It Pays to Have Good Neighbors

Here in Sonoma County there are over 425 wineries with tasting rooms. In our little pocket of the Russian River Valley there over a dozen within a 5 minute drive of each other. From a tourists perspective, it can be overwhelming. That’s why in each of our “micro” regions we often make recommendations for our customers. They often include some kind of incentive like a 2-for-1 tasting coupon. Regardless of whether they buy wine, we want our customers to appreciate our little niche on the wine map and recommend it to their friends when they return home. If the sales associate is doing their job they will recommend a winery they believe will suit the observed customers tastes. In a tasting room, these are considered qualified leads. If a neighbor has been doing a good job sending leads, some kind of reward is usually in order. Ordinarily, this is a bottle of wine…accompanied by more coupons, of course. This little marketing practice has been going on for years in tasting rooms. Probably without the knowledge of the marketing people upstairs staring at their spreadsheets. Until now!

It just so happens that one week last summer I received two referrals from a neighbor winery that both led to club signups. For those of you doing the math, that’s a 100% conversion rate! After sending the referrer some love, it suddenly occurred to my marketing software brain these referrals should be recorded in a way that even those upstairs people would understand. It’s no secret that qualified leads increase conversion rates and visa vie sales. So, why don’t we track where these leads are coming from and their performance over time? So naturally, I set to work on building a software solution.

Simple, Affordable, Useful…

…is the credo of Yno Software and I built Neighborly with it in mind. For just $15/month Neighborly provides wineries with the means to:

• Create referrers
• Create and print custom coupons for each referrer
• Track resulting referrer sales and conversions
• Track referred customer sales and conversions
• Compare referred to non-referrered results over time

All directly from within your Commerce7 admin panel. No additional subscription fees or outside websites to deal with.

Make Yno Neighborly part of your outreach program. Try measuring A/B comparisons with different coupon offers/referrers. For instance, a high-end tour guide might be more interested in shipping or case discounts than 2-for-1 tasting coupons. Neighborly even allows you target individuals in an organization. Perhaps issue one coupon for a restaurant and another for its Somm. The bottom line is Neighborly provides you with measurable results.

In The Pipeline

Right now, Neighborly coupons are a single, generic design. I intend to create brandable coupon templates in the next version that you can make your own. Other than that please let me know other enhancements you think will make Neighborly more valuable to you. I’m always listening!

The YnoGuy