PROVEN technique to instilling loyalty in your site visitors and turning potential customers into actual customers. But, if you don’t already have a huge list of subscribers to start with, how do you go about growing your list?
Growing your Winery Email List
Have your ‘Subscribe to our eNewsletter’ form prominently displayed on your homepage and, even better, on every page of your website.
Add to your list the email addresses of all the people who have ever purchased your wine online.
When people order your wine over the phone be sure to ask for their email address and include them to your list.
Have a ‘Guestbook’ or sign-up sheet always available in your tasting room and on your table at winery events where people can give you their name and email address.
When discussing your wines with an interested party, ask them if you can add their email address to your eNewsletter list.
If you belong to a regional winery/wine growing group such as ‘Dundee Hills Wine Growers Association‘ that collects site visitor emails, ask the website administrator to send you a list of all their email subscribers.
Offer the chance to win a prize by subscribing and be sure to include the price (so they understand the value they are getting), a picture and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is.
Some potential prizes could be:
a cork-screw
a tasting kit (aka tasting flight) Since you probably can’t send wine, this could include a wine opener, logo glasses, wine glass sheet along with notes and a pen (maybe even some cheese?)
a logo wine glass
Some of your branded apparel
Give new sign-ups an incentive to join by offering something they can download after signing up. (and be sure to include the price and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is)
Some examples could be:
A collection of recipes that can be paired with your wine in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
A wine and food pairing booklet in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
Maybe a ‘how-to’ manual on hosting a wine tasting? (Which of course would be in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
I know coming up with this material make take you some time, but it would be so worth it in the long run because not only does it increase your eNewsletter sign-ups, but it helps to build brand loyalty. Even better, once these digital files are put together, it will cost you nothing for them to be downloaded!
Use Twitter to collect email by:
Including something in your Twitter bio like "subscribe to our eNewsletter to get more indepth info"
Responding personally to new ‘Followers’ with a ‘Thank you for following me, if you want more information be sure to sign-up for my eNewsletter’
Ideas for Using Your List
You want to PUBLISH REGULARLY (weekly or monthly) so your recipients have more opportunities to get to know you. Since I know how difficult it can be to come up with fresh material for a regular eNewsletter, something I’ve done to help me out is keeping an idea file where I can store anything and everything that could be of interest.
Here are some things I’ve come up with you can use in your eNewsletters (I know some are pretty obvious, but I hope I’ve included some stuff that was new :
Post any wine awards and/or good reviews along with a link to where they can actually purchase the wine (if you have a shopping cart).
Include any new wine releases along with tasting notes, food pairings and a link to where they can actually purchase the wine (if you have a shopping cart).
Any wine sales and/or special offers such as free shipping. (And I always thought it would be good idea to offer a special ’2 day sale’ just for your eNewsletter subscribers to see if it increases your sales any.)
Let your subscribers know about any upcoming events.
Offer seasonal packages. Examples of this could go on forever (Christmas, Valentines Day, etc…) so maybe shake it up a bit with a little known special day? For example, did you know December 5th is Prohibition Day? This is as good a reason as any to offer a ‘Happy Prohibition Day’ package!
Winery specific information
Let folks know when and what you are bottling — and include pictures!!! (Remember, you want your recipients to get to know you and what better way to do this then with pictures.)
If you use one of those traveling bottling trucks, maybe let your subscribers know about it and explain how they work (I know I was fascinated when I first found out about the traveling bottling trucks and was amazed how they fit all that equipment into a truck!)
Let them know when you are barreling down.
Let folks know if you are considering using any new techniques or equipment such as oak alternatives or screw caps — and ask their opinion!! Make them feel involved in the decision.
Let your subscribers know about any new personnel you’ve hired or any new milestones you’ve reached. For example, ‘Our 10 Year Anniversary’, or ‘We’ve just added a new winemaker, John Smith, to our team. He is know for his . . .’
Vineyard Updates
Let them know when bud break happens and include pictures with captions.
Do the same thing for veraison explaining what it is and include pictures with captions
Of course harvest is always a great time (if you aren’t too busy ) to let your subscribers know what is going on.
Consider letting them know about canopy management, what it entails, why it is done and, as always, include pictures with captions
If you do anything special with your vineyard, include that in a eNewsletter. For example, Domaine Drouhin has a ‘green harvest’ during the summer where they thin a lot of their clusters, and Sokol Blosser is certified organic which entails a lot specific vineyard practices they need to do in order to maintain their ‘certified’ status.
Unique ways to use your wine
Pouring your desert wine over berries for a sweet treat!
Instead of buying ‘cooking wine’ in the grocery store, suggest they use some of your wine and why.
And then of course you can always throw in recipes to be paired with your wine.
What to Use to Send Out Your List
I recommend NOT using your regular email program to send out your eNewsletters — it can really tie up your server and the more sign-ups you get the more unwieldy it will be to handle everything. So I suggest using Vertical Response or Constant Contact to send out to your list. The reason for this is:
They are very inexpensive. If you plan to only send out eNewsletters sporadically, then your best bet is to use Vertical Response because they charge per email address and you can send out to about 1,000 emails addresses for only $15. Constant Contact charges a monthly fee so they are good for those of you who plan to send out eNewsletters regularly.
They provide the coding for your web designer to add to your website so every new subscriber will automatically be added to your eNewsletter list.
They make it easy to prepare and send out your eNewsletters and you can even schedule them ahead of time
And I saved the best for last!!! They can actually track how many of your eNewsletters were opened and, if you included links in the eNewsletter it can even tell you what links were clicked on along with how many times. This information is PRICELESS for figuring out how successful your eNewsletters are!
What Is A Good Open Rate?
For those of you who ARE tracking your eNewsletters, I thought I’d throw in this interesting bit of information I discovered today: According to Donna Gunter of ‘Get More Clients Online’, "a good open rate is considered to be 30-40%, which means that between 30 and 40% of your list is actually reading your broadcast." This may not seem like a lot, but considering how busy everyone is now-a-days, and how many eNewsletters they must get, its impossible to think all of your eNewsletters are going to be read by everyone.
As always, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts. So if you have an idea for winery eNewsletters (whether its growing your list or ideas on what to write about), please feel free to comment this blog or email me directly.
As I’m sure your accounting sheets have told you, the struggling economy has finally slowed down the wine buying boom we’ve been enjoying. People are still buying wine, but now they’re focusing on wines under $10 so they can buy two bottles of wine for the same amount they used to spend on one.
So, if you are selling $15+ bottles of wine, what do you do? Drop your prices to meet the $10 mark so your sales go up? If you do this, what happens when the economy picks up and sales for wines over $10 start to go up again? (And with the Millennial generation continuing their love affair with wine, people are pretty convinced that when the economy picks up again, so will the sales on $20+ wines.)
According to Chris Hanna, owner of Hanna Winery and a board member of the Sonoma County Vintners, “experience has shown that slashing prices to drive sales is not a smart long-term strategy. That’s what wineries did in the early 90′s and it’s tough to recover from such a move because consumers become accustomed to the lower prices.” (This information was pulled directly from the PressDemocrat.com.)
So, if slashing your prices isn’t a good idea, can you afford to hang tight until the economy picks up?
Before you decide, here are some ideas to increase sales (some in the short term) without actually slashing your prices:
Special offers & sales you can do in your tasting room and online store
Offer free shipping
A couple of days ago I received an email from Petsmart offering me free shipping until January 18th. Now, anyone who knows me knows I have a TON of pets, so you can imagine how fast I jumped on this offer! I ended up ordering a ton of stuff and it should be arriving soon!
Why did I include this little story? To show you how EFFECTIVE free shipping is in boosting your sales! And many wineries who offer free shipping are also experiencing a rise in sales.
You can either offer free shipping for a certain amount of time, or, you can follow Wine.com’s example and for $50 per year, a Wine.com customer can have all the wine they buy shipped to them at no additional cost. (And there’s no minimum order.)
For those of you who decide to send out this shipping special via eNewsletter, be sure to put ‘Free Shipping till ####’ in the subject line (studies show that having ‘Free’ in your subject line greatly increases the open rate of your eNewsletters)
Include a complimentary box of exotic chocolates with each purchase of 2 bottles
Consumers LOVE getting a little something extra, and this could be just the impetus you need to double your sales at minimal cost.
Buy 2 get 1 FREE!
Since so many people are choosing to buy the cheaper wines so they can buy 2 for the price of 1 higher priced wine, maybe offer 3 bottles for the price of 2.
Using your eNewsletter to make some quick sales
Offer online wine ‘exclusives’
Give your eNewsletter subscribers the option to buy a new release a few days before its available to the general consumer
Offer a 2 day sale or special deal (3 for the price of 1 or free shipping)
eNewsletter Tip
When creating the subject in your eNewsletter, don’t use the word ‘discount’. According to Gene Pierce, president and owner of Genora Wine Cellars in Dundee, NY (this was pulled from an article in‘Vineyard and Wine Management Magazine,) “The word ‘discount’ doesn’t mean that much anymore,” he says. “But the words ‘free’ and ‘shipping’ get people’s attention.”
Marketing ideas to increase awareness and potential profit
Focus on building your wine club
Each new wine club member is a guaranteed sale for each of your club shipments, and most of the members supplement these shipments by using their wine club discounts to buy even more wine. These loyal members can make up the foundation of your sales to help get you through these hard times.
Ways to attract more wine club members:
Create an eye-catching link or graphic saying ‘Join Our Wine Club’ in one of the upper corners of every page of your website that visitors can click to immediately be taken to where they can join your wine club.
Place the benefits of your wine club and the sign-up form (don’t forget to have a pen for them to use nearby!) stratigically around your tasting room so people can access it easily
Offer a sign-up bonus if a current member gets their family and friends to join.
In your member benifits text, be sure to focus on the VALUE of their becoming a wine club member and how this will allow them to become an IMPORTANT and ESSENTIAL member of your TIGHT-KNIT family.
Increase awareness of your wines and winery with the public and Search Engines by starting a Blog and blogging REGULARLY.
One thing I’ve always recommended to increase your blogging entries without taking up all of your time is to assign someone different to do it each week. For example, if your winery is large enough, have your winemaker blog one week, your vineyard manager the next, your sales manager the week after that and then an entry by the owner. This way everyone only has to write one blog entry a month and your site visitors get to learn all about you from a number of different sources. This also increases brand loyalty because the more people read about you the more they feel like they know you and have a stake in your winery.
Even better, getting a blog is FREE! The most popular place to get one is of course http://www.blog.com/ and http://wordpress.com/, but you can find a free place to blog almost anywhere. If you really get into blogging you can even have a blog installed on your site with your own website design and can even have any current blog entries transferred over quickly and easily.
Another benefit about starting a blog is the Search Engines LOVE them! As long as you post often (weekly is best, but you could get away with posting only monthly) the Search Engines will consider you to be important and relevant for your niche and this will greatly increase your Search Engine ranking — which can in turn bring more site visitors and ultimately . . . more sales.
“Forward to a Friend”
This idea was proposed by Vertical Response: “We’ve seen some pretty rapid list growth from the wine industry specifically. Seems that everyone who loves a particular wine wants all their friends to know! Make sure in each email you send out you include a forward to a friend link. Even if your recipients don’t use the link, they may be inspired to forward it using their email reader. Also, make sure that you always use a link for this instead of a field.”
Google Adwords
According to Vertical Response: “If you’re not buying adwords through Google, MSN or Yahoo! you should be. It can be a very cost-effective way for you to get new customers or even newsletter registrants. If someone gets to your site but may not want to purchase just yet, they may want a bit more information from a newsletter. Make sure you’ve got a form for them to fill out prominently placed.”
From my own experience using Google Adwords, here are some of the ways you can customize your campaign to get the most bang for your buck:
You can select what states/countries (maybe even cities?) you want your ads to appear. So if you are only licensed to ship wine to California, Oregon, and Washington, then you set up your ads to only appear for people ‘Googling’ from those states. This way you don’t have to pay for someone from Michigan clicking on your ad and not being able to do anything on your site.
You can set up a daily budget and at the end of the month (or whatever trial period you set up), decide if the ad was cost effective or not. (Be sure to ‘track’ your site visitors so you’ll know how many were referred to site from your Adwords campaign and how many of those spent time going through your site and maybe even buying wine)
Launch a referral campaign
Per http://theideaspot.blogspot.com/2007/08/word-of-mouth-for-winery.html, Launch a referral campaign using the email list already in place. Email a coupon to the email list worth a certain percentage off the first purchase from your tasting room and/or online store, then ask everyone on the email list to forward the coupon on to 10 friends. The friends receive the discount too when they use the coupon in the tasting room and/or online store. But add another twist: The coupon is also a registration slip for the original forwarder. When the friend brings the coupon into the tasting room, the original forwarder’s name is signed to the coupon. Everyone who refers X number friends to the tasting room automatically receives a gift (case of wine, logo shirt, etc.)
Ways to increase brand loyalty with your existing customers and wine club members
‘Nicities’
Offer recipes to pair with your wine and include them in wine shipments and eNewsletters.
Wine specials and discounts
Have specials and discounts available only for your most loyal customers and wine club members that include complimentary receptions with specially paired food.
Whew, that’s enough for now! But I’d LOVE to hear any ideas you have that I might have missed!
1) The 35-54 year old demographic) is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report
I honestly believe that this is one of the most important components of a fan page. It’s a simple component yet within the confines of a 200 pixel wide box, you would be surprised with the creative ideas that people come up with. Recently Rob Banagale, a guest author on AllFacebook, published an article entitled “5 Creative Ways to Hack Your Facebook Profile Photo“. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you check it out. More impressive than the photos included in the tutorial are the photos that numerous users posted at the end. 
The only setting you may want to consider changing is your default landing tab. Right now, your default landing page is your Wall. 
The winery with the largest fan base is Duplin Winery in North Carolina with a whopping 3613 fans. The second (Chateau Morrisette) had 1965, the third (The Round Barn Winery) had 1505, the fourth (Murphy-Goode Winery) had 1273, the fifth (Palminia Winery) had 1208.
I have to admit, even though I have a Twitter account and have posted a bunch of tweets, until today, I really wasn’t sure what to do with it! I knew to send out a new tweet every time I posted a new blog topic or finished a new design, but other then that — what could I possibly post that people would be interested in? And then I read 
Offer the chance to win a prize by subscribing and be sure to include the price (so they understand the value they are getting), a picture and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is.
Why did I include this little story? To show you how EFFECTIVE free shipping is in boosting your sales! And many wineries who offer free shipping are also experiencing a rise in sales.