Red Wine is a perfect libation for festivals – primarily because it doesn’t need to be kept cold; it doesn’t lose its fizz and if you’re drinking wine locally produced its dirt cheap and super-good. Within minutes of popping the cork however I’d managed to spill the Rioja on my new pants and was questioning the merits of wine in a situation where a shower is hard to find… when suddenly, with a splash of from my water bottle – the wine was gone. Brilliant! Wine proof pants – what more could a young millennial wine-lover at a music festival wish for? I reckon marketing the pants specifically as wine-proof and selling it at Bonnaroo could be a good gig.

Festivals have become huge in the UK – and I guess the States is now picking up. Winemakers have a huge opportunity to sponsor music festivals – because the combination of music, nature, art and alcohol are what festivals are all about. Festivals have re-invented themselves since the days of Woodstock and are a perfect platform for not only entertaining people, but many organisations use them to spread awareness and raise money.

The Green Man Festival coming up next week is one of the most prominent indie festivals – where, much like the Big Chill – and both less commercially than Glastonbury, it promotes organic food, green living, sustainability etc. There’s a huge oppotunity in this concept and I’d really like to see some of the Oregon wineries putting on some music festivals and promoting their wines together with bands from Washington State and around. Many vineyards have acres of land and there’s plenty scope to host festivals on the vineyard grounds themselves. Once millennials cotton onto the benefits of wine and the contribution of viticulturalists to the environment and to local communities – it’ll certainly be the final push needed.

Now that I’ve found a pair of wine-proof pants; and have finally sprung for a decent festival tent whilst having fallen in love with festivals on the first night of Benicassim in a monent of sitting with my wife and two close friends, Will and Anin, drinking Rioja as a pre-game at the campsite with Sigur Ros about to play… I think it’ll be hard to go back to taking normal holidays.

Hopefully next year the Grapethinking team can bring some of the fabulous Tastevine collection to Bonnaroo and some of the other festivals in the US, and one day to the UK – we’ll provide a tent, picnic blankets and a selection of some of the best and most affordable wines from around the world… we’ll leave the music to the musicians though. Don’t forget to bring wine-proof pants…

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Using an affiliate system is a very simple piece of the marketing puzzle… all you need is a website and something to sell.

Here is an overview of the process:

You create a sign-up page (refer-a-friend|referral|affiliate) where your affiliate prospect enters their contact information, preferred method of receiving payment (having a PayPal account is handy here), and agrees to your terms and conditions.

You need to be sure you are very clear in explaining the compensation for your affiliate service.

• Will you pay a set commission?
• Will you offer site credit/points or free products?
• Is the commission perpetual or first-sale only?
• Is it a single-tier or multi-tier commission?
• How often do you pay?

Once the form is complete, a random and unique url (http://yoursite.com/xxxxxx) is generated, which is linked to a page describing the product or service being promoted. You should also provide resources to your affiliates (banner ads, images, online brochures, FAQ’s) to make it easier for them to market your product/service.

Here is how the sales are tracked.

1. The affiliate places the unique url (ie: https://www.paypal.com/us/mrb/pal=XTSWT9LTNZE96 ) on their website, in their email, blogposts, forums, comments, or anywhere it will be noticed. Paypal for example has provided us with the html code to place this image that has our unique url imbedded. This is ideal to show our customers that we accept Paypal, and also to have a chance to make money from a referral if someone wants to try the service.
   

   

2. Someone clicks the link and goes to your site! A script (set of commands that automate a process) places a cookie (small file used to identify a user, track movement within the site, and store shopping cart information) on the visitors computer. Even if the person were to leave the site, and then come back by typing the basic url (ie: http://www.paypal.com) they will still be associated with the referring partner.
3. A report is generated daily/weekly/bi-monthly/whenever-you-want that details the metrics of your marketing network, and what monies are due each affiliate. A script could be used here to automate the process of issuing credits, writing and printing a check, or sending affiliate payments via paypal.

Once you are set-up for affiliate sales, it can become an extremely effective marketing tool. Especially when you start being creative with your incentives. A few examples:

Pfax (an unlimited fax-to-email service for $3.95/month) offers us a month of free service for any referral we send, and also offers a free month of service to those we refer. This method helps to create an incentive for the affiliate, and for the new customer to use the affiliate as well. Their service, however; uses coupon codes (ours: hwmvd24085)to track affiliate sales, which can be an ineffective means without some incentive to the customer.

iContact (an email marketing and blog management tool) offers us a perpetual commission for every user that signs up. That means that we make a commission every month for as long as that person is a customer… which is sure to be a long time, as the service really is outstanding!!! Grape Thinking also offers content writing and assists with set-up and email acquisition, so the partnership has been working out great.

• If you need help setting up an affiliate network, we’ve got what you need. View our offerings, and get a free quote.
• If your interested in direct sales, read our series on “Building a Direct Sales Vehicle”

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As an online wine outlet, winery or retailer, your website and online engine is your Sales Vehicle. It should be responsible for everything, from how your customers perceive you, how they order your wine, how they are charged, where the order goes, inventory tracking, to even the actual printing of the label in the case of Windsor Vineyards. If your site doesn’t do this, wouldn’t it make your life a lot easier if it did?

If you use traditional methods, you have to communicate these same things to your distributor, who then has to communicate this to a retailer, who then has to communicate that with their stores, who finally puts it on a shelf for the consumer to purchase… and then the information has to funnel back to you. In the words of Tom Friedman, “the world is flat.” With the power of the Internet, there is no longer a need for such an inefficient hierarchal bureaucracy.

Wine 2.0 is already happening, showing the importance of online blogging, marketing, and social interaction, while Tom Wark has comically notified us of the WITS (Wine Industry Technology Symposium), which is the industry’s “this-is-a-very-serious-business” event (www.wineindustrytechnologysymposium.com)… lol. They will cover interesting topics such as sales automation, supply chain technologies, vineyard management systems, etc.

The point is that it’s time to get on board with technology and direct sales, which both allow you to manage your business easier, faster, cheaper, and with more control. With your sales engine having so much responsibility, it stands to reason that you would want to have something that is well-oiled, fast, smooth, and reliable. Unfortunately there isn’t a Sales Vehicle you can take for a test drive, as most require some custom work before they are ready to roll. This leaves you with quite a bit of research/legwork to be done when all you want to do is drive.

We are starting a series that will help you make the right decisions along your journey to “Building a Direct Sales Vehicle”. It will include choosing the right sales engine and designing your website, handling delivery and logistics, and gaining exposure in the online marketplace. We welcome discussion from all the service providers in these categories, (though we already have done the research and have our preferences), as we hope this series will make it a lot easier for those trying to get set-up in direct sales, and facilitate a faster change within the industry.

• Read Building A Direct Sales Vehicle Part II

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