I'd like to formally announce a little pet project of ours. The Real Time Wine SuperFAN Club. A project where we try and bring our hyper-engaged super users closer to Wine Farms that want to chat to them.
It's a small, intimate community that should help both consumers and wine brands cut through the clutter and generate some real value for each other. At present, it's going to be run off a simple email mailing list. Argue all you like, but email is still the killer app of the Internet. It's the easiest way to stay in touch - as long as it's valuable.
For users: anyone from a Bottle Bandit status level and up qualifies to join. We reserve the right to lift this level if the Club gets wildly popular :)
For wine farms: a small monthly or annual fee gets you membership to the community and the opportunity to engage with a really different set of consumers. They're not all bloggers, they're not all wine critics - they good, old-fashioned passionate fans. Who in my opinion, can often be more influential in the real world.
What do I expect wine farms to do?
- sell wine to the community - highly engaged users are suckers for a good deal
- try out new products on the base
- seed new products into Real Time Wine and social media, pre-release
- talk to wine buyers about their marketing messaging - what's working/not working
- chat about how to reach consumers in general
- ask for feedback on campaigns / events
- find out what ordinary wine buyers like in a wine / wine brand
- find out how ordinary wine buyers choose wine and where they're likely to buy
- find out what offers, specials, packages, deals would appeal to wine buyers & their social circles
- publicise events, festivals and content through this community & their social circles (get retweets, likes & content sharing started - through the people that actually care)
- generally chat and engage with SA's wine superfans
Wine Farms, chat to us on info at realtimewine dot com if you'd like to be involved. There are about 20 spots available for the first period.
I'd also like to welcome Haut Espoir as our first Wine Farm Member. Brave. Pioneering. Probably dashingly good looking as well. Welcome - I'm sure it'll pay off in spades!
And the biggest thank you goes to those 68 Wine Fans who form the core of this community. You're leaders. You make this all work.
Cheers,
Wino Andy
PS. Interested in some of the context/strategy. Read my blog post here.
