Backsberg

Towards the end of 2008, Google released some results from their annual survey on searches online. They consider what everyone is typing into the Google search engine, run some fancy algorithms and out pop the results. Apart from examining the most popular searches in the US, the survey examines various other countries as well. Facebook, the social networking site, topped the list in South Africa as the most popular search. How should Backsberg and the wine industry react to this metric, if at all?

As the year is starting up (and Happy New Year to you) I am taking time to consider our marketing strategy for 2009. Being on the younger side of the age equation, I tend to find some of the web technology tools quite alluring: Facebook, Wordpress, Flickr, Twitter, Google Reader, Google Calendar, you name it. The question is whether they should remain just that, namely tools, or if they should they be the driving force behind the strategy.

If there is one lesson I learnt in 2008, it’s that making, marketing and selling wine is ultimately about people and relationships. That may sound quite trite, but with that allure of technology it’s sometimes easy to forget. Whilst technology changes, people stay the same. People have the same ongoing needs and desires, and technology does nothing to change that. That’s the crux of the matter. There are major risks with using web technology such as isolating those who are maybe not comfortable with it. This needs to be carefully managed.

Where web technology can play a major role is in leveraging existing relationships and thus tightening the connection, for example, to Backsberg. Thinking that it’s more than a leveraging tool, I daresay, is a trap. An aspect that many wine farms, including ourselves, haven’t really figured out is how to facilitate fully the connections between say, respective Backsberg wine fans. Figuring that question out will unlock a huge amount of value for Backsberg wine drinkers themselves. My ultimate result would be if the product could act as a springboard for engendering friendships that weren’t there before. SB

Note: image courtesy of www.cyberlearning-world.com

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This post was written by:

Simon Back- who has written 56 posts on the Back Chat Blog. After finishing up studying economics at UCT in 2007, Simon has joined his family wine farm, Backsberg. When he is not trying to figure out what marketing wine means, he is authoring his blog, Back Chat.

Author's web site: Backsberg

Read more in Day to Day, Featured.

Last 3 posts by Simon Back

• 'Do Wine Writers Suffer and all that?' - July 4th, 2010
• Dusseldorf Oudtshoorn Backsberg New York Montreal Part 2 - June 4th, 2010
• Dusseldorf Oudtshoorn Backsberg New York Montreal Part 1 - May 26th, 2010