December 29, 2005

blogging doubled stormhoek sales in less than twelve months

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[The ori­gi­nal brochure that came with the blog­gers’ Stormhoek bottle. To read it in full, click here.]
[UPDATE: Stormhoek is spon­so­ring “100 Blog­ging Din­ners in 100 Days”, May-August 2006. If you’re a blog­ger who likes wine and thro­wing par­ties, please go read this. Thanks.]
A jour­na­list pho­ned me yes­ter­day about an article she is wri­ting about busi­ness blogs for one of the large UK trade mags. I gave her this little nug­get, which I’ve only just been allo­wed to go public with:

Blog­ging dou­bled Stormhoek sales in less than twelve months.

We’re tal­king tens of thou­sands of cases, here.
To recap: Ear­lier this year I sent out a hun­dred or so com­pli­men­tary bott­les of Stormhoek wine to bloggers, just to see what would hap­pen.
Three Pro­vi­sos:

1. The blog­gers had to live in the UK, Ire­land or France. They nee­ded to have regu­larly kept up a blog for at least 3 months pre­viously. Their blog could have a rea­dership of three or three thou­sand– size or sta­tus didn’t mat­ter, just so long as they were genuine blog­gers.
2. They had to be of legal drin­king age.
3. They were under no obli­ga­tion to say anything about the wine, good or bad. If they just wan­ted to snarf the wine and say nothing, or say something nega­tive, that was fine. It was their call.

As it tur­ned out, a lot of them ended up wri­ting about it. A meme of sorts was crea­ted, and it spread.
I have been saying this for years, and still not every­body belie­ves me: “Blogs are a good way of making things hap­pen indi­rectly.“
No, blog­gers and their friends didn’t start sud­denly des­cen­ding on super­mar­kets, buying the wine in large num­bers. That’s not how it works.
What hap­pe­ned is that by inter­fa­cing with the blo­gosphere, it fun­de­men­tally chan­ged how Stormhoek loo­ked at trea­ting their pri­mary cus­to­mers (the super­mar­ket chains) and the end-users (the super­mar­kets’ cus­to­mers).
i.e. It cau­sed an inter­nal dis­rup­tion, both within the com­pany and the actual trade. Wine drin­kers’ basic purcha­sing habits didn’t change because of the meme, but the meme allo­wed Stormhoek to align itself more clo­sely with said habits.
I’ve also been saying this for a while: How Robert Scoble’s blog affects Mic­ro­soft [his emplo­yer] inter­nally is a far big­ger story than how his blog­ging affects exter­nal sales. This insight, which I star­ted figu­ring out at the begin­ning of 2005, was ins­tru­men­tal in how we plan­ned the Stormhoek strat­gey.
The Stormhoek wine meme didn’t sell more bott­les, any more than Scoble’s blog inc­rea­sed sales of Dell com­pu­ters. That’s not what this game is about. What mat­ters is “The Porous Mem­brane”. What mat­ters is the inter­nal dis­rup­tion.
You have to remem­ber: there are hun­dreds of thou­sands of vin­yards in the world, all trying to sell to the twelve or so mass mar­ket wine buyers in the UK. So you need a story that cuts through the clut­ter.
And the best sto­ries have mar­ket dis­rup­tion baked-in.
With the dis­rup­tion, came a new and dif­fe­rent story that the super­mar­ket buyers and the impor­ters wan­ted to hear. Telling the story made the sales pro­cess easier. With easier sales, the curve was rai­sed.
So my advice with busi­ness blogs is not to think of them as sales chan­nels, but as dis­rup­tion chan­nels. Much more effec­tive.
[NOTE TO SELF:] “Blog­ging as a mar­ke­ting tool is easier when you think of it as a che­mi­cal catalyst, not as a ham­mer and nail.“
[PODCAST:] John­nie Moore and James Cher­koff inter­view Jason Kor­man, the CEO of Stormhoek. Great back­ground on the story.
[UPDATE:] Decan­ter Maga­zine picks up the story.

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45 Responses to “blogging doubled stormhoek sales in less than twelve months”

  1. spacer Dennis Howlett says:
    December 29, 2005 at 1:04 PM

    Exce­llent stuff — well done Hugh

  2. spacer LSF says:
    December 29, 2005 at 2:30 PM

    Con­gra­tu­la­tions on selling 12 bott­les ins­tead of 6.

  3. spacer AdPulp says:
    December 29, 2005 at 3:50 PM

    Baking Up Some Mighty Fine Mar­ket Disruption

    Hugh Mac­Leod on his South Afri­can wine client, and how blog­ging hel­ped move the needle: Blog­ging dou­bled Stormhoek sales in less than twelve months. I have been saying this for years, and still not every­body belie­ves me: “Blogs are a…

  4. spacer LSF says:
    December 29, 2005 at 4:41 PM

    Good that you have now added ‘We’re tal­king tens of thou­sands of cases, here’. Now the real impact is clearer.

  5. spacer hugh macleod says:
    December 29, 2005 at 4:45 PM

    Thanks LSF… yeah… “Dou­ble” is pretty mea­nin­gless without some kind of context.

  6. spacer The Winery Web Site Report says:
    December 29, 2005 at 6:03 PM

    Winery Dou­bles Sales With Blogging

    Blog­ging dou­bled Stormhoek sales in less than 12 months. Accor­ding to Hugh McC­leod, the inc­rease repre­sents tens of thou­sands of cases. This is undoub­tedly an excep­tio­nal case (being one of the first), but it’s worthwhile rea­ding. And to be completely

  7. spacer Dave Wheeler says:
    December 29, 2005 at 7:13 PM

    Hugh,
    I can hardly wait to see what hap­pens when Stormhoek rolls out to the Sta­tes!
    Dave Wheeler

  8. spacer nabila says:
    December 29, 2005 at 10:22 PM

    Con­gra­tu­la­tions!!
    It is very encou­ra­ging to see that good blog­ging reeeally works!!
    Happy new year to you!

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