There are currently 130 active Wine SuperFANS and 5 Member Farms (Haut Espoir, Moreson, Warwick, Beau Joubert & Lithos)… Check out the SuperFAN Email Group and apply for access!
The Internet (especially social media channels) is just too damn loud these days. Information overload is an understatement. It’s a communication deluge: multiple social networks, multiple messaging platforms, emails, phone calls, voicemails, advertising, television, radio – it’s a little scary to be honest.
And brands have to play in this noise. They need to find a way to stand out and cut through the clutter. How? By being valuable and useful – sure. By being approachable, dependable, remarkable, fun etc, etc. But when that is what everyone is aiming for, it’s difficult to tell the good from the bad. Which makes it even more difficult to care. Which makes it nearly impossible to engage.
The Wine SuperFANS is an exclusive mailing list of South Africa’s most engaged and active “dinner table influencers”. While we have plenty of bloggers, Twitterati and journalists within the fold – the bulk of the SuperFANS are made up of ordinary wine lovers and wine buyers. These passionate wine drinkers have been an unheard voice till now – we think they’re the most powerful niche community available to the wine industry.
Niche communites are extremely valuable in this fragmented media landscape. Usually formed around blogs and online journalism (like Incogvino), much research is starting to point to the fact that this is the REAL place to engage with your influential customers.
We’re looking for those special wine farms that really want to engage with wine buyers. Wine farms that want to have conversations and celebrate the fact that we wine drinkers do more than just select a bottle off the shelf. We buy into the wine lifestyle and we want to share that together.
The activity of the SuperFANS is quite damn impressive. Between buying “FAN Packs” (mix cases put together by our Member Farms), attending events, Twitter coverage of wine festivals, private tastings, competitions and our infamous Twitter tastings – our first batch of farms have enjoyed an enormous amount of publicity and exposure – and met some of their true fans.
The Twitter Tastings have become especially popular. When we sell wine to the SuperFANS, it comes with the added benefit of getting the same bottle into the hands of a lot of people. That means we can set a time, all meetup online and go through a curated tasting with the wine farm. Not only are these an experiential dream for wine marketing – but it gives SuperFANS the opportunity to talk directly to the wine makers and marketers in a public forum. The reach we regularly achieve on these events is quite astounding. The graph below represents the reach achieved in 90 minutes on a Warwick Wine Tasting, hosted by Mike Ratcliffe and Andy Hadfield.
Joining the SuperFAN Club. What you get:
- Access to the mailing list and conversations for 1 year
- Ability to sell a FAN Pack of your wine to the community
- Prime position on an email newsletter sent to the ENTIRE base as a Featured Farm with relevant content.
- Social Media support from us as a Member Farm.
- Andy Hadfield will host a curated Twitter tasting of your FAN Pack wines together with you and your team.
What you can do with this:
- promote your events, campaigns and competitions
- live twitter and blog coverage of your events, distribute tickets through the SuperFANS
- organise tasting parties to attend your farm
- test and seed new products into this base, tank samples, new releases, new labelling – this is the perfect authentic customer feedback mechanism
- talk to wine buyers about your marketing messaging – what’s working/not working
- find out what ordinary wine buyers like in a wine / wine brand
- find out how ordinary wine buyers choose wine and where they’re likely to buy
- find out what offers, specials, packages, deals would appeal to wine buyers and their social circles
- keep your finger on the digital pulse of wine in South Africa
Member Farms can sign up for R10,000/year, per wine brand (That’s less than a print ad. Yup.) which allows two of your contacts to join our SuperFANS. We usually suggest that the winemaker and someone from the marketing team/spokesperson joins the list, to make the engagement with the SuperFANS informative and effective.
Join the SuperFANS – SA’s most engaged and fun wine community. Contact Us to find out more…