The internet is not just about you connecting with your customers; it’s about your customers connecting with each other. That’s the marketing strategy that is driving the rapid evolution of Social Media Marketing.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media is the most direct way to interact with and influence the audience most interested in your product and its category. Social Media are online places where conversations take place among people with similar interests. Other names commonly used for Social Media Marketing include Word of Mouth Marketing, 1 to 1 Marketing, Consumer or User Generated Content, etc.
So, while getting visitors to your site is a good objective and first step, we think it’s critically important to also look beyond the brand site and engage your consumers on the sites where they’re already spending time on the web.
But distilled down to its essence, SMM comes in three “flavors”
Blogs: Blogs are rapidly replacing traditional media as a primary influence factor, especially for Millennials. We have a proprietary process that allows us to identify the most bloggers most influential about your category and brands. And since we’ve been at this for a couple of years, we have an established reputation and relationship with them built on providing value added content that’s relevant to their readers.
Sites, Forums and Newsgroups: These are the places your prospects go to for information on your category and to learn about products. Because they are moderated, these sites carry tremendous weight as repositories for unbiased information and personal recommendations.
Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube: Your consumers are on them and your peers are talking about them but it takes experience to really understand how to use these tools to effectively support brands. We’ve been working with these networks and have the programs and strategies that will grow your audience, engage them with your content, and stimulate them to share their passions with others.
Measuring Results:
BAT has developed a sophisticated results monitoring, reporting and analysis capability that makes on-line marketing accountable for results. Using tools such as Google Analytics, Sysomos and others, we keep our finger on the pulse of our clients’ consumers by looking at what they do, not what they say. And because of our industry experience, we can turn that analysis into practical strategic insights that gives our clients a competitive edge.
TRADE MARKETING:
Trade communications is one of the most useful and critical tools in this industry. We believe a properly crafted and managed trade campaign can create a motivating point of difference for companies and brands. To lay the groundwork for your consumer campaign to be truly effective the trade has to know your brand, understand your marketing and buy in and support it. Through trade advertising (creative), media planning (including value added negotiations), trade shows, direct communications (mail, email, newsletters etc), trade websites, and other tools, we help our clients gain valuable visibility among these key decision makers.
STRATEGIC PLANNING: HELPING BRANDS ENTER AND GROW IN THE U.S. MARKET
We like to think “Zag” when others “Zig”.
BAT specializes in conceiving and exploiting creative options for negotiating the complexities of the three-tier system in the U.S.
We develop innovative, practical, results-focused …and most importantly measurable… marketing and business plans.
We are the founders and organizers of the U.S. Drinks Conference along with our partners MHW Ltd. and Next Level Marketing. The USDC is rapidly becoming a “must- attend” event for anyone marketing import spirit, wine and beer brands in the U.S.
E-COMMERCE
E-commerce is rapidly becoming a significant strategic tool for beverage alcohol brands. Working within the three-tier system in the U.S. we’ve developed procedures and partnerships with a proprietary set of 200 + e-commerce sites which sell spirits and/or wines.
BAT’s ecommerce service has two components:
Content:
Secure, format and feed the key fields of data needed to properly present your brands
Audit the database to insure product info is being captured and displayed correctly
Sales: We function as an e-marketing adjunct to individual importers/suppliers/distributors’ existing sales force to leverage E-commerce sales. We communicate with the decision maker at the sites and negotiate sell-in/secure online merchandising that is the parallel in physical stores to shelf talkers all the way to floor displays/feature ads.
OTHER BRAND ACTION TEAM SERVICES
CONSUMER AND INDUSTRY ONLINE MARKET RESEARCH: Includes everything from planning, to questionnaire development to fielding, tabbing, analyzing and making strategic recommendations. We can do it well, fast, knowledgeably and affordably. We have recently completed projects for Pernod Ricard, Future Brands, Patron, Remy Cointreau, Boston Beer Applebee’s, Cheers, Olive Garden, and Chili’s.
CUSTOMIZED POINT OF SALE: In concert with the folks at Prompt, we develop customized win/win POS. The program streamlines the process of making unique wine lists, drink menus, shelf talkers, case cards, bottle neckers and more. that are all customized to the specific needs of each account. Net result: this POS stays up.
ON-PREMISE AND NATIONAL ACCOUNTS: We know the players and have excellent contacts with several national restaurant chains through our work with Cheers Magazine and the Millennium Group. We are also actively working on programs for independent on-premise accounts to marry the needs of our clients’ brands with the needs of the accounts that sell them. It’s a win-win; when our programs help bars and restaurants grow their business at retail, our brands grow and benefit as well.
1. Blogs: Blogs are essentially a diary with the point of view of one person and reflect their interest, bias and "voice"...Less of a conversation, more of a monolog. Examples include CocktailNerd and Fermentation.
2. Sites, Forums, Wikis: These are sort of like a sister to Blogs...they are conversations that are moderated and usually without a bias or point of view. On the spirits side, recipes drive the category, on the wine side its ratings, reviews and food and wine pairings. Examples include About.com Cocktails and Wine Library TV Forum.
3. Social Networks: YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Wine 2.0 are examples. The conversation on social networks is not moderated and it takes place between and among like-minded individuals who link to each other as "friends" and through "groups".
4. Search: Finding information online based on other people's searches. And search comes in two flavors as well…1) Organic or natural search, and 2) paid aka Pay Per Click through programs such as Google AdWords and AdSense, Yahoo Search Marketing. In the beverage alcohol world, search is conducted on general sites such as vertical sites such as Wine-searcher.com or iDrink.com, and general sites like Google. Google recently loosened their rules and now accepts ads for spirits.
5. E-Commerce: buying and selling stuff online. OK, it's not really SMM, but it is a critical digital marketing strategy and commerce is conversation. It applies to consumer sites such BevMax and www.shoppersvineyard.com and trade sites including BevAccess.
