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Why Wineries Should Blog #5

By Tim on Aug 31, 2006 in Articles

Earlier this year I started a series of posts about why wineries should blog. I was reminded of this series reading a couple of posts this week from Paul at the REthink blog and Josh at Pinotblogger. In fact Josh’s riff on Paul’s post is the best logic for why wineries should blog I’ve yet seen. Thanks for the great reading material and food for thought, guys. More on this subject upon my return home…

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4 Comment(s)

Paul Mabray | Nov 20, 2006 | Reply

I am still diametrically opposed to wineries blogging – there are MANY other ways to accomplish the same goals and higher priorities for them to focus before entering the blogosphere. Josh is one of the few great winery bloggers that will succeed – the others should just focus on customer service.

Inertia – Powering the Wine Revolution

—Paul Mabray
Tim | Nov 20, 2006 | Reply

Hi, Paul; thanks for catching up with this post…

I reread all three posts to refresh my memory of the context, but I have to disagree with you on wineries who choose to blog. While I agree there is a hierarchy of needs in running a winery and starting a blog is not on the top of it (making great wine, promoting same and selling online are much more important) making the time for blogging makes for a better ROI than putting up a static “brochure” website.

For starters, it is very cost effective. Using virtual web hosts like Go Daddy or Bluehost you can start a blog for under $100 a year in literally about an hour. As long as you don’t go crazy on the customization, that’s all your investment before counting your time to read, respond and post. So if we continue to use Josh’s site as an example, he’s probably only got a few hundred dollars of an artist’s time into customizing his theme, if he didn’t do the work himself. Compare that with the several thousand dollars wineries often spend on static websites.

The second reason is a blog is very search engine friendly. If you blog on a regular basis, say one or two posts a day, in only a few months your site will turn up in relevant results on the major search engines without hiring any search engine optimization experts. More and more wine customers are using search to get information about wines but also to find out where to buy them. A frequently updated blog helps make those connections with current and potential customers.

Finally, a blog is a wineries ticket into the world of social media, where tagging, rating and conversation takes place and new relationships are formed. This space will be increasingly important as new wine-related Wine 2.0 services mature (thanks for supporting those efforts, BTW).

So I agree with you that winery’s should start with the basics. Great wines, excellent customer service, a great customer experience at the winery or tasting room and the systems to facilitate direct sales to customers. Right after that, I’d put blogging…
Paul Mabray | Nov 20, 2006 | Reply

I hear you on all points – the one factor of cost you did not include are resources. It cost time to blog and that time costs money and something else must be lost (unless you have enough staff) in order to blog properly. Taking your last line about the basics – they all have to happen PRIOR to blogging. In our current world of winery direct sales AND marketing over 95% of the wineries still are not addressing the basics (metrics, strategy, customer service methodologies). Until these are addressed consistently and effectively, blogging should only be a marketing strategy that is executed AFTER the basics. Believe me, I am a proponent of blogging (we do it often) but I think wineries hear all the hype about blogging and think it will solve their direct marketing issues when in fact, it is only another marketing channel that must come subsequent to building a good and STRONG consumer direct initiative. And before they start blogging, I think wineries can get more bang for their buck interacting with bloggers as a precursor to creating their own. After those things are firmly establishes I will be the FIRST direct sales and marketing guy to start begging all wineries I know to blog. Until then, there are a lot of priorities that need to come first.

Great conversation.

Inertia – Powering the Wine Revolution

—Paul Mabray – CEO
Tim | Nov 20, 2006 | Reply

I think we are in agreement about where blogging fits in the big picture, Paul. Clearly if you run out of runway and don’t have the time to blog; you shouldn’t. Putting in place a strong direct marketing initiative, focusing on wine quality and customer service are at the top of my list. Then I’d optimize my wine clubs and make sure the customer experience at the winery is excellent. If I had time left in my day I’d start reading sites like Vinolin or Scrugy and start commenting to posts. I might also participate over at eBob and West Coast Wine Net discussion boards. Only after this would I think about blogging.

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