Cybersurf

Making money on the internet has always been harder than it appears – for most people anyway – but I came across a really fascinating blog call gapingvoid.com yep, that’s it – gaping void dot com – that tells readers how a South African vineyard managed to use bloggers to double its sales in one year.

But before we go there, allow me to tell you that the gapingvoid web site is worth a visit even in you’re not interested in the wine story.

Gaping void is the personal blog of Hugh Mcleod who set up the site to show surfers how clever he is at drawing cartoons on business cards. I never quite worked out why he does this, but his comments are amusing, including the story about Stormhoek – the vineyard that doubled its sales in only one year.

Incidentally – Stormhoek has its own site at Stormhoek dot com.

What they did was compile a list of one hundred bloggers. In order to make the list, the person had to be a regular blogger and had to be over the legal drinking age – it did not matter how many visitors the site actually had.

They drew up the list and sent each person a bottle of Stormhoek wine – absolutely no conditions attached. The recipient was not asked to taste the wine nor write about it – they were not even expected to drink the stuff.

But of course quite a few bloggers did write about the wine and all of a sudden there was a buzz – in at least two senses of the word – on the internet, about this wine

And as a result of this buzz – sales increased and we have a great example on how to use the internet for marketing.

The Stormhoek site itself is quite unconventional – at least when compared to other wine related sites.

It has a very informative section discussing advances in winemaking that have enabled the development of new wine styles. It has news about wine tasting events and other such sections that one would expect from a vineyard – but then it also uses certain four letter words and has links to sites that the SABC firewall won’t allow me to see.

The site is liberally decorated with cartoon business cards from the gaping void and several references to the value of viral marketing online.

The Gaping void owner explains the success of the Stormhoek marketing campaign in a note to himself – and I quote:

"Blogging as a marketing tool is easier when you think of it as a chemical catalyst, not as a hammer and nail."

And there you have it – a review of a wine site from someone who doesn’t drink the stuff. But if I have held your attention so far, you probably do like wine so I suggest you click along to wine dot co dot za – yes, it’s as easy as that wine dot co dot za

It is an extensive South African wine portal that has absolutely everything from wine tasting clubs to grape traders and maps of wine routes. They did not leave out anything.

And that wraps up the wino edition of Cybersurf – Have a glass for me and do join me again next week, same time same place for more on the best of the web.

// posted by Steven Lang @ 11:20 am