July 2010 Event
The latest Top Merchants event took place on Monday 19th July at The Bristol Hotel, Bristol. The day proved to be extremely informative and successful and a summary of the day is below. We would also like to take this opportunity to once again our sponsor for this event Paternina.
Cashing in on community service
Independent merchants from across the country descended on Bristol last week for the second Harpers Wine & Spirit Top Merchants conference with the focus this time very much on PR, profile and driving customer loyalty
Independent merchants were encouraged to "think big" no matter what the size of their business, at last week's Top Merchants conference in Bristol. Be it through PR, marketing, promotions, social media, ranging or online communications, the tools were there for the smallest of businesses to operate in a far bigger competitive world.
The day - which was sponsored by Rioja producer, Paternina, alongside Top Merchants headline partner, Gruppo Italiani Vini - included a mixture of formal presentations, masterclass wine tastings and workshop groups as merchants came together to discuss different ways they can raise their profile and drive better loyalty from their customer base.
One of the key themes of the day was the need for merchants to look seriously at how better use of internet search and community sites like Facebook and Flickr, can have a dramatic impact on the profile and reach of their business.
Nick Cordingley, at Gondola Wine, the online branded wine business set up by Dragons Den entrepreneur, Peter Jones, opened merchants' eyes to the use of affiliate web sites to drive traffic to their own sites. In fact, he said, many big brands like Coca-Cola are now spending more of their online resources promoting what they do and trying to talk to customers on other people's sites than necessarily getting them to come to their site directly.
He conceded the average independent merchant would not have the resources of a Coca-Cola, but the concept of looking at what other sites your customers might be using and then placing advertising or promotions or cross-links on those sites could have huge benefits.
Be it the local paper, butcher, delicatessen, travel agent, theatre group, small business hub, the opportunities to work with so-called affiliate sites to open up your business to new customers was enormous.
The theme was picked up by Dom Lane, creative director at PR company, Bray Leino, who highlighted a range of sites that merchants could use to really build a community for their business. Yes, people may now be active and aware of Facebook and Twitter, but aggregate and community sites such as Flickr, Delicious, Digg should also be on a merchant's radar, said Lane.
Bryony Wright, founder of specialist drinks PR agency, Proven Communications, gave the insight track on how to present the best case for a merchant's business to the media, be it trade, local or national. The key, she said, was know your audience. Do your homework and work out what you want to say about your business and who to, and then target the best media partner to get that message across to.
Angela Mount, former Somerfield wine buyer , and now head of Gondola Wine, also urged merchants to think big and look outside of their own business for inspiration. Analyse what other retailers are doing, particularly the supermarkets, and make sure you are doing something different. Work out your USP and then drive in on that.
Susy Atkins, national columnist and broadcaster, said the consumers she speaks to day in day out are often scared to go to their local wine specialist as they did not think they knew enough about wine to go there. The challenge was to be aware of how intimidating your store can be and make it customer friendly, particularly to women, who still do the bulk of wine shopping.
Keith Lay, who heads up the independent division at wine agency, Ehrmanns, the UK distributor for Paternina, looked at the issue of customer loyalty and understanding why an individual customer is using your store and how you can get them to use it more often can have a major impact on bottom line profitablilty.
The scale and opportunity for the independent sector was spelt out by Paul Medder of Wine Intelligence who split down the wine sector and took merchants through ways they could build ther slice of the market. Whilst Peter Hanna of Matthew Clark's independent division, Wine Studio Agency, gave an insight into the opportunities for merchants operating or looking to work in the wholesale sector and supplying the on-trade.
For all the latest news and advice for the independent sector, go to the NEW Top Merchants area at www.harpers.co.uk
