Catavino Marketing

We’ve Moved and Grown!

Ryan Opaz — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:06:19 +0000

Last week, our site moved!! Actually that is partially true, this location: www.catavino.net/services will no longer post interesting insight and questions. Instead, we are moving to a new location: www.wineconversation.co.uk. To find out why, you might want to read this post.

So while we’ll continue doing we what we’ve always done, today begins a new story as we do it under a new name. Vrazon.

Cheers,

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz

Winery Video Done Right – Cortes de Cima

Ryan Opaz — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:43:03 +0000

While Cortes de Cima was a client of ours a few years back, we are proud to say that they have blossomed over the years to become leaders of wine online. The following video only reinforces this point. This is how winery videos should work. Tell a story, and tell it honestly.

Melons started their story, and rather than gloss over this fact as irrelevant to the wine lovers, they included them in order to reach a broader audience. Additionally, they do a great job of showing their winery as a family affair that is welcoming to everyone who is curious and wants to explore wine.

Honestly, I don’t typically enjoy winery videos that focus exclusively on a winery’s history, but I’ll happily get behind this one. It’s a full picture, and not just pretty shots of bottles and noses shoved deep into fancy stemware.

Great job guys…now to find a spare bottle of Cortes de Cima for dinner.

Want to Sell More High End Cavas? Start Working Together!

Ryan Opaz — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:18:01 +0000

In January, we were guests on an American press trip to visit a Cava producer located in the heart of Cava Country. Of the journalists who joined us, many had visited Spain previously, though very few had visited the regions dedicated to cava production. They did, however, boast of thoroughly enjoying Cava, but conceded that it had a bad reputation as a “bargain wine” in the USA; and while even at the bottom end, the wines were fun and drinkable, it was a pity that no one was familiar with high end cavas.

Unfortunately, most Americans can only relate Cava to Cristalino or Black Label Freixenet, period, end of story.

At one point, the question was posed to the group how one might sell high end cavas in the US market, to which the winery representative suggested that they merely needed to spend more money to get their best wines on the top shelf. For a winery with ample disposable cash, this is a pretty standard line, but unfortunately, I couldn’t agree entirely. If a high end Cava goes on the top shelf alongside a long lines of Champagnes and Proseccos, it won’t sell. Rather it will stick out like a sore thumb among it’s better known neighbors.

When the question came my way, I suggested that the winery teamed up with various Cava producers to create a “Top Quality Cava Shelf”, maybe even with a fancy name and logo. You would then have a quality brand to justify high end retail shelf space to highlight the quality that is high end Cava.

The winery representative’s response was, “Yeah, I think the smaller producers would benefit from that, but we don’t need to, as you know.”

I’m here to call BullS***! What is wrong with this statement is that Cava as a whole needs the big guys and and small guys to work together to sell Cava as a brand. Why? Because there is no brand “Cava” in relation to the high end or top shelf status. Not to mention that the diversity that exists at this level, making high end Cava interesting, cannot be shown without a larger group of producers!

That “High End Cava shelf” is worthless without a diverse and varied profile and one big producer will not succeed on their own. The small guys provide diversity, and the big guys provide connections to get on the shelf! Collaborate! Create a brand for the wines and sell them as a group.

I know this is contrary to cultural practices, but if you are not going to work with your fellow Cava producers to create a strong overall Cava brand that values the high end and the low end, than give up and quit complaining that you can’t sell “high end bottlings”. We, the consumer, want choice, clear messages, and a sense of place. Right now, we’re getting a black bottle of Freixenet, no story about what you are, and even less about where you come from.

It’s time for a change.

Ryan

Suggested Resolutions for Wineries for 2011

Ryan Opaz — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 09:21:30 +0000

After a very long, restful holiday slumber, wineries have woken up with an urgency to contact us. And in lieu of their eager desire to connect with the online social world, I’d like to offer a few suggestions on how to get 2011 off to a great start.

Facebook and Twitter - Are you not on them yet? Still debating if they’re worth it? STOP DEBATING IT AND JOIN ALREADY! Your future customers are on these networks everyday -buying wine, learning about wine, and talking about wine – and if you’re not there, you might as well give up, sell the winery, and find yourself a nice job flipping burgers at McDonalds. At least at McDonalds, you’ll be rewarded for doing things the same way over and over again.

Plancast – Are you visiting wine fairs this year? Going to a conference or two? So am I, and if you’re on plancast, we’ll know about each other’s plans, allowing us to schedule a time to chat. Plus, this is a great tool to tell the world where you’ll be talking about your wines, which is not a bad thing.

About.me – This tool is for all you superstar winemakers and other “personalities”. It’s a one stop shop for all your personality needs. Check out http://about.me/ryanopaz and see all the great ways you can contact me and see what I’m doing. Now that you’re on the social web, let people know about who you are. Also you can now make a business card that is useful rather than including things like “fax” number on it.

Buy a Smart Phone – And while you’re at it, upgrade that laptop from 2001. The world is mobile, and so should you if you hope to sell wine in this brave new world. You have 2 choices if you want to really look cool and have success: iPhone or Android. That’s it, pick one and stick to it.

Youtube and/or Vimeo - A picture is worth a thousand words, but your face is capable of communicating a whole lot more. In this new year of 2011, we can put that face of yours online with little more than a handheld camera and a smidge of elbow grease. Do it. Show us who you are, what you’re about and why we should care!

Things to Stop Doing in 2011

If you are ready to change and begin selling more wine, building real relationships with your customers, you need to stop doing a few things to get off on the right foot.

Stop with the useless business cards! – Eliminate FAX and add WEBSITE, Twitter handle, and even your Facebook page to your business card. Tell people you’re online and easy to get ahold of. If, on the other hand, you do want to keep Fax on the card, please make sure to add Passenger Pigeon so that you at least complete the image of a 17th century neophyte.

Stop Sending Boring Press Releases – I do not want to get another press release this year that tells me how many points you got from Bob, Jancis, Mary, George, your brother in law, or the fruit vendor down the street. I pray that this year I can go without recieving any in my …. DAMN there come 3 right now. It’s wasting room on the interwebs and NO ONE CARES. Let alone, any writer who likes to rate wines themselves are not going to listen to you!

Stop working alone - Make 2011 a year that you reach out to a neighbor winery and begin collaborating to sell more wine. Bite the bullet, swallow your pride and begin selling wine right. You are one producer in a sea of producers. Team up with a few others and work together to build a team brand or a region as a whole. Sell your neighbor’s wine! Why? Because a rising tide lifts all boats.

STOP USING IE 6 – Seriously this is for all you wineries out there with computers from 2001, IE6 is dead. The web doesn’t work with IE 6 and we for one will not support it. It’s flawed, never worked, and in fact, is a danger to your company. Download something safe and fast like google Chrome or Firefox.

Stop whining that Robert Parker hasn’t rated your wines – We don’t care and hundreds of wineries sell their wines just fine without him. If he doesn’t rate your wines, consider yourself lucky, at least then you don’t have to clean up the following year when he doesn’t have time to get to yours and you’re left without a rating to sell with. Invest in your brand instead and do some real work, rather than play the Parker lottery like a mindless drone sitting at the wine industries version of a one armed bandit.

In summary, be daring and be dangerous in 2011. Step out of that safe little box and start interacting with the rest of the world. They are online, chatting up a storm each and every moment of the day. Participate, interact and collaborate!

Excited to be speaking here in March!

Ryan Opaz — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:04:57 +0000

Hope to see some of you there.

1st Annual International #Grenache Day – Watch it live everywhere!

Ryan Opaz — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:34:06 +0000

This Just in:

If you are a doubter, or skeptic, of social media, take a few minutes to look around the web at the word Grenache. Today, when you follow twitter, facebook, or even Google, you will readily see what a few fanatics of one grape can do. For a fun glance at what’s happening around the web, make sure to check out:

Or if you are more visually inclined, look at this:
Visible Grenache Tweets or why not some photos: Grenache Photos
If you have no clue what I’m talking about, then maybe a quick look at a post we wrote to clear things up.

Needless to say, today is Grenache’s day to shine!

Stay tuned, as we watch what all this means for the grape we call Grenache.

For those who are looking for something to do tonight, here is a map of Grenache events from around the world.

Tweets!

For Hire: Name Your Price

Ryan Opaz — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:57:11 +0000

The EU economy is seriously in trouble. I know, shocking isn’t it?! In the Spanish and Portuguese wine sector, wineries are closing their doors and banks are sitting on properties t. It’s a mess. And sadly, this is not going to get any better any time soon, but there are wineries out there who are trying to make the best of it.

And how does one make the best of it? Social media may be able to help some of you, though I am not sure it can do much for the majority of you. I know there are a lot of wineries looking at social media as some kind of silver bullet to change their fortunes overnight. Unfortunately, social media is just one tool in a well stocked tool box, one among many that can help you.

Why am I blathering on about this? Well, we at Catavino know a lot about the internet, we know a lot about Twitter, Facebook, Social Tasting Notes sites, and other electronic ‘tools’. We teach seminars, we organize events, and we do some web development and consulting. We do all these things in a very open and collaborative way. During the past 5 years, we’ve learned a lot about how to do this well, and what we need to improve.

So today, we’ve decided to implement: Name Your Price Services. Yes, it does mean what it sounds like, you need a service, contact us and name your price. If your project and price are fair, and within reason, you have a service provider!

Here is how it works. Decide what you need help with, or what you want advice on, or maybe what you need developed. Then decide on how much money you have to spend right now. We are open to discounted pricing, but keep in mind that we do need to feed ourselves as well. Then send us an email at: nameyourprice@catavinomarketing.com with all the details. We’ll then review it, and if it sounds reasonable, we’ll set up a conference call with you to see how we can make it happen.

The absolute truth is we’re very busy now, but we want to see more wineries and wine professionals get online. Whatever we can do to make it a reality, we will! So please give us a ring, or send us an email, and we’ll get you started on the web today!

Cheers,

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz

Assertiveness versus Passivity: How a Winery Can Make Their Brand Unforgettable

gabriella opaz — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:14:36 +0000

During a recent skype chat, a friend and co-wine-blogger asked me, “If you had your druthers, what do you tell a winery who is preparing for a blogger meet-up or wine fair?”

Astounded by the poignancy and relevancy of the question, I admitted that I needed time to think, and promptly changed my skype status to “away”.

After much hemming and hawing, it occurred to me that the wineries that truly leave an impression on me as a blogger are the ones that not only have a warm and open personality when serving their wines, but were the people who went out of their way to grab my contact information, rather than leave me with a heap of pamphlets.

Why is this crucial? It’s crucial because those wineries who are social media friendly go out of their way to ensure that we’re connected in every way possible. They invite me to their Facebook fan page, ask to be a friend through their personal pages, connect with me on Linked-in, thank me via email for taking the time to taste their wines, request my permission to be subscribed to their newsletter; and if they’re really advanced, they’ll send me a tweet inviting me to their winery at a future date. Granted, I can think of a dozen wineries, primarily in the USA, who have gone that extra mile, but these wineries made an effort to connect, showing enthusiasm, interest and assertiveness, and therefore, are unforgettable.

To put this in layman’s terms, if you go back to your single days, the most interesting people were the ones that went out of their way to show interest in you. Unlike the guy who wrote your number on the back of his hand, where it was promptly smudged away by morning, those guarded your number safely in their wallets and promptly called you the minute they walked in their front door were impressionable. They wanted you to remember their face, their voice and their offer to take you out to dinner the following evening.

This same theory holds true with wineries. If you truly want a wine blogger to remember you, be active, be assertive, be communicative and be online. Don’t assume that just because a wine blogger takes photos of your wines or tweets a tasting note they’ll remember you the next day. Be the winery they won’t forget. Go out of your way to ensure they hear from you immediately, simply by commenting on their blog by posting a thank you, or retweeting their comment showing that you’re listening.

Maybe one day in the future, wineries will end the age old tradition of overloading bloggers with a small forest of paperwork, hoping they’ll call you in the morning, and instead, be the winery who is interactive, interested and available for comments or questions in every way possible.

What are your thoughts? If a winery had a blogger meet-up, or attended to you at a wine fair, what is your ideal way for them to interact with you?

Gabriella Opaz

August in Iberia: Innovative Ways to Catch the Tourist’s Attention

gabriella opaz — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:49:51 +0000

If you live in Europe, you know this. For those of you who do not live in these parts, just a quick list about living in Europe in August:

Restaurants are not guaranteed to be open

Stores of almost any type are guaranteed to have strange hours

Offices are closed by 3pm

Emails bounce

Meetings are rarely made

Wineries are closed, or depending where you are, they are harvesting/preparing

It’s easy to differentiate yourself as a European business just by answering your office phone. If you’re a winery near Barcelona for example, this could be a HUGE chance to attract new customers, if you are willing to play outside the rules. Tourists flood the city and the beach is the only place open 24-7. So why think outside the box and offer up a special on your wines to all the beach-side watering holes? Chiringitos, as they are called in Spain, serve up loads of cool refreshments to the happy beach bums parading the coasts. If you want a leg up on the competition, why not create a new wine cocktail, or simply ensure that your wines are being offered at a competitive price?

Or why not offer up some free content to all the great travel blogs out there? “Summer Wines for Beach Goers”? I’m sure there are plenty of travel bloggers out there looking for a bit of free content while they’re relaxing by the pool.

You could also rent a bus and make rounds to all the local hotels to collect eager tourists interested in escaping the beach for something more culturally stimulating: a winery tour! Pitch a discount on your “End of Summer Tours”, I’m sure there are loads of eager wine lovers interested in tasting your wines. You could also collaborate with local wineries and work as a team.

In short, the possibilities are endless!

Just some random ideas on a random hot day in August.

Ryan

10 Tips to a Successful Press Trip for Wine Bloggers

ryan opaz — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:53:45 +0000

I just had someone contact me on Skype to ask if I had any tips for them about how to arrange a successful “blogger press trip”. Boy do I! But rather than spend time chatting online and letting it fade into the ether, I figured let me share a few bullets here. If you need more info just shoot me an email: ryan@catavino.net

PRESS TRIPS – Remember today’s publisher is today’s press. No matter if they are on Twitter, Blogspot or Youtube, they are press. Therefore, treat them like it. Do not patronize them, or act as if they are different, with a few exceptions. Remember that you are dealing with people who are professional, who are becoming professionals, or are people who may not be “professional” but who take a considerable amount of pride in what they do. Remember that even some of the least “wine professional” bloggers are out there, are some of the most influential.

INTERNET – This should be a no brainer, but it’s so easy to overlook. Hook up WIFI at the wineries, make sure the hotel you book has FREE OPEN WIFI, and if they don’t, PAY FOR IT. Buy a few 3G dongles to have on hand and share with people who want to publish when they are on the bus between locations. Oh and when we pull up to the next location, ask everyone if they need to “plugin” a phone, ipad, computer, whatever…there will always be 1 or 2 who will need to.

NO PAPER – Forget the handouts, bloggers/press/humans, don’t want or need your stuff. If you are smart, hand out 1 usb stick with contact details for everyone you are going to visit, videos, pictures of every person (labeled with names), and winery (labeled correctly). This one stick then has all they need anywhere they need it. Or better yet, register at www.DropBox.com and make a public folder that anyone can navigate for all the details.

DOWNTIME – We like to create content, and if you schedule all 24hrs of the day we won’t be creating content or making noise. Give us downtime. A great way to do this is to give everyone a couple hours in that super cute town you’ll be passing. Tell them what’s fun to see in the town, and also tell them about the friendly bar/cafe/etc that you arranged to have free WIFI. Drop them off in the center and pick them up at a designated time.

TELL THEM IN ADVANCE – No surprises, we like to know what is happening and many of us like to do pre-research so that we get the most out of our time in country. We want to know some of the history of the wineries, and people making the wine, not to mention the foods, and other cultural items. Tell us what we need to know and help us to do the research.

WINE IS NOTHING WITHOUT FOOD AND CULTURE – Please, please, please, give us more than just wine. Put the wine in context. Show us history, culture, foods and even beer! This context goes a long ways to making the trip richer, and much more memorable.

LET US TELL OUR OWN STORY – Not everyone wants to talk about acidification or bio-dynamic agriculture. Let us wander, and explore the winery, seek out the parts that are not on the schedule. Let us know where we’ll be next so that those that want to explore a new angle can meet you later on in the trip. Not always possible, but it’s worth it if you let people really get into what they are doing.

DO NOT INTERRUPT – We’ve brought video bloggers on trips where the bus was leaving but they didn’t have the right shot yet. FAIL! If someone is enjoy a story, let them dig deeper to find that nugget of information or that perfect shot. Is it the end of the world if one person connects with the winemaker so much that they stay all day and learn from them? You can find a way to get them back to the hotel later, but if you interrupt them, you’ll probably end up with a story that reads something like, “We were enjoying our time so much, until we were rudely interrupted to ‘keep the schedule’”.

SIMPLE FOOD – We love the 1 stars, 2 stars and 3′s, but in truth we also love a good sandwich with a glass of wine from the local co-op. Your region is richer for the simple things, if you don’t value these your missing a HUGE part of story, and truth be told, there is only so much Foie Gras a human can possibly consume. Especially when it’s stacked to the heights of 4, 5, 6 inches with foams, and emulsions. A night out with pitchers of local wine, some local culture, and “peasant foods” are often what any person in the Press, or Blogdom hope for after or during a press trip.

Ok Bloggers, new media…show us what you got…what do you think I forgot? Answers in the comments below!

Ryan Opaz

(Flickr photo by Carrie@Cortesdecima)