The Grapevine

Content Marketing for Wine Shops – An Introduction

May 8th, 2013

Our two most recent wine marketing posts have focused on Facebook Smarts for Wine Retailers and Facebook for Main Street Retailers. Today, let’s talk about content marketing more broadly, and how you can do it without giving up your sleep.

We know that, like every other business owner on the planet, you need one more thing on your to-do list like a chicken needs a bicycle, but content marketing doesn’t have to require a lot of extra effort. Here’s why. <level-members>

Yes, there are some mechanical motions you have to go through, but if you’re generating content for your website (you are generating fresh content for your website, right?!) you can be using that same content as the basis of your activity on Facebook and other social media.

Let’s say that you’ve posted an item on your site about a tasting you’re hosting this coming weekend.  You should post the same information on your Facebook page. And if you are using Twitter, post it there as well. And, of course, it should be included in your email newsletter. (Though this may be monthly, so you will have to have planned in advance.)

So now, you have 5 pieces of content from one effort. (Wait, how did we get to 5, you say? You only get 4 with the website, Facebook, Twitter and an email newsletter. Ah, but we’re counting the tasting itself. Events count as content, too.)

Anyway, with little more effort than you had put into setting up the tasting itself, you now have a bunch of ways to attract your customers’ attention. 

And, no, you don’t have to worry that you’re repeating yourself. Yes, you’ll have a few people (your mom, for one. Unless you never call her …) who read everything you put out in every form you put it out there. But most people have their own preferences for how they consume news and information. Few will go back to your website unprompted if they’ve been there before. Some love email; others hate it. Some would die without their Twitter feed; others would rather die than get sucked in to Twitter.

Taking advantage of all those channels makes it easier to reach everyone without duplicating your efforts. 

Next week, we’ll talk about some tools you can use to make the process even more efficient. </level-members>