Unbeknownst to me, They'd been Watching
[caption id="attachment_302" align="alignleft" width="287" caption="Artist Ann Rea"][/caption]
In the past four years my company’s online sales have averaged 8% of overall sales, in 2009 that number jumped to 27%! The jump was due to a number of original oil paintings selling on annrea.com, to people that I didn’t know, while I was sleeping. But they knew me, and unbeknownst to me, they’d been watching.
After I examined the sources of 2009 sales I thought about how could I increase the number of eyeballs roaming annrea.com. Wouldn’t it be nice to be fly on wall and listen to my online prospects’ conversations, and then to connect with and engage these prospects in a meaningful dialog?
As an artist, working in a very saturated market place, I’m always interested in meeting others who are making head roads in crowed market spaces, like the wine industry.
I had heard of, and made a point to meet, Clay Wallin of VinTank. His company does just that for wine brands, a number of them whom I know here in Northern California.
Clay told me about a recent success where VinTank built a platform for eyeballs for an approachable, affordable, yet generally unknown wine, winemakers from the Cahors region who needed a real introduction into the US market.
"Cahors marketing team produced a video focused toward a younger audience. Then they came to VinTank asking for help in promotion and media placement.
We determined alternative new media that would deliver results based on budget constraints and potential consumer / trade reach. Through our extensive digital network we were able to negotiate media placements on appropriate digital platforms such as: Palate Press, Corkd.com, WinelibraryTV.com, NatDecants.com and Winelog.net.
The results were impressive: 500K impressions, 10K dedicated emails, and over 4000 views on a Cahors tasting video by Gary Vaynerchuk.
Most significantly, Cruvee measured that during the VinTank campaign, Cahors wines went from unknown to well known moving into the top10 list of most popular wine varietals in online conversations.
The road for Cahors success has been paved and the platform for the old Malbec champion has been built.”
“The conversations are happening. Your brand is being talked about… whether you participate or not.” Mike Wangbickler, Balzac Communications