Bye Bye Williams Selyem

Paul_McCourt · September 14, 2015, 5:15pm

The issue that I have with that many reminders is that I’m more likely to go back into their site, look around again, forget my promise to not order this time sround, then end up with I bunch of bottles I swore I didn’t want or need.

Chris_Seiber · September 14, 2015, 6:28pm

I am more interested in the fact that they emailed you to tell you you’re kicked off the list for not ordering. That might rub me the wrong way a little. I guess it means they have more than enough customers that they can slam the door like that, and if so, good for them, but that was what surprised me a little bit in seeing the original post.

Rama, how recently did you last order from them, and what kind of overall buying history did you have? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want, but I was wondering if maybe this was your first offer and you had to take it to stay on the list, or if they booted someone who had been a buying customer for failing to order this fall.

R_Roberts · September 14, 2015, 6:47pm

Hi Chris,

I wasn’t booted from the list, I unsubscribed from their mailing myself. AKA ragequit.

Marshall_Gelb · September 14, 2015, 7:12pm

I have to agree with Matt. It seems like no big deal… What if you get no allocation next year? Will you be all upset again?

Cheers!
Marshall

Frank_Murray_III · September 14, 2015, 7:36pm

What Selyem displayed to Rama is no different than what the other advertisers these days due to all of us…which is to constantly run noise at us until we relent (or quit as Rama did). Try watching the US Open the last 2 weeks. See how many times you have to be subjected to Serena Williams and the Chase ad that shows the app of how she paid her $200 bill. Or, Voya Financial, or MBZ. It is constant.

Rama, good for you by saying no more and quitting Selyem.

PS–look no further than my own WOTY list below. I can tell you emphatically that Mike Officer, Kevin Harvey, Wells Guthrie, TRB/Will Segui, Kelly P and Larry Shaffer did not blast with me noise to get me to order. They get it.

Bud_Carey · September 14, 2015, 8:13pm

Frank… would you include Mike Smith on that list?

Frank_Murray_III · September 14, 2015, 8:50pm

Bud, sorry, I don’t understand. What list? Mine that I listed off or are you saying Mike Smith is practicing the same approach of Selyem?

Bud_Carey · September 14, 2015, 10:27pm

No no… the good list!!

Sean_Malloy · September 16, 2015, 4:05pm

I’m not sure it’s a sales thing. I haven’t ordered my Cayuse yet and I am on email #4 from them…and they surely are selling out with a long waiting list. WS certainly makes sure you know their wines are available and you haven’t ordered yet. I’m cool with that. I get 500 emails a day, so one more doesn’t bug me. I’m fine with the reminders. I’m also fine with the OP saying enough is enough and moving on. Good for them if they don’t want to be bothered like that. Obviously WS marketing works with some customers and turns others off.

Anthony_Lombardi · September 16, 2015, 4:31pm

E-mail on repeat becomes white noise. It affects people from David’s indifference to Rama’s annoyance. I would love to hear from Williams Selyem’s marketing partner on what the take rate is on all those follow ups. I only saw Williams Selyem, pretty much any winery would apply.

Fred_Bower · September 17, 2015, 4:54am

We need to bring the boutique back to boutique wineries. I want to be able to tell them how to communicate with me - medium, frequency, timing, conditions under which to cease and desist or deviate from the course. Extra points if any of the following are supported:

Carrier Pigeon
Smoke Signal
Subpoena
Strip-O-Gram
Fax
Burning Bush

Come to think of it, the above might all be plausible names for some vinous venture.

Rama, don’t sign up for Rhys unless you can tolerate 50% more than your ideal number of communiques.

Cheers,
fred

Jay_T · September 17, 2015, 1:10pm

The snark about the number of emails misses the real point of the OP. WS sent out at least 4,“last call” -type emails. I thought it was weird too. They were a bit annoying, but more than that, they made it seem like things aren’t going well for WS so they felt like they needed to create a false sense of urgency/scarcity. I agree with those that think it makes W-S look bad. This certainly was not like previous releases.

larry_schaffer · September 17, 2015, 1:33pm

This is definitely an interesting thread - and one that is obviously striking a cord with many. I dig what many have to say, and will agree with the sentiments Jay T mentioned above - it simply does not ‘look good’ when you send out 4 ‘last call’ emails.

I think we can all agree that in marketing, repetition ‘works’ in general. Frank pointed out the ads during the US Open - this is repeated day in and day out across all networks and all types of programming.

The idea is to catch your attention - and a ‘last call’ is certainly meant to do that. But 4 of them? Tis a bit like ‘crying wolf’ and it not only loses its desired effect, but, as is pointed out, does not come across as ‘genuine’ - and to me, that’s the biggest issue here.

I oftentimes send out a few emails to my wine club members reminding them about my offerings - but that’s because I do not auto-ship folks and I need to hear from my wine club members before getting them any wines (I offer multiple options each shipment). I will usually send one out via a mailing service such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, and then another one out via Gmail or something similar. There is a good chance that at least one will end up in a ‘spam’ folder - and I here this with each offering. Therefore, it really is necessary to send out more than one to ensure at least one gets through

Just my thoughts this AM . . .

Cheers.

Frank_Murray_III · September 17, 2015, 2:43pm

Larry, you were one of my examples of what good looks like IMO. For some, like Sean, he is cool with the noise. I am not. In general, I have a high distaste and low threshold for the prevailing marketing strategies you mention, that we see today all around us. By the way, also add Pisoni to my short list. They send a few emails, that’s it. I still get the Selyem emails, although I don’t count them but since I have not ordered in many years, and seeing what they are doing to some people, I will now unsubscribe.

PS–let me offer one other curiosity here. I looked at Selyem in Cellartracker. How many SKUs do they now have? 20? 30? It didn’t fit on my laptop screen. Is their strategy a result of trying to move all those different wines?

Jay_T · September 17, 2015, 3:20pm

This is a really good question. People complain a lot about W-S’s ever expanding lineup. I find it overwhelming too and stick with 3-4 wines each release (but skipped single vineyards this year). But one thing that hasn’t had much discussion is how having an enormous lineup works with the exclusive mailing list model from a business perspective. I suspect it creates problems, especially in two situations:

Some of your wines are far more sought after than others; and/or
Some of your wines are made in far greater quantities than others.

These are just logical musings without any inside knowledge (so I’m prepared to be corrected), but I was thinking about this exact issue this morning before Frank posted. It seems to me that either of the two situations logically leads to a mailing list that breeds resentment (which appears to be happening with W-S) and/or instability. Either you have too few people who can’t/won’t hang for long buying each year’s production of so many different wines and will stop buying large quantities of the high production/low demand wines (or buying altogether), or you add too many people and either (a) you have to restrict the smaller production/highly sought after wines to a small subset, which actually creates instability among both the insiders and outsiders (insiders because they have to buy enormous quantities of wine they don’t want to stay insiders; outsiders because they have to buy enormous quantities of wine you don’t want to become insiders), or (b) you don’t do fixed allocations (like W-S) and the highly sought after stuff sells out immediately, after which you have to beg people to buy the rest.

Some of this can be “fixed” by pricing, i.e. adjusting the prices of high supply/low demand wines downward until demand meets supply and doing the converse with the low supply/high demand wines, although this is dangerous in a customer loyalty-based model too. But in general, it seems to me that wineries that operate on a mailing list model would have it easier if (a) they kept the number of distinct wines down to a level that every reasonably committed non-ITB member of the mailing list can purchase at least some of everything without having to purchase 50+ bottles a year, and (b) kept both their production levels and perceived quality levels fairly consistent across each level of a pricing pyramid (usually with high production blends at the bottom and 1 or 2 flagship wines at the top).

If I’m right about this at all, it does pose some theoretical limits on business growth. In other words, you can theoretically keep growing by increasing production of your existing wines or increase profitability by building a cult-like following and then raising prices. But what you can’t do is keep growing by buying/sourcing from new vineyards ad infinitum. At some point, you are just making too many wines for a single mailing list. I wonder if some of the Napa guys – like TRB – haven’t already figured this out: the answer is that at some point, if you want to keep growing, you just need to start another winery “label” with its own mailing list.

NickC · September 17, 2015, 4:24pm

I quit buying W-S wines, unsubscribed from their list, and explained my reasons directly to them in 2013. I received emails from them on the following dates:

1/29/13
2/11/13
2/13/13
2/19/13
2/25/13
2/26/13
3/4/13
3/5/13
3/6/13
3/7/13
3/8/13

On 3/8/2013, I unsubscribed.

Jeff_Vaughan · September 17, 2015, 4:58pm

I haven’t bought from them the last few releases. I lost count how many times they have emailed me for last call. I still enjoy the wines, but if I am going to pay $60-80 on a bottle there are just too many other places I’d rather spend it.

Sean_lizamore · September 17, 2015, 5:03pm

That’s horrible, that should seriously be illegal, I don’t know how places get away with it.

ncostanzo1 · September 19, 2015, 6:01pm

+100 to this a lot!

ncostanzo1 · September 19, 2015, 6:07pm

Jay T.:

Frank Murray III:

PS–let me offer one other curiosity here. I looked at Selyem in Cellartracker. How many SKUs do they now have? 20? 30? It didn’t fit on my laptop screen. Is their strategy a result of trying to move all those different wines?

This is a really good question. People complain a lot about W-S’s ever expanding lineup. I find it overwhelming too and stick with 3-4 wines each release (but skipped single vineyards this year). But one thing that hasn’t had much discussion is how having an enormous lineup works with the exclusive mailing list model from a business perspective. I suspect it creates problems, especially in two situations:

Some of your wines are far more sought after than others; and/or

Some of your wines are made in far greater quantities than others.

These are just logical musings without any inside knowledge (so I’m prepared to be corrected), but I was thinking about this exact issue this morning before Frank posted. It seems to me that either of the two situations logically leads to a mailing list that breeds resentment (which appears to be happening with W-S) and/or instability. Either you have too few people who can’t/won’t hang for long buying each year’s production of so many different wines and will stop buying large quantities of the high production/low demand wines (or buying altogether), or you add too many people and either (a) you have to restrict the smaller production/highly sought after wines to a small subset, which actually creates instability among both the insiders and outsiders (insiders because they have to buy enormous quantities of wine they don’t want to stay insiders; outsiders because they have to buy enormous quantities of wine you don’t want to become insiders), or (b) you don’t do fixed allocations (like W-S) and the highly sought after stuff sells out immediately, after which you have to beg people to buy the rest.

Some of this can be “fixed” by pricing, i.e. adjusting the prices of high supply/low demand wines downward until demand meets supply and doing the converse with the low supply/high demand wines, although this is dangerous in a customer loyalty-based model too. But in general, it seems to me that wineries that operate on a mailing list model would have it easier if (a) they kept the number of distinct wines down to a level that every reasonably committed non-ITB member of the mailing list can purchase at least some of everything without having to purchase 50+ bottles a year, and (b) kept both their production levels and perceived quality levels fairly consistent across each level of a pricing pyramid (usually with high production blends at the bottom and 1 or 2 flagship wines at the top).

If I’m right about this at all, it does pose some theoretical limits on business growth. In other words, you can theoretically keep growing by increasing production of your existing wines or increase profitability by building a cult-like following and then raising prices. But what you can’t do is keep growing by buying/sourcing from new vineyards ad infinitum. At some point, you are just making too many wines for a single mailing list. I wonder if some of the Napa guys – like TRB – haven’t already figured this out: the answer is that at some point, if you want to keep growing, you just need to start another winery “label” with its own mailing list.

Excellent points made Jay and the last bit about starting another “label” gave me a good laugh because I thought the same thing about other producers out there!

One question to pose, would a winery like WS ever consider lowing the price of ANY wine they make? I honestly don’t think so even if supply/demand for their wines changed significantly.