In conjunction with the story "Wineries increase use of smartphone, social media technologies," the Business Journal is collecting ideas wine marketers submit about their experiences.
Matteo Fagin, The CT Wine Review
Feb. 16, 2011 -- I recently integrated a QR Code on a restaurant menu to create a smartphone wine event. (Check out how it worked.) I think the QR Code wave will be hitting in another year or so.
Laura, Il Palazzone
Feb. 11, 2011 -- This week I have been evaluating whether or not to include a QR Code on the back-label of our U.S.-destined 2006 Brunello. I have the same reservations regarding the speed with which this technology is moving, particularly since our wines have a long cellar life and 2006 is such a wonderful vintage.
This said, last year we were the first estate in Italy to have our Twitter ID (@ilpalazzone) on the front label, and so far this has proved to be a good decision. We have a small but very engaged group of fans on our Facebook page.
After nearly two years of work, I am beginning to really see the results in terms of visitors and sales. It is complicated by being in another country and time zone. I can hardly invite our English-speaking fans to promotions and tastings over here in Italy!
David Cole, James David Cellars
Feb. 11, 2011 -- I’m in the process of having a company called Veraison Marketing Group design and build a custom app for my winery, James David Cellars. Veraison provides mobile marketing strategies specifically for the wine industry that include customized winery apps that are super affordable and just now coming on to the market.
The app has built-in, real-time analytics. Customers will be able to download the app from the QR Code on the back of all my bottles, print advertising, etc. It’s going to enable me to have more one to one relationship with my customers by engaging directly with them and allow me to retain them by offering them unique specials to app users only. The analytics will make it easy for me to track what my customers like, where they are located and tap into new markets that I may not be aware of.
The app also has “push technology” that allows me to create my own “Entourage ” inside my app and has a “share the moment” feature that will make it fun for my customers to post photos onto their FB/twitter page without ever leaving the app. I also am selling. trading a bit of advertising on it to some of my key business partners that don’t yet have their own app. We are ironing out a few more features before launching later this month!
I think other wineries could take advantage or partner with fellow wineries with some of these technologies.
Jason Farris, CRU Wine Co.
Feb. 11, 2011 -- We here at CRU Wine Company began using various social media tools to aid us in the building of our community and their engagement late last year.
We maintain a non-automated Facebook fan page and recently moved our website on to a WordPress platform. This enables us to keep the content fresh and relevant, as well as providing our readers an easy way to share what interest them most from our site with their friends and family.
While Microsoft Tag Readers is not something that currently is on our radar we recently began using QR Codes on our printed material and are considering printing limited amounts of QRC stickers to place on our bottles.
