Strategic Online Promotions Create Viral Marketing Impact

Thanks to Reingold's strategic online outreach, New York Vintners' wine-tasting events have become a hot ticket in Manhattan and triggered a viral effect on social networking websites. By strategically selecting online outreach channels, negotiating partnerships, and tracking responses to optimize results, Reingold earned New York Vintners the kind of exposure that money just can't buy.

To market the wine-tasting classes, Reingold complemented email blasts to New York Vintners’ customer base with online listings and emails through carefully selected partner organizations such as LocalWineEvents.com. We linked the partner websites to the online event registration system we built, and then monitored response rates to identify and leverage the online channels that worked best.

We reached an additional 50,000 savvy consumers through promotions on Groupon.com. The Groupon website offers coupons to a capped number of respondents, but only after a minimum number of people sign up—ensuring that coupon sponsors achieve a high enough volume to meet their costs. We used Groupon to not only expand New York Vintners’ reach, but also spark interest among the additional online consumers who saw thousands of respondents signing up for the wine-tasting events and wanted to find out what the excitement was all about.

The buzz continued as event participants and new fans began writing New York Vintners reviews on wine blogs, Yelp.com, and other social networking sites. In recent months more than 6,000 budding wine enthusiasts purchased tickets to New York Vintners' classes, while tens of thousands more discovered the Tribeca-based wine retailer's distinctive offerings.