Atlanta Wine School Grows With E-marketing
Michael Bryan, founder and director of the Atlanta Wine School, certainly has a sophisticated palate when it comes to wine. But Bryan also has sophisticated marketing skills. The entrepreneur has incorporated virtually every Sevista capability into his e-marketing program over the past five years to grow Georgia’s only institution for wine appreciation more than 30 percent annually.
Bryan has always been an enthusiastic proponent of one-to-one marketing accomplished by communicating frequent “touches” to his market, which is 85 percent consumer and 15 percent trade. This is the reason he embraces every aspect of e-marketing the Sevista platform has to offer to help develop people’s passion for wine, and achieve the school’s business goals.
Sevista’s broad e-marketing capabilities have features that ensure you get the most for your efforts. Bryan uses Sevista to create and deliver monthly e-newsletters that provide valuable information and repeatedly nurture the market. He conducts frequent online surveys via Sevista targeted to gather specific information helpful to running the school. Sevista web forms simplify capturing new contacts for the database, and email campaigns sent quarterly generate additional interest.
Bryan studies Sevista’s online reporting to track and analyze results in order to know who reacted to what and where to adjust for improved results. He can segment audiences and personalize and test messages for more effectiveness. “Having Sevista as my e-marketing partner,” Bryan says, “is like having a larger, very knowledgeable and dependable staff always ready to pitch in.”
Providing Value to the Community
“I believe you need to build a relationship of trust with people before you can ask them for anything,” says Bryan. “We do that by giving them information of value in our wine newsletter.” Every month since March 2003, Sevista has sent the Atlanta Wine School newsletter, full of tips and industry reports, to a list of recipients that has grown from 500 to 10,000 people. The newsletter’s five years of success is significant, evidenced by the fact that since the initial send to personal contacts, everyone else has had to proactively subscribe to it using Sevista’s automated opt-in form.
E-marketing is the learning institution’s primary communications tool. “There isn’t a more effective way to reach a database of contacts on a one-to-one basis as cost-efficiently,” Bryan says. “Now our community of wine lovers is receptive to reading about and participating in the courses and events we offer.” To date, Atlanta Wine School has run 148 dedicated online campaigns to inform, and whet the interests of constituents in the wine community. Four times a year, it promotes wine festivals by sending out more than 1.6 million emails through Sevista.
An experienced e-marketer, Bryan tracks and compares the performance of online campaigns—noticing the difference between plain text and html format results. He has seen 5 to 8 percent click-through rates for htmls and, as might be expected, a slightly lower 4.1 percent rate for text-only emails.
Asking the Community for Input
Gathering realistic feedback is a valuable component of accommodating the needs of the wine community as well as being an essential e-marketing tool.
“We use Sevista surveys to better understand our community,” says Bryan. Through nearly 20 Sevista online surveys, the ever-burgeoning community has been a continuing source of helpful input that shapes class schedules and content. “For example,” he says, “people told us they prefer courses to be held on Sundays through Thursdays, and not to schedule on Fridays and Saturdays. And we’ve learned that 7 p.m. is the most convenient time to begin.” The Atlanta Wine School is able to confidently meet its markets’ needs because of the ability to easily survey community members with Sevista.
Recognizing the Hidden Benefit
Knowing he would use an e-marketing engine extensively, Bryan did his homework before choosing a partner. As a technically savvy marketer, Bryan looked closely at the feature/function set to be sure that it met his needs. In Sevista he found a robust system that he could leverage to meet his growth goals. As an entrepreneur, Bryan was careful to consider price as a decision factor. In Sevista he found a surprisingly cost-efficient solution. And while Bryan’s abilities as an e-marketer would initially require little reliance on support, as a visionary he wanted to make sure that this capability was strong as future plans called for the school to eventually bring additional marketing team members on board. In Sevista, he found unsurpassed commitment to client service.
It was during his rigorous selection process that Bryan discovered what he still appreciates most about Sevista—its “hidden” benefit. “I’ve learned Sevista has a stellar reputation among ISPs for having clientele that practice responsible marketing,” Bryan says. An e-marketing partner with client vetting processes like Sevista’s have what the industry calls “clean servers.” Emails from these types of servers received and accepted by the most ISPs. “That’s to my advantage because it greatly increases the likelihood that my Sevista ‘sends’ will be delivered promptly every time.”
After more than five years association with Sevista, this wine education business is enjoying the fine taste of success.