Blogging’s ROI? Doubled wine sales

Gee, Chris, the more you write, the less I care. Rock on.

Especially when they have no blog of their own

Ahhhh, if you think only a blog gives you power, think again. :) That's a fatal mistake, one you will learn soon enough. It doesn't pay to knock off things just cause it's not blogged. And I risk lots, my "clients" (if you could call them that) are far more demanding, and keeping the backchannel info network humming (where real info is traded) is a hard thing to maintain (near impossible).

But hey ask Scoble (back when he wasn't conspiracy-theory crazy or Web 2.0 toked-up or too full of himself)....

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=7730

It's all about invisible influencers. I IM'd Christopher Coulter and Creamhackered over at Neowin. Christopher emailed 400 press and analyst types. Within 50 seconds it was up on the home page of whatisnew.com; tabletquestions.com; tabletpcbuzz.com. By this morning it was up on all Tablet sites, and activewin.com and neowin.net.

Geee, you think, I could do the same for a certain bottle of wine, maybe, you think? But you've already written me off as a fool, and I can't pimp myself. Pimping would kill me.

it only limited to certain products/services/companies?

Totally limited to the consumer space, and spaces where high-level detailed knowledge is not a requirement. You think say Heavy task-specific Contruction Equipment or Jet Engine, or Mission Critical Medical Equipment buyers would flip over a blog? No, you have to goto them, as the competition is already there.

PS - Wise words, Dennis. With you at the helm, in good hands. Always a steady hand for the cheerleaders that look at the pretty mountians and sunsets and miss the bridge out signs.

Oops.. the "my" before "Chris" was a typo. Mea Culpa.

Robert, I think without your example to lead them, I am sure the Microsoft bloggers would be [A] far fewer and [B] far less effective, on average.

Thanks for the kind words, Dennis. Actually, people like my Chris make my job far easier, funnily enough [Especially when they have no blog of their own, and have personally risked nothing themselves. Any fool can play "armchair quarterback with an opinion"].

But I gues this is the next big conversation I'm seeing between you and me: how big/small does the snowball have to be in order to start it rolling, and is it only limited to certain products/services/companies? And if so, how limited?

Halleluiah, we live in interesting times!

this comment will surprise a few people but so what.

Christopher - you've got this wrong this time around. I'm an accountant who has regularly taken Hugh to task over a range of issues of the kind you raise. For about 6 months now. I know I've been in a very small minority but so what? We've sparred very publicly around this. Hugh and I have met and discussed the real-world issues and what it is Hugh is seeking to achieve. We talked about it yesterday - again.

While I don't agree with everything Hugh says, his interest in the businesses he pimps/whores is such that issues around supply chain, demand management, scaling up and so on have certainly not been forgotten by his clients.

Hugh may be a bit wild at times, but he's not stupid. Trust me, these figures absolutely make sense though you're not going to get exact numbers out of Hugh so don't bother.

Why should I care? After all aren't marketing and finance sworn enemies? Sure, when they blow ludicrous amounts of money at often stupid advertising campaigns or other non-measurable 'stuff.' But not when marketing operates according to the economics of ROi (little 'i' is important here) AND still delivers.

It's all about the time frames, the cost of market entry and stuff like that which puts up artifical barriers to new entrants. If you've not seen those barriers start to collapse across a variety of industries then I suggest you're missing something.

But like Hugh, I'm prepared to look a complete idiot. The potential rewards are too high to ignore. The downside risk is relatively small.

I don't know if you're aware of how much the US has been a graveyard for overseas businesses of all stripes. It will therefore be interersting to see how well his model replicates itself or morphs inside the US market.

Barrell two...

His "Road to Damascus" grand revelation comes down to the "Message is NOT the Medium". He prettied it up as 'internal disruption', but now the "Medium" is only a distributional method; a serious retreat in buzzworded clothes. Glad to see he's are back to where real Advertisers/Marketers have been more than 3 years ago.

And yes, sales channels demand metrics and actual numbers, and real long-term sustainment. Better to keep it PR and Marketing distributionally "internal disruptionally" vague. That way any success can be plugged back in to support the ever-expanding blogging-as-meme theory, and any failure can be washed away with people "just don't get the meme". Hugh (not the company) can't ever lose, if you rig the game that way. :)

Comes down to, Hugh, the Blog Whore for Hire, basically. You can work any product in, demo, sample and zap to your network and see quick results. They won't last. But if you, shoot up the town, and leave before the Sheriff's catch up, why you got yourself a virtual meme'ed up consultancy.

Richard, Sigh. Trying to be nice to Scoble. But if you want both barrels...

A small boutique winery with limited worldwide distribution, is a not a 60. Sorry bucko, this I know. I am a stones throw from Napa. Plus doubling is a naked term without any sort of context and/or profit/loss stat's.

And that site, which I read VERY in-depth, started out with "Blogging doubled Stormhoek sales in less than twelve months.". Blogging, yes, blogging. All because of blogging. And then proceeds to backtrack with some vague gray-gooey-matter about "internal disruption", "wine meme", "disruption channels" and the "Porous Membranes".

So basically blogging doubled sales, but YET not really, only in the sense that blogging realized the "porous membranes" which actually was, in fact, really the indirect doubling end-result. So blogging caused a customerifitic shift that increased sales over a non-blogging company. Meaning only blogging companies actually know their customers? Groupthink arrogance ahigh and pure hogwash.

Now any rational human being (planted firmly on terra firma) would be going, what a load of buzzworded incomprehensible "meme'd up" nonsense. And they'd be right. But go ahead blow more bubbles...

All Hugh has done is bring wine tasting to people that don't much drink or taste-test wine, all from a limited narrow group too. That type of marketing has a low ceiling, and starts out fast, ends quick.

Christopher, did you actually read what Scoble linked to? First, your 0-60 and 60-120 argument negated by the fact that they were indeed going 60-120. The wine was already there, already selling, they just increased their profits. But if you read the post, you'd see it details precisely how blogging impacted the company and its sales.

It calls the blogging about the wine a meme and says this: "The Stormhoek wine meme didn't sell more bottles, any more than Scoble's blog increased sales of Dell computers." That negates your critisisms of blogging as direct sales tools. Many employees at most major companies do not sell or market products, but every one has some kind of impact on sales and how a customer feels about the company, which in turn goes back to future sales and potential customers.

Man, I'd News Years Resolution, or belated Christmas present, an Economics course for you.

Easy to run on Adrenaline, harder to run on Protein.

Far easier to go from 0 to 60, quite a bit more difficult to sustain and venture 60 to 120. Is demand a real trend or just a narrow-demographic marketing curiosity spike? To what can you attribute success? The wine itself or simply creative gimmick marketing? How will increased logistical and distributional costs impact from growth? From which market segments are you seeing growth? Will other segments see a backlash if you pursue one strategy, hereby killing future long-term growth, necessitating a reinvention? Are you seeing growth from those likely to be repeat buyers? These are but basic starting questions.

That 'doubling' is 'eyeball' and 'bubble' economics, same fate of Planet Hollywood, Krispy Kreme and Stone Cold Creamery fast-growth style companies. Too early to tell if Hugh's whoring will sustain in the long-term.