Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Social Marketing WIN by Michel-Schlumberger Winery

Social Marketing WIN by Michel-Schlumberger Winery: "

We are so accustomed to reading about FAILS on the internet, there are entire websites dedicated to spotlighting failures. Well I wanted to take a few moments to draw some attention to a WIN that I experienced.

So many businesses are jumping into the social marketing, location based marketing world, because they need to be there. But you see the Internet riddled with the ghost town efforts of so many of them. They think if you build it they (customers) will come. Not the case. Here is tip number one, you need to invest some time and effort into your social marketing efforts if you want to see success. It is not extremely difficult, but you do have to work at it.

Let me give you an example on how it can work.

My girlfriend and I took a weekend trip up to the California wine country, Healdsburg, CA. We arrived on a Friday and checked into our hotel. Now remember I am the customer, even though I am a marketing professional. I also checked in on Foursquare that I was in Healdsburg. Foursquare also automatically updated my Twitter account. A couple hours later I get a Twitter reply from the Michel-Schlumberger winery inviting me to come visit; that they are only 8 minutes away. We already had a list of wineries we wanted to visit and they were not on the list. But....

Because of the invite I went to their website. We were both impressed with the winery and decided to add them to the list of visits on Saturday. WIN!

Fast forward to Saturday. We arrive at the winery and I again check in on Foursquare. I am immediately given a coupon for one free tasting because of the checkin. WIN!

We sit down for our tasting and immediately fall in love with their wines. So much that we decided to have a picnic lunch on their grounds and buy a bottle of wine right then to have with lunch and another bottle to take with us. WIN!

Now guess what. They have two new customers. How much did they have to spend to acquire us? Some time on Twitter and Foursquare and one free tasting. As a marketing professional I will take that CPA any day!

Upon leaving the winery I added a glowing review to Foursquare and immediately told some relatives who frequently visit wine country to make sure they stop at the winery.

That is how simple social marketing can be and how easily you can acquire new customers. If you believe in your product just personally extend a invite, offer a simple coupon and let your product and the customer do all the rest.

Do you want some help in doing this? Let me know and I would be happy to discuss with you how quickly you can get setup to do the same thing.

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