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E-Marketing
Masters I read a
profile of NextWine and its charismatic President, Dain Dunston, in the August
issue of Executive Technology. Before
I completed the article, I sent an email to Wino John making sure he included
the link in our retail wine links section since we didn’t have one. NextWine, the
ultimate employer, has a daily 4:30pm wine tasting for its employees.
It’s not uncommon that many an idea has stemmed from conversations
generated during that daily tasting. One
such idea involved creating a new “product” and marketing it through
selective email messages. The
“product” was three collector cases of wine.
Selected from the retailer’s wine cellar, each case was a unique
collection of premium wines. The
prices ranged from $4,200 to $5,000 per case.
NextWine send emails promoting the collector cases to its 20 best online
customers. After sending the emails, the three cases were sold in 20
minutes time. As NextTime’s
president stated, “this was a great way to test a marketing idea and if it
didn’t work, who got hurt?” Of
course, it doesn’t hurt that NextWine’s average customer buys $350 every
time they submit an order. The top
1% of its customer base spends between $10,000 and $20,000 each month (and we
thought WinoBob’s wine budget was huge!!).
NextTime believes that an effective website can’t rely on the
“pull” of the Web site, so they employ email to effectively stimulate a
“push” marketing impact. It’s amazing
what technology is doing and what winos are doing to use it creatively in their
businesses. NextWine has created an upper-end marketing niche and uses
technology rather effectively, 80% of its orders come through email.
Wino John, take heed. Let’s
create an email engine and rip apart the stodgy old wine websites! Wino Wally November 16, 2001 |