Case Studies
Direct Sales Case Study: Allocation
Winery Overview: The label pays homage to a ’66 green Ford pickup willed to Kent Fortner, owner, by his grandfather. He tends a handful of select rows from three extremely gifted vineyards at the southernmost reaches of Napa Valley. Kent performs every step of the crafting: tiny-batch fermenting, barrel aging, bottling, and eventually, peddling; in cave space borrowed from friends in the Stag’s Leap district. He's a tiny, one-man show, and likes it that way. He delivers in the green truck itself whenever possible. In the end, he blends and culls to craft roughly five hundred cases of only one wine: Green Truck Cellars Napa Valley Pinot Noir. First crack at the vintage is given to the “Truckers” (those on the mail list) with a small portion of each batch reserved for select restaurants.
Direct Sales Strategy: Due to the diligence of the Inertia staff in March of 2006, Green Truck Cellars and Inertia were able to complete its first successful allocation run. Green Truck Cellars was the maiden voyage of Inertia’s brand new allocation software, and the process went smoothly. The overall release was considered a success. Kent Fortner’s detailed analysis throughout the first allocation season helped IBG discover the inadequacies of the allocation software structure and develop better processes for future seasons. The sales triggered by Green Truck Cellars first allocation remained steady and slowly fell off over the following months until Green Truck had sold through all of their production.
In February 2007 Kent was ready to begin another successful allocation season. This time, with a better understanding of what the IBG system can do for him, a few essential upgrades to the allocation platform, a higher price point Pinot Noir, and many more loyal customers eager to try this year’s Green Truck offering.
Green Truck surpassed the 2006 earnings by an awe-inspiring 300% increase! By the season’s end, Green Truck Cellars generated more sales in the month of February than all sales combined for the 2006 offering season – the highest sales generated by allocation season to date! Also, in a month that not traditionally considered a release month, Green Truck Cellars has proven release strategy can have many different strategies, none at all!
Conclusion: With the guidance of both our account management team, and a fully engaged technology department, Green Truck Cellars successfully began its second allocation season. There are three improvements that are directly responsible for their increase in sales: 1) Upgraded software facilitated the allocation process, making it easier for customers to take their full allocation with the click of a button. 2) A steadily growing customer list, a direct result of Kent practicing IBG best practices. He does an excellent job of creating demand by leveraging the limited production factor of his wine. 3) The familiarity factor. Kent was more familiar running the back-end software to begin his allocation season, which resulted in less administrative work, and flawless execution. His customers were familiar with the online allocation process from the year prior, making the shopping experience familiar and easier, thus much more enjoyable.
DIRECT is the best method to Acquire, Communicate with, and RETAIN customers.
Direct Sales Case Study: Chumeia Vineyards
Winery Overview: In 1999 Chumeia Vineyards was formed with the purchase of 20 acres of land eight miles east of the Central Coast city of Paso Robles, California with a 5,400 square foot facility with a capacity to produce over 7,500 cases. Chumeia Vineyards is known for producing outstanding red and white wines from their Paso Robles vineyards which produce Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Barbera, Port, Viognier, and Chardonnay. Chumeia Vineyards was one of the first wineries to explore the direct to consumer channel and launched an e-commerce website on IBG’s REthink Engine in June 2003.
Direct Sales Strategy: In the first year or so with IBG, Chumeia wasn’t very active in reaching out to their mailing list/club members. Their mailing list consists of approximately 80% club members, who receive only two yearly club shipments. In 2006, with some help from IBG’s client development team, Chumeia began to use the Email Blast tool in order to more effectively mine their customer database. In fact, they were one of the first IBG winery partners to test Free Shipping and avoid degradation to their price point by offering deep discounts.
 Conclusion: Although Chumeia has two wine club runs each year, they realize that it is important to try new things to stimulate sales throughout the entire year. They are active in recruiting new club members and also making great efforts to get people to join their mailing list while in the tasting room. They have learned that consistent communication with their mailing list over the past 12 months, they have made the steady and big increases in sales. Their "strategy" now is consistency in communication with their customers.
DIRECT is the best method to Acquire, Communicate with, and RETAIN customers.
Mi Sueno
Brief: Mi Sueno is new to the Inertia family. Since going live in November, they have seen great sales getting out of the gate. I have high expectations for this account and look forward to seeing where we can take them as one of our partners. They have a strong following and have yet to really tap into the direct marketing tools that Inertia provides. The reason that I would like to use Mi Sueno as a case study is because we laying the foundation for this account as well. They do not have a wine club at this point and we are working with them on how to build their club the right way. You will see continued growth with this account and there is no doubt in my mind that they will soon be in the top tiers of all of our accounts.
Snap Shot: With only two months under their belts they have already seen good growth. There will be a dip in January, but will quickly ramp up for a successful 07’.
Goal: Our goals are to first focus on building a solid merchandized ecommerce store. Next we will focus on building the club and executing on the email campaigns we have put together for 2007. We will see great progress through Q1 and Q2. Q3 will level out and we will plan on launching our clubs. We will then see this bring us into a strong and successful Q4.
Seavey
Brief: Seavey is a highly rated wine that is a very rare find. With the production of 2000 cases and scores soaring above 92, Seavey stands as a boutique winery that has amazing potential. Seavey was introduced to Inertia with no wine club, no true concept of ecommerce, and no allocation. Since the beginning of this relationship we have built a partnership with Seavey and are in the process of building their first wine club that will transition into an allocation club. Seavey will continue to be an account that Inertia will be able to help grow from the ground up when it comes to direct to consumer. We have successfully moved their direct mailings into direct communication with their customers through our email tool. All release information will go through the ReThink engine as well as club specific specials. We will be able to see a substacial growth in this account over the next year. This will be a direct result of the guidance to the Inertia team and directing the Seavey team on how to build their direct to consumer plan.
Snap Shot: Here is a quick snap shot of what Seavey has done this past year. Mark September, this month they sent out a direct mailing to their customers without a huge push to buy online. They received over $100,000 more in phone orders that did not run through our system. They have agreed to turn that direct mailing into an email campaign and put all sales through our system. This is where we will see huge sales year over year.
Goal: We are in the process of building a wine club as well as an allocation club. This will help leavel out the bell curve that we see above. The only problem that Seavey has is that once they open their wine up to the public they tend to sell out. Although this is a good problem to have, we are going to use that to build a strong and stead list of buyers that will be willing to be on a waiting list just to buy their wine.
|
|
