It was about a year ago Yno Software launched its first app, Yno Neighborly. Personally, it was my first foray into wine app building. Unfortunately, its prospects for success were thwarted almost as fast as it was released. My first beta customer pulled out when we realized that Tock (the wine industry’s most popular reservation platform) does not sync coupons with Commerce7. Coupons are the key component used by neighborly to track referrals. Which means any coupons created in Tock cannot be tracked by Neighborly. Thus, Neighborly is of little use to anyone using Tock…which is almost everybody.

One could say I should’ve researched this a bit more before building. However, as a developer I just assumed Tock would sync coupons with reservations. After all, it is a no-brainer for any analytics–Neighborly or otherwise. And, from a developer’s perspective, it’s easy. Alas, it was not so and my horse was stumbling right out of the gate. Lesson learned. On to the next project. Fast forward to a month ago, I got some news on two fronts that brought life back to Neighborly.

• First was Tock is being phased out. In a year or so, wineries will either have to use Resy or find an alternative. Maybe there will be coupon syncing next time around. Fingers crossed.
• Second was an email from Dave Shefferman at WineSavage with a strange request. Could Neighborly be used to track affiliates? Affiliates? I suppose so, but I needed more info.

Turns out WineSavage has teamed up with David MacMillan and Cindy Martin at Vintres to create an affiliate program to help sell wines from small producers they have relationships with. Cindy has been an affiliate for her customers for some time and collectively they wanted to share their portfolio with more affiliates to sell to their own customers. Affiliates, in this case, are wine experts/influencers (think Somms and Masters) who have followers that trust their selection–and access–to rare wines not sold in stores. Once I understood what they were asking I experienced a head-slapping moment.

Affiliate/influencer marketing is all the rage right now. Most of it is centered around social media, but when you think about it, wine has ALWAYS been marketed by influencers. Even before social media ever existed. Think Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, Wine Enthusiast, etc.. These publications have never rated/recommended wine collectively, but through their individual influencers (Jim Laube, Robert Parker, etc..) whose palates are shared by their followers. WineSavage/Vintres take this a step further by transforming influencers into affiliates who not only recommend wine, but actually purchase it on behalf of their followers. They are not alone. There are many affiliate programs including WineExpress, WineOnSale, and even the WSJ that do something similar.

Getting back to Neighborly, this seems a bit out of scope…but is it? The premise of Neighborly is to improve the quality of traffic to a tasting room by tracking and qualifying industry referrers. But isn’t an affiliate basically the same as a referrer? A tasting room is just a sales location. An affiliate is a referrer that, instead of driving traffic to a location, actually performs the sale themselves. Therefore the performance of an affiliate is just as important as any other referrer. So I say, “come on in!” I am excited to announce the release of version 2 of Yno Neighborly…now with affiliate tracking. But, Neighborly doesn’t just track affiliates. It provides a platform for them to sign in and:

• Add their own customers to the CRM
• Order wines on behalf of their customers

Each affiliate only has access to their own customers and can enter orders on their behalf only through Neighborly–negating the need for Commerce7 admin access. It’s simply a way to enable other businesses and individuals to sell your wine on their own behalf. Meanwhile, Neighborly does the same tracking of affiliate performance as it does for any other referrer, as well as providing net sales info needed for commission attribution.

DISCLAIMER: Yno Software is not responsible for legal agreements between clients and their affiliates. It is strongly recommended clients get legal advice before starting their own affiliate program.

Version 2 has some additional updates:

• Report downloading
• Date range sorting for all referrers, referrals, and customers based on order date
• Sendgrid email support for affiliate invites and affiliate order confirmations (required for affiliate program use. If you don’t have a Sendgrid account, we can help set you up)

If you are using Commerce7 and are selling–or are thinking of selling–wine through affiliates, Neighborly is a must-have. At $25/month it is, by far, your most affordable option. That is, unless you love spreadsheets.

COMING SOON! We will be porting version 2 to Shopify in the coming months. Also, be on the lookout for our new app LiberoVino, an exciting new wine club alternative conjured up from my own personal experience as a wine club salesman.