One year ago today cnn presented an online article on wine marketing featuring non other than wine guru Gary V. There are many valuable lessons to be learnt for all who are currently interested in wine marketing, social media and a really goode job.
#1 Lesson from Wine Guru Gary Vaynerchuk: Become part of the conversation.
“I became part of the conversation instead of dictating the conversation,” says Vaynerchuk. Becoming part of the conversation (online) means you need to find that conversation. What has been your focus? Who are you trying to converse with? Are you talking to them or are you talking with them?
Essentially, your average consumer is responding to messages that are more closely attuned to his or her individual preferences – so it pays for you understand these preferences or better yet, to help shape those preferences. You need to understand your target audience, and people: your target audience is not Murphy-Goode.
Take some time now to think about and understand who MG wants to reach: have you geared your campaign with the consumer in mind? Have you engaged in conversation? Is it all about wine? Or are you able to look beyond this and communicate on a deeper level? Wine media needs to be like wine drinking: a beautiful accessory to the conversations you enjoy, not the full content and over dominating denominator of your purpose. You need to remember this especially when you are a guest at someone else’s blog.
On your own turf, it might help to remember that although some people will blurt out there needs and desires, many will be too intimidated to come out and ask you questions or engage in conversation. This is why you must consider how you will present any information you wish to transport to your reader. Are you a wine marketer looking to land the MG gig? Then you may need to get over your lingo and learn to engage with your reader from a different perspective… from a perspective which resonates with the non-wine marketer, more specifically: with the wine drinker.
One year ago today, the article closed with these words: “It’s all part of Vaynerchuk’s plot to transfer control of the wine conversation out of the hands of trained professionals and to those who might once have been afraid to buy off a restaurant wine list.”
Ok, if you have not figured it out by now, I am not a wine guru. Not even a whiz. Not even a lush. *She is dry*.
What makes me tick are the techie sides of this whole Murphy-Goode gig. And y’all have given me great opportunities to learn more techie tricks over these past 6 weeks. Twitter has been my “oak barrel” experience with you fine wine people: Tweets aged in oak barrels are enhanced with the addition of ernest and humour overtones. Wooden Tweet Barrels also allow for a small amount of evaporation of the contents during the aging period… — some tweets pass through the stream so quickly, causing them to poof off my screen without a trace or acknowleding glance from me!
And then there are the few who manage to jump out at me or even those which are directed right at me… most of you talking about wine or tooting the usual “vote for me” or the variation “I voted for XY”. Occasionally I connect with other techies, which is a special happening for this sleeper of the vintage, oh yes! People who are “in” to the automation, “in” to the “let’s develope a tool to help others help themselves”, “in” to so many nuances which make me tick…
Today it is my privilage to present a guest post by Tymel Hill, Founder and Developer of DribbleWorld, a spirits, wine and beer software company (how cool is that? — Hey, Tymel, have you considered employing a DribbleWorld Software Correspondent? Just askin’.) Like so many out there, Tymel has been watching *you* run your campaign for a really goode job and he has a secret tip to offer:
As of this writing, the deadline to submit your application is 5 days away. Is it too late to submit? Probably. Was it too late last week? Yep, probably. As somewhere between an insider and outsider (former wine & spirits rep), I’ve had a blast checking out the videos. Pure passion and fun. Some entertaining, some slightly awkward; yet, with all, the intense desire for what is an excellent opportunity of a lifetime for the lucky winner and a superb marketing campaign for Murphy Goode.
Still, I wonder if some of the applicants had read the job description, or had done any of the prerequisite research that one does when applying for a job. You get a feel for the company, the product and of course its people. The job is basically a social media promotions position. So it stands to reason that the highest rated applicants are winning by showing this skill set, not just talking about it.
This is one of those positions where the job isn’t about YOU, but about the BRAND, and what YOU can do for the BRAND. Think of it in terms of an ad exec wanting to win the account. Would he talk about what he could do, or had done on past campaigns or would he show it? If Murphy Goode is now using social media to broaden its reach, ask yourself, who are they trying to reach? Exactly. The usual channels are available. This is an opportunity to go beyond the traditional magazine outlets and websites, to reach those that don’t necessarily read a review before buying a wine.
Okay, so what about the applicants that have high viewership/votes based on personality? Those who have not mastered or presented the technical aspects of the position, are winning high marks for the personable connection aspect. This is an interesting question that will be answered in less than five days. If you look at the company, many of those applicants mirrored the company’s philosophy and feel. In the end, it will come down to what was the ‘reach’ of this approach with regards to buzz. One tip, for the final rounds: You don’t have to know everything about wine. Just make sure you know everything about Murphy Goode wine.
By far one of the most rewarding aspects of the Murphy-Goode gig for me has been the amazing people with whom I have come into contact. To make a super long story short, I have all but abandoned my German blog and am completely enjoying myself here at wordpress.com. I am amazed at how easy it has been to “establish” myself with a crowd I did not even know existed 6 weeks ago. Perhaps wine really is social business?
Along side all those great new sociable contacts have come new lessons in how to communicate online and I am baffled at how uncomplicated it has been to find great guest posts to present to you on my wee corner of the blog-o-sphere. Truely there is a communicable spirit amoungst those who are looking to land a really goode job.
It is my pleasure today to present the first of hopefully a few more guest posts this week. Coming to you with an around-the-world-flair: Mexiko via Germany and back across the Atlantic to all you wonderful readers (oh, wait, there are readers here even as far off as New Zealand! Hi TrueGabe!). Karen Catchpole and Eric Mohl, aka TransAmericas have tossed me back to my youthful days when I spent a summer working in Belize with Quechua children… but that is another story. Please welcome Karen and Eric to my blog:
Why Outside Is In
As the scramble to become Murphy-Goode’s Wine Lifestyle Correspondent whips up into a full-fledged frenzy three distinct camps of applicants have emerged. At one end of the spectrum are the wine insiders who have turned food and wine into a job (whether they’re currently getting paid for it or not). At the other end of the spectrum are the wine novices who seem to just want a job (any job) and think Gewürztraminer is a terrible disease their dog might get if they’re not careful during the icy months.
Somewhere in the middle are the wine outsiders who’ve developed a taste for the stuff, consider wine an important part of their lives, know their way around the main varietals (even the tongue-twisting German ones) may even own more than one corkscrew and occasionally dream of better stemware but then decide to spend that money on dog food or new shoes.
Like the Murphy-Goode Wine Lifestyle Correspondent applicant pool, most of the millions of people in the wine consuming market are outsiders. We love our wine for its social and creative powers and sheer deliciousness. We’ve learned a bit about wine and would learn more if there was an entertaining, fast and useful way to do it.
However, lacking a compelling and engaging source of easy info our wine consumption has reached a kind of plateau. We’d never give up our wine (nooooo), but many outsiders buy the same bottles from the same wine store where the same clerks have already taught us what little they knew in the first place.
Serve up easy to get, easy to swallow wine insights with passion and humor and these outsider wine drinkers will snap out of their consumption rut and enter the honeymoon phase where each new wine discovery is like falling head over heels in love with wine all over again. But you have to be in a position to take that journey of discovery right along with these wine outsiders without condescension or inducing the urge to yawn.
As they say, it takes one to know one.
It’s true that each type of Murphy-Goode Wine Lifestyle applicant has pros when it comes to effectively creating and communicating the Murphy-Goode/Sonoma County message. The insider is, well, inside and may be able to deliver contacts and eyeballs (pro), but he or she will be preaching to the choir, unable to recapture the joy of discovering new things about wine for the very first time on a level that most consumers can relate to (big con).
The novice is a clean slate, moldable (sort of a pro, I guess). But will probably be spending so much time with the basics that the bulk of your target audience will get bored with their sophomoric POV (con).
Only the outsider can deliver the most elusive and most valuable asset in an effective Wine Lifestyle Correspondent: the ability to BE the target consumer of the Murphy-Goode/Sonoma County message. I defy a wine insider to compellingly and effectively convey the wine lifestyle to the outsider consumer or a wine novice to bring a wine outsider new information on a level that he or she can act on in the real world on a real budget for a real dinner party. In Kansas.
Eric and I are not the only wine outsiders vying for the MG gig. However, we may be the only wine outsiders with major insider communication skills in both words and pictures honed and proven over 20 years working with many of the best old and new media outlets in the world, including many groundbreaking magazines and web sites that we helped create.
Biggest lesson learned? If you don’t keep the reader (or, in this case, consumer) in mind at all times your message is never going to hit the mark no matter how much you spent on that wine refrigerator. Having a similar life experience and empathy with your intended audience coupled with superior storytelling and packaging skills is the key to this life-or- death trick.
Yes this job requires new media skills and networking wizardry but you also have to have the kind of intuitive, natural Consumer Credibility that gives your message Brand Believability before you can produce anything worth blogging, vlogging, posting or Twitting about. Without a voice, style and POV that ring true to the bulk of your audience, you’re just making noise.
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Karen Catchpole and Eric Mohl left their publishing industry jobs (and really cool apartment) in Manhattan in April of 2006 to embark on the Trans-Americas Journey, their five year 200,000 mile working road trip through North, Central and South America during which they are putting more life into their lifestyle, reinventing the way they work as professional freelance journalists (writer and photographer respectively) and contributing to some of the best travel and lifestyle magazines, newspapers and web sites (Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, Everyday with Rachael Ray and the Minneapolis Star Tribune to name a few). They are currently in Mexico, where they’ve been since December (go to the home page of their web site at www.trans-americas.com and check out the cool SPOT real-time locator map if you don’t believe it). Their visa runs out on June 12 and they’re currently heading north back to the US, instead of driving south to Guatemala as planned, in anticipation of getting a really exciting phone call (or email or Twit) from Healdsburg. Today they’re leaving Queretaro and heading to Zacatecas for a few days before continuing north. Look for more posts from Karen and Eric from the road right here and at http://trans-americas.com/blog/. And check out www.areallygoodehire.net to watch their application video, learn more random facts about Karen and Eric (which one do you think can kill a rattlesnake with a hoe?) and get answers to FAQs about the making of their video, including “Who’s that guy dancing in the background?”.
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Have you had a look at the guy dancing in the background? I can *show* him to you:
It has been an increasingly joyful event to meet more and more of you wonderful Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondents. One of the strengths in these new relationships is the opportunity to share our thoughts , insights and just plain fun over a broad scope of social networks. I first discovered Todd on a few “choice” blogs asking all kinds of questions and coming off as an allround nice guy (now he calls himself “a Goode Guy” ). When I go places online, I am not surprised to see he has been there before I have… and what sweet satisfaction to occasionally arrive somewhere before Mr. Smiley does!
Today I am pleased to offer you another guest post, this time by Todd Havens. Here are his thoughts on what a social media whiz needs to bring to the table:
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First off, many thanks to Andrea for letting me contribute a guest post here and for all of her hard work to provide a forum for the multitude of questions that have crossed our minds during this exciting application adventure. I almost wrote the ‘c’ word, but as we all know, “It’s not a contest.” And ‘exciting’ because you just never know who’s going to show up in the comments! Or what temperament they might be in. ☺
Communicator – Easygoing, affable, engaging personality with a side of flirt. Having some funny in ya’ should be a requirement, too. It sounds like your humor can even lean toward the dark, but I wouldn’t show too much of that in the interview process. Save it for a post-hired game of Liar’s Dice with a bellyful of Zin. Yum!
Artist – This is a word I’m not fond of using. The Virgil of varietals? Monet of Murphy-Goode? Seurat of Sonoma? (Okay, I’m done.) “Endlessly creative technician” is more like it, both in video, stills and print. Someone who can consistently deliver engaging content with enough technical savvy to not reflect poorly on the company’s (and parent company, Jackson Family Wines’) well-earned reputation. No hand puppet theater here to describe the journey from grape to bottle. Or…maybe exactly that! Knowing what’ll go viral in video is good, too, but if you had that secret sauce, you’d already be employed by a behemoth ad agency and 10K a month would be slumming. Lots o’ writing, too, so a way with words (not wurds) is really important (not impotent).
Diplomat – Part politician in terms of brand evangelism and company positioning and part coordinator to involve as many necessary elements of the local Healdsburg and online communities to cast as wide a social media net as possible. Good-natured and emotionally stable demeanor to avoid being pulled into the probable online drama. Diplomat role is also necessary for inevitable media coverage especially if a media outlet is known for ruffling feathers for a good show. The ability to see a curveball as it’s left the mitt is a major bonus in this game.
Adventurer – From the AReallyGoodeJob.com site itself, they say they’re looking for people who are imaginative and inquisitive. A curious self-starter is a necessity since they’re throwing open the doors to their winery and their lives. It must be a little nerve-wracking for them to think that someone with all kinds of recording devices may always be lurking around in the spaces they call home so I come back to the fact that they need to find someone they immediately connect with and trust. You’ve also got an entire county to explore so the more curious, the more better.
Connector – Struggled with this category for awhile. Better nouns welcomed in the comments! Basically, a person who can reach across demographics and cultures to engage the next generation of wine consumers. This is a motivating factor for the entire wine industry right now so I don’t think we should underestimate its importance for this correspondent position, either. To be clear, if your social media strategy involves posting YouTube videos of your twice-daily medical pill regimen, you may not be a Millennial maven. While I don’t think you need to BE an actual Millennial, especially given much of the branding and strategic mindset needed for the gig, you do certainly need to be aware of current trends…like Twitter. Even though that’s not where the Gen Y’ers are hangin’ these days.
So that’s my not-so-quick wrap-up. But then again, what do I know? Maybe I’ve just tailored the MGWCLC to fit me like a Todd. I mean, like a ‘T.’
Now just go have fun with your videos and your social media whizzing, you crazy kids!
To date my focus in this blog has been on leveraging blog power and twitter mania. Some have noticed my careful avoidance of facebook and myspace… along with the lacking “drink wine x, y, z” articles. As I have yet to allow my first wine to pass these virgin lips (the powers-to-be could accomodate with a combined social media extravaganza for my 40th birthday in October *hint-hint-nudge-nudge*), I do actually have some experience with both FB and MS — all be it extremely limited. Honestly speaking: I am in NO position to teach anyone how to leverage either of these two medias in a social media marketing campaign (but I am surely looking forward to your comments here… teach me — teach me!).
With over 130-million users monthly and the Murphy-Goode gig still up for grabs, the question has changed from IF you should use MySpace or Facebook to reach your customersfriends to HOW. How can attention, affinity, and action happen best on each site? How do marketing messages spread differently between the two? How best to monitor and measure a brand’s performance on each site?
Oh, do you long for those golden days of marketing when life was so simple you actually had to leave the couch to “zap through” the commercials and all you had to do was “ask Mikey, he’ll try anything”: Life was good back then, eh? Well, as some of us hold onto the theory “a grape is a grape is a grape”, others know that there is power in the subtleties of even this one fruit which can be leveraged to create some mighty fine juice. Same holds true for the various social networks out there, so the Murphy-Goode Hopeful will be well advised to brush up on these key issues.
Thankfully there is always a great source of information to be found on the internet, so I do not have to do all the work for you! First off, hats off to the guy behind Brand Autopsy, John Moore (if you are not following him, perhaps you should reconsider your list of friends and followers?)
I want to share his second video from the post with you here because this one sentance actually stuck out so much in my mind: the difference between campaign and movement… to follow a campaign means to work really hard for a short, pre-determined time frame. Once the campaign is over, you drop everything (and loose all the contancts you made in the process). I am thinking about this issue a lot these days.
You know I have said that whoever gets the Murphy-Goode gig needs to have a longer-term perspective than the “six-month-time-frame” given in the job description: what tools are you going to leave the MG team with so that they can continue with the journey they now find themself on? And on a more personal note for the 99.9% who do not get the gig, is all that we have been learning going to –what?– disappear into digital dust once that one lucky duck swims in Sonoma wine waters?
It is my hope that we pull together as a community to support and uplift that lucky dude or dudette, have a rocking great time along side the Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent, learn, live and laugh for the duration and all come away with a winning experience. I know for myself I have learned tons in these past three weeks alone. I would love to learn more from and with you!
So, go on over to John’s Brand Autopsy, check out his great content and have a look at the other videos he has posted out there… and come back to tell me what you learned, what was missed out on, how you use FB and MS.
Moving along in our mini-series of how to win the hearts of the people at Murphy-Goode Winery, we take a look at the Black Knight scene of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Once again, some wonderful lessons for those Goode Hopefuls out there:
Monty Python’s take home Goode lesson #4: Don’t think you are invincible/irreplacable. Your key to success will be to convince Murphy-Goode that you are a cut above the rest without coming off cocky, arrogant or invincible.
Monty Python’s take home Goode lesson #5: It’s not about you. It’s about them. How can you benefit the Winery?
Keep it all in perspective and keep your eyes on putting Murphy-Goode first and you will find yourself well on the way to a really Goode job!
). When I go places online, I am not surprised to see he has been there before I have… and what sweet satisfaction to occasionally arrive somewhere before Mr. Smiley does!
