Introduction • Greg Fischer ! Owner of Wild Blossom and BevArt
• 30 years of wine making experience
Introduction • First winery in Chicago • Only producer of mead on the Northern Illinois Wine Trail • Uses locally produced ingredients
What is Mead? • Alcoholic Beverage ! Fermented honey with yeast
• Onsite beekeeping ! All natural and fresh
Why Mead? • Encourage people to drink healthier ! Natural ! Good for the body ! Good for the Earth
• Location on Chicago’s lakefront ! Purified water
Discovery • More interaction • Currently in a contest held by Chase • Wants complete construction of the new establishment by spring. • Wants to be listed on restaurant and bar menus
Discovery • Wants to expand production • Not interacting that much • Successful when people start talking about mead and his company
S.W.O.T. • Strengths ! Only place that distributes mead ! First winery in Chicago ! Have 30 years of experience ! Online orders ! Beekeeping onsite ! Environmental Benefits
S.W.O.T. • Weaknesses ! Confusing profiles on Twitter ! Outdated website ! Website doesn’t link to a Twitter or Facebook account ! Map on the website is very confusing ! Yelp reviews exist but are not consistent
S.W.O.T. • Opportunities ! Blogs ! YouTube
S.W.O.T. • Threats ! Local wineries and breweries ! National wineries and breweries
POST – A • People ! Current audience • Men and women • Ages 21 – 55 • Northern Chicago
POST – A • People ! Target audience • Women • Ages 21 – 35 • Northern Illinois • Environmentally friendly and aware
! Social Technographics ! Conversationalists
Character Profile • Bailey Aiello ! 22 years old ! Graduated a semester early from DePaul • Journalism major
! Volunteered for Cross-Cultural Solutions ! Born in Lithuania • Mother is from Lithuania • Father is from Italy
! Blogger and avid tweeter ! Social Techonographics • • • •
Conversationalist Creator Collector Joiner
POST – A • Goals ! Establish mead as a mainstream beverage ! Complete construction of the new establishment ! More interaction ! Expand production
POST – A • Objectives ! Listen • Track what people say about his products online
POST – A • Objectives ! Talk • “What’s your Wild Blossom drink of choice this weekend?”
POST – A • Objectives ! Energize • “Reply with what you love about Wild Blossom and receive 15% off you next purchase! #15OFF”
POST – A • Objectives ! Support • Keep the contact box available on the website
POST – A • Objectives ! Embrace • “What do you think needs to be changed about our business? #HelpUsHelpYou”
POST – A • Strategy ! Make sure the social media sites are easy to follow ! Stop posting lengthy tweets with different articles and images attached
POST – A • Tools ! Use Twitter and Facebook to reach out to consumers ! Check Yelp to see what people are saying about the products and business ! Create a blog and YouTube channel
POST – A • Analyze ! Quantitatively • Followers, likes, and mentions/posts
• Qualitatively • Responses
POST – A • Risk indicator and response ! People do not follow or interact with the social media ! Report issues occurring to the public
Conclusion • Expand the company • Receive funding through online contests and crowdsourcing • Fix website • Be effectively active on social media sites
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! !
!"#$%&'()*$%'+&%,' -.)/'0$1#2).3'45,).'"6'7$&*'8&"11"9'()%*).:';'7$,).:' <"12'=%#>9%.)?' '
! !
!"#$%&'(&)'*+%*+,& -*+.'/01+2'*&3333333333333333333333&&4& 52,1'6%.7&833333333333333333333333&9& :8;8<8!8&=*"$7,2,33333333333333333333&>& &
:+.%*?+@,&88333333333333333333333&>&
&
;%"A*%,,%,8833333333333333333333&>&
&
<BB'.+0*2+2%,&883333333333333333333&C& &
!@.%"+,&883333333333333333333333&C& D<:!&E&=&88333333333333333333333338 C& &
&
D%'B$%88838333333333333333333333 C& &
<#F%1+26%,G&:+."+%?2%,G&"*/&!''$,88833333333333&H& =*"$7,2,38333333333333333333333 I& &
)'*1$0,2'*888383333333333333333333334J ! !
! !
Introduction Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery is a local business here in Chicago that creates wine and meads using locally produced ingredients. Greg Fischer, the owner of Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery, is also the owner of BevArt and dedicates his time to make some of the best tasting wines and meads in the Chicago area. With more than 30 years of winemaking experience, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery is the first winery in Chicago and the only manufacturer of mead on the Northern Illinois Wine Trail. Along with that, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery raise their own bees to collect fresh, all natural honey. Since mead is an alcoholic beverage that is made by fermenting honey with yeast, it is important to the owner to raise their own bees and collect all the natural honey from their onsite beekeeping establishment in order to help the environment and maintain a credible and luxurious line of alcohol. Gregâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reasoning for maintaining this winery and meadery is to allow and persuade people into drinking healthier, more natural alcoholic beverages that are not only good for the human body, but also good for the earth. Since each bottle of mead they produce allows their bees to pollinate approximately two million flowers, they are helping the earth by creating nearly 20 to 40 million seeds that are destined to become new flowers. There are many different ways that more flowers and plants help the environment; meanwhile, at their location on Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lakefront, they help purify the
1 !
! !
water from Lake Michigan and use its water to assist in the production of their variety of wines. My client’s main competitors are other local wineries and nationally/globally distributed wine. In terms of alcohol and wine, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery have many different competitors including: La Crema, Blackstone Winery, Coastal, Cupcake Prosecco, and New Age. Luckily, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery do not have many competitors with their meads because they are the only meadery in Illinois. They have established themselves in Chicago and are known to many winery and brewery fanatics across the city. Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery do well amongst their competitors mainly because of their meads; if someone wants mead and are within the Chicago area, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery is everyone’s first choice because they are the only local distributers.
Discovery Fischer is not thrilled with his activity on different social media sites. Ultimately, he wants more interaction on Twitter and Facebook and is currently satisfied with the level of communication on Yelp. He is in a contest for a grant at the moment that is solely based on how many likes he can receive within a certain timeframe. This is a main factor of why he wishes for more conversation about his business; he wants people to enjoy and talk about his products on social media because it will help energize the viewers and get users to start talking about his business and the products he offers. Fischer is seeking complete construction of the new establishment for Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery’s tasting room and shop by the spring of 2015. He is also seeking to receive additional funding with a Kickstarter program as well as funding from Chase through their “Mission Main Street Grants” program. He also wants to establish 2 !
! !
mead as a mainstream beverage on the lists of top craft beverage establishments in Chicago and other regions of Northern Illinois. He wants to expand production to 10,000 cases by the end of 2020 and help the honey bees and local beekeepers by promoting mead. He believes that the public will fall in love with mead after they are more familiar with it and are aware of the fact that it is a great, natural, healthy alternative to other forms of alcohol. So far, Fischer is listening to his Facebook and Twitter sites to see if people start talking about mead and the health effects it has on the environment and human body. He listens to a lot of Yelp reviews and takes usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; advice on different things that he believes can help build and recreate a better image or brand for his business. Another way that I believe he could gain some insight is by tracking what people have been saying about wine and mead within the Chicago and surrounding areas via differing social media outlets. One thing that I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think he is taking into consideration is blogs. Because of this, he is missing information from bloggers not only within the Chicago area but from around the country that focus on mead and other specialty alcoholic beverages. If he did this, it would help him talk to new consumers, considering that he is able to ship all of his businessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; products nationally. Fischer is extremely focused on relaying important and useful information about mead and how it is beneficial to the environment. He wants people to understand how authentic and natural his product is. Unfortunately, he is not doing much to get people talking about his product. He holds events and wine tasting nights in order to drive in new consumers, but does not put much effort in to get them to talk about his product on social media sites. Fortunately, he has been very successful with word of mouth alone.
3 !
! !
Another downfall is his posts on social media; he doesn’t tweet much about his product but rather retweets people who review or talk about his product.
S.W.O.T. Analysis In order to conduct a S.W.O.T. analysis, I focused on Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery’s Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and traditional website. Along with that, I’m also searching other wineries in the area to see how they are managing their business via social media. Strengths: •
Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery is the only place that distributes mead in the Northern Illinois and Chicago area
•
They were the first winery in Chicago
•
Have more than 30 years of experience in the business
•
Online selling of wine and meads which allows them to ship their products anywhere across the United States that does not have a law against incoming alcohol
•
Raise their own bees and collect their own honey
•
For each bottle of mead that is produced, the environment is strengthened because of their bees and the pollination process
Weaknesses: •
Poor, confusing profiles on Twitter that could confuse potential consumers
•
Website looks a bit outdated
•
Website doesn’t link to the correct Twitter or Facebook account
•
Some tabs link to another page and the locations listed on the map can be very confusing 4
!
! !
•
Yelp reviews exist but are not consistent (has not gotten reviewed in about a year)
Opportunites: •
Blogs
•
YouTube
Threats: •
Other wineries in the area are doing much better than Wild Blossom when it comes to online participation
•
National wineries and breweries are doing well with getting their message out there and listening to what people have to say
•
National alcohol distributers energize and support consumers better
I believe that my client would benefit the most if he attacked his weaknesses first. After changing the downfalls on the Wild Blossom’s website, it will be much easier and much more efficient to start accomplishing goals set based on his opportunities. Threats are something to definitely take into consideration, but at this time is not something to be worried about. Since Fischer’s main focus is wine and mead, he does not need to focus in on national breweries that only sell beer and hard liquor. Seeing that he has the only meadery in Northern Illinois, he needs to make sure that no other competitors take away his current and potential consumers; he can do this by tracking social media sites for upcoming businesses and companies.
POST-A People: Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery have a clientele that consists of women and men from the ages of 21 to their late 50s. They mainly live in the Northern Chicago area, but come from all over the United States because of the fact that Wild Blossom 5 !
! !
ships their beverages nationally. The majority of consumers are English speaking white people, but they also have consumers from different cultures who enjoy their products. This is Bailey Aiello. She is 22 years old and graduated a semester early from DePaul. She is a journalism major and focuses her writing on her experiences from volunteering for CrossCultural Solutions. She was born in Lithuania and began having a glass of wine with dinner every night at a young age. Her mother is from Lithuania and her father is from Italy; because of their cultures and background, they are used to having wine with dinner every night and believe it helps feed the soul. She always as her phone in her pocket and updates her blog every week. She also gets updates via Twitter and podcasts on environmental news as well as political news.
In terms of the social
technographics profile, she is a creator, conversationalist, collector, and joiner.
Most
importantly, she loves Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery because of the great taste and environmental benefits. Wild Blossomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s target market is women between the ages of 21 and 35. The consumer in the profile above resembles someone who is within their target market based on her gender, age, and environmental awareness. They want to reach out to women because they have a tendency to be more nurturing and also have a habit to enjoy wines more than beer and hard liquor. In terms of the social technographics profile, my client would like to see more conversationalists. Fischer wants people to be a 6 !
! !
bit more engaged on his Facebook profile and his Twitter account because he wants to know what they are thinking about his products; he wants to get a handle on factors including new favorites and how to fix something the consumers do not like. So far, his consumers have been great at informing new consumers of his business by word of mouth, but he wishes they would do the same via social media. Objectives, Strategies, and Tools: Fischer wants to establish mead as a mainstream beverage on the lists of top craft beverage establishments in Chicago and other regions of Northern Illinois.
He is
pursuing complete construction of the new establishment by the spring of 2015 and is seeking to receive additional funding with a Kickstarter program as well as funding from Chase through their “Mission Main Street Grants” program.
He wants to expand
production to meet demand and help the honey bees and local beekeepers by promoting his business’ mead. Locally, he wants to get more bars and restaurants to serve Wild Blossom’s mead so that they can get more exposure and reach more people who may not understand what mead is. Our client is very open to listening to what the consumers have to say via social media. He loves when they let him know in person, but that does not really send a message to users of social media who may not know about his business or products. In terms of talking, he needs to start posting shorter tweets. As of now, he generally posts lengthy tweets with links and pictures attached. This does not only look unappealing to followers, but it is also confusing. He needs to start a conversation; he should ask every weekend, “What’s your Wild Blossom drink of choice for this weekend?” When it comes to energizing, he does not do anything on social media to drive sales. It would be best for him to include a twitter post that says, “Reply with what you love about Wild 7 !
! !
Blossom and receive 15% off your next purchase! #15OFF.â&#x20AC;? This way allows users to talk about his products and also gives them an incentive to purchase. Supporting is not entirely as important as the others because Fischer provides ways to reach and contact him if there is anything wrong. But, it is important to fix the links on his site and create a Twitter and Facebook company profile so that people know which account is really his. When he uses social media, he could ask them different things about his product in order to embrace consumers. He could ask, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What do you think needs to be changed about our business? #HelpUsHelpYou.â&#x20AC;? This would not only show the consumers that he cares about what his customers have to say, but would also give them an opportunity to speak out about what they like and dislike, which would allow him to listen to critiques that would allow him to potentially better the company. In order to have a chance at being successful on social media, Fischer will need to stop posting long tweets with confusing articles and websites attached to them. Also, he will need to start talking to consumers and offer an incentive that will allow him to grow deeper relationships with his consumers. Fischer is the only one running his social media sites at this time, which is acceptable, but he needs to start posting things that the consumers want to hear; this will get his customers engaged and excited about his product and may lead them to retweet or post something in their own words about how they feel about Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery. Currently, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery is using Yelp, Facebook, Twitter along with their website. One way they could improve themselves to better support the objectives is to make the accounts clear; Fischer needs to link those accounts directly to the website that way consumers will know where to go and how they can reach out to the
8 !
! !
company with comments. After this is done, it will be much easier to focus on the objectives since the consumers will be in the right place to be talked to. YouTube and a blog would be very beneficial to Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery. YouTube would allow Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery to post videos that display how they go about making their wine and mead.
They could show their
honeybees and how they go about starting the mead. They could also mention to the viewers to bring up the YouTube video and a key word (for example: honeybee) to get a free Wild Blossom glass and free sample bottle.
This would help embrace the
consumers and get them to give feedback on the products that are being offered. Having a blog would allow Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery to showcase images and YouTube videos of their products at events they hold all while explaining to the consumers what is taking place. Along with that, blogs are a good place to announce new events because it could be mentioned in the title and potentially attract a lot of people to try the products. Other wine and mead fan blogs could follow the blog and showcase their support or interest in the business, even if they are located in another region. It would allow for them to talk about their product and listen to what consumers have to say. Analyze and Adapt: Quantitatively, success will be measured based on how many followers, likes, and mentions/posts referring to Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery are achieved. Qualitatively, success will be measured based on the responses; we will see what people say about the product, if they reach out for support via the website or Twitter and YouTube. This will be conducted over a 6 month to year long period. If the plan is successful, many more people will talk about the company via Twitter and Facebook and 9 !
! !
the site will be easy to follow.
When people talk more about the company via social
media it will lead to more customers which will help drive sales. There arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t many indications of risk. The only risk that would be present is if people do not follow or interact with the social media site. This would prevent more people from following and interacting with Wild Blossom.
One important thing to do
is report on issues occurring. If something does not go as planned during an event that was announced via social media, it is important to talk about the incident and relay all information to the public.
Conclusion All in all, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery would like to expand and grow its company as well as its consumers with the help of social media. Currently, they are in a contest to receive a grant from Chase Bank and are trying very hard to get their current followers to help them win by promoting and sharing the contest amongst their friends and followers. They also plan on making their website and social media outlets easier to navigate. With this, Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery could be the most preferred winery and meadery in the entire Midwest.
10 !