Why Selling Wine is Hard

Seth Godin posts  Don't Sell to Bar Owners, something that, despite its odd title, has relevance to winery owners and sellingwine:

The universal lesson is this: every business has customers. In order to grow, you either need to sell more to those customers or find new customers....The biggest problem marketers make is misjudging their audience. The see the size of the market, but not its true nature: Their accessibility and eagerness. Their worldview and motivation.

You've really got to find the 1,000 True Fans of your winery, the market that is eager for what you have to sell.

Comments

[rick]

You know, I like Seth's posts a lot, but many of them are like that quote and leave me with a "WTF?" feeling. I mean, what is he really saying that's not Marketing 101? Know your customer?

[Richard Shaffer]

I think the point is the 80/20 rule.

The bottom line is that there are a ton of people already out there who want what you have and you have to focus your time on them by 1) being findable and 2) not wasting time on begging the people that don't want your stuff to buy it anyway and of course 3) you must have great stuff that people will want to (and can easily) talk to others about.

Richard