I bumped into a chap called Chris Rawlinson who is one of the guys who runs runs the www.stormhoek.com site.
Stormhoek is a winery down here in the Western Cape that is taking the world by storm. And all its marketing has been done by blogging. Nothing else. It’s now stocked in major UK and US supermarkets and is a smash hit. The supermarkets called Stormhoek to make deals because people kept asking them for the wine! Stormhoek operates about 10 vineyards because the demand is so high.
The technique: They offered a prize of a free bottle of wine to the first 100 people who posted a comment on the blog, and who agreed to write a blog posting about the wine when they received it. Since the blog was quite new, it was the most active members of the blogosphere who found the offer and took him up on it. And from there, the power of the network allowed them to reach a very broad market.
They have won fabulous prizes and accolades already. It’s old news, really. (Chris tells me they’ve even done a guidebook to exactly how to run a successful blog marketing campaign if you rummage around).
But the point is this:
They are running another promo now and you can get free wine (well actually a free Tesco’s voucher).
Go to Tesco. Buy a bottle of Stormhoek win (optional). Take a photo of yourself holding it in Tesco. Send in the pic to Stormhoek. Voila! The first 500 people to do it get a £5.00 voucher.
I would advise them to spend it on Stormhoek. It’s excellent wine. But it’s not just the wine, it’s the principle.