Listening to Cape Talk is one of my favourite pasttimes, from catching up on the latest and most informative financial trends with Bruce Whitfield, to seeing if John Maytham can be caught out with a clever Rapid Fire question, to Kieno Kammies' morning program where his passion for education, development and entrepreneural activities is tangible.
So I was very honoured when we were chosen to participate in the Business Accelerator program which Cape Talk and Nedbank sponsor. Running a small business can be quite a subjective and lonely affair, and it is always good to get an outsider's view on what one is doing. We were featured a few years ago and Pavlo Phitidis from Aurik Investment Holdings checks in with me every year or so.
Click HERE to listen to the podcast of our 2016 Business Accelerator interview.
Having these reviews forces you to look at your business objectively and take stock, and I was pretty proud to review what we had achieved in the last 18 months or so.
- We have shifted our development into being totally Mobi-Responsive, and have already implemented 2 new winery websites which are simple and easy to view on any device. Take a look at www.romond.co.za and www.kleinwelmoed.co.za and there are 4 others coming very soon to a screen near you. Thanks Andre Liebenberg from Romond for your kind words: 'I am most appreciative of the good-natured tolerance of my demands— seldom have I enjoyed such an easy ride to something of which I can be truly proud. Thank you again — I am pleased to be associated with a highly competent team and look forward to a long and fruitful partnership.'
If you are keen to consider this option - click HERE
- With over 70% of searches on the internet being done from a mobile device, it makes sense to move everything across to being mobi-responsive. As per Pavlo's advice in the interview, we are already working on specific areas to run almost independently of each other. Our Online Shop is already done, our Nose Your Wine Videos and our Spotlight environments are already fully mobi-responsive and we should have quite a few more areas done over the next few months.
- Tranformation in the wine world is relatively slow, but the one area where I see change and growth is in the hospitality sector. With a view to making wine even more accessible to the young wine waiter, whose background may not have any wine connection, I worked with Xolani Mancotywa (Best Young Sommelier 2013) on a series of educational videos called Nose Your Wine. They answer quite a few basic questions like What is Wine?; What is a Cultivar?; How to open a bottle of bubbly, etc. These videos are available freely on wine.co.za in our Nose Your Wine Learn environment, on Youtube and can also be purchased as a set on a flash drive if need be.
Each video is about 3 minutes long and they have been well received by various sectors; viz hospitality training schools, wine distributors, retailers, waiters, young sommeliers and restaurants. Pick 'n Pay and top wine distributor Meridian also use them for their staff training.
- We partnered with Conversations SA at their events in Cape Town and our Global Partner's wines were selected to be presented to this wine-loving group at their monthly networking sessions for LGBTI professionals.
- We have created a number of Spotlight environments where we showcase themes, events, awards, organisations and festivals and have partnered with a few organisations like the South African Wine Tasting Competition, The South African Sommelier Association, Pebbles, PYDA, and also worked with Showcook & Cape Legends Interhotel Challenge, where young chefs and wine stewards from top hotels around the country compete against each other. The inaugural competition, held in 2013, had Tinashe Nyamudoka win it, who is currently the rock star somm at the famed The Test Kitchen. The wine steward candidates also receive training during the competition by the SA Sommeliers Association and the Cape Wine Academy. The awards for the 2016 competition are being announced at a glittering affair at the Belmond Mount Nelson on the 29th July.
- These Spotlight environments are a simple, easy and dynamic way to showcase, house and promote any event, festival or theme, and we are delighted to have sold a number of these this year. See HERE if you are keen to know more.
- Have you ever wondered which wine to pair with boerewors, pizza, sushi, tofu or pork pie? Look no further - we have all the answers for you! We partnered with our crazy French friend Jean Vincent Ridon, who not only was the runner-up in the inaugural Best South African Sommelier Competition this year, but also created 12 Extreme Pairing Videos for us. These have been our most viewed and shared videos on wine.co.za!
- Our readership is continuing to grow, from 30K unique readers per month to a top spot of 45K in Dec 2015 and we serve almost 2 million pages of wine info annually, to keen wine-lovers and professionals.
- Our Social media presence has blossomed from 11K a year ago to over 13.4K followers on Twitter presently, so do follow us to keep up with what is what in the wine world! And our Google+ environment has literally gone from zero to hero in 2 years - we now have had nearly 1million views with 37K followers.
- Our YouTube channel views have nearly doubled in the last year - from 30K just a year ago to almost 60K now!
- We attended 2 of the TOPS at Spar Wine Shows where we signed up 100s of wine lovers and took lots of fun pics to remind them! And of course our ever-present feathers were a great hit! If you are in PE (4-6 Aug), Pretoria (25-27 Aug) or Nelspruit (24-26 Nov) - Come and say hi, grab a funky feather and stand a chance to win some excellent wines.
- Collaboration is definitely the name of the game and we continue to work closely with VinPro & WineTech showcasing the SA CellarWorker program, the VinPro Foundation, Wine Training SA, Wineland, the Soweto Wine Revolution and a few more in progress!
- Our Online Shop saw our best ever wine-selling month in June 2016, with the De Morgenzon's World's best Chardonnay flying out of the door!
We could not do all this without our dedicated team at wine.co.za, and thank them for their hard work and loyalty!
We have many (almost 200) loyal winery clients whose information and websites we look after, without whom we would not exist - so to them also a big shout out of thanks for their continued support.
We remain very busy and look forward to 2017 when we celebrate 21 years of being in business!
Do contact me, Judy Brower, for further info.