2. Club Amarone - wine club and businesses
A Swedish wine club founded in 2005
focuses on wines from the region of Valpolicella in northern Italy
feeds two businesses today
Wine Distributor - Wine Group Sweden AB
Travel Operator - Italy By Wine AB
profitable since the first year with a current yearly turn-over of
almost 1.000.000€
operated on spare-time by the 3 founders.
3. The founders
Club Amarone was founded back in 2005 by
Håkan Bjurström, founder of SEO company
Martina Ciccarello-Montelius, online marketing and social
media consultant
Fredrik Montelius, COO of IT-company
4. The objective of this session is to
Explain how we created a group of wine consumers
interested in a specific type of wine
and share how we managed to turn this idea into a profitable
business!
5. The journey from 2005 2008
2012
2013
2006
2009
2007
2005
2011
2010
SalesAmaronewith web with 50% clubamarone.se allowing the
Systembolaget launches
Collaboration own 10 at the monopoly
Sales volume
Five products increased shopown e-commerce
Launch of ouravailable producers in Valpolicella platform
Sales membersis foundedits on
Club volume doubled
4.800 volume up 150%
2.300 members in orders AmaroneSystembolaget products products
50% drop in sales Club online
members to Valpolicella Amarone in to 30 members eachright
Systembolaget
400 members in involume, 6 a group of get select the time
3.200 members Club Amarone to model tosales volume back
1.200 members launches a months Sweden (to find
Several Amarone-tasting sessions
Two trips to place Club with new
Introduction Martina leave Sweden level of aClubof 30 30and then to
5.500 new members)
for
Firstthestandard trip to Valpolicellawith group of members
Fourthmembers inassortiment a group in 30 members and
Secondand to Valpolicella with
withthe organized Club Amarone
Fredrik trip of Gold to Valpolicella move to Amarone
4.000organized trip Membership towithgroupCanada
One trip
Two tripsthe Valpolicellainown Amarone30 the on
6 products the Club’s the group of aged club
members tooflaunched with a members of members eachmonopoly
Sales of to first product at Systembolaget - the Swedish
Barcelona
production Valpolicella for standard assortiment Swedish oak
Thirdcustomized in Club withimportantof 30 members firm
One trip to Valpolicella an a group Swedish bank
6.000 members Valpolicella for
First B2B trip to trip for Amarone major Swedish law
One trip to Valpolicella for the members
One B2B trip to Valpolicella for an important Swedish bank
2005 - 2013
6. The Swedish market
Sweden has a total population of about 9.6 million
Systembolaget has the monopoly to sell alcohol beverages to
private persons. This is done via 420 shops all around the
country.
Systembolaget purchases its products from distributors and
import-companies
Systembolaget has two assortments
Standard assortment where the products are available in
the shops
Order assortment where the importer delivers wine to
Systembolaget for each end-customer order
7. Why starting “Club Ama..what” ?
First reason, we love Amarone!
Great interest and demand for Amarone in Sweden
60% of sales of red wine over 25€ in Sweden is Amarone
Since 1996 sales of Amarone have increased by 4000% in
Sweden
Our idea was, and still is, to build a wine community
to drive and increase the demand for products from
small top quality producers from the Valpolicella
8. How do we do it?
Website clubamarone.se – to get new members
Biweekly newsletter – to drive sales
Tasting sessions 6-8 times per year in Sweden – to
strength the members’ loyalty by sharing a great
Amarone experience and make the members talk about it
in their network of wine lovers
WineWine
distribution
distribution
business
business
Gold membership – to build loyalty through premium
offerings and a unique ownership of Amarone aged on
Swedish oak
Wine trips to the Valpolicella – to share the best possible
travel-food-wine experience in the Valpolicella
Travel
Travel
busines
business
s
9. clubamarone.se - to get new
members
High Google search ranking
Relevant contents
Technical structure of the web site
Other websites linking to our site
Conversion from visitor to sign-up
Conversion from visitor to customer
Recurring visitors
Information bank and articles
Travel recommendations
10. Biweekly Newsletters - to drive sales
Open Rate (30-40%)
Subject line is important
Interesting and relevant content
for the reader with a mix of latest
news, trends and producer
portraits
Time of the day when newsletter
is sent is not important for us
Click Through Rate (1-8%)
Attractive offerings / products
The overall presentation of the
products
12. Gold
To build loyaltymembership
Yearly fee: 200 EUR
Receive the most important information and product
launches in advance
Special travel discounts in the Valpolicella
20% discount on wine
Special 3-night package at B&Bs with
tasting, lunch&wine tour
Amarone aged in Swedish oak
Since 20008 we have been producing a unique
Amarone that is stored in Swedish oak
13. Each year a new artist is invited to
express its interpretation of the
wine
2008: Designer
2009: Composer
2010: Poet
Yearly production of 300 bottles
are available only for Gold
members
Vintage 2009
Vintage 2008
Draft - vintage 2010
14. Amarone tasting sessions - to build
loyalty
Tasting sessions are presented by Henrik
Ungerth, the leading Amarone expert in
Sweden
Vertical tastings, old vintages, rare and often
expensive Amarone
6-8 times per year in Sweden
To share a “Great Amarone Experience”
that members remember and talk about
To build loyalty and a community feeling
among the members
15. Travel
Yearly trips to Valpolicella for the members to share the best possible
travel-food-wine experience
Some members joins these trips year after year
We now get requests from companies that want to share a unique and
high quality experience with their customers or employees
17. Techn
ology
Macro trends
Technology
85% of the adult population has
access to the internet and 50% has
a smart phone
Easier living and well-being
People are feeling the impact of
time pressure and a clear trend is
also the desire to treat themselves
with something that makes them
feel good.
Servic
e and
expert
ise
Easier
living
Macro
Trends
Individ
ual
and
image
Wellbeing
New purchasing habits
Simplicity and a high quality
interaction are important
Communication must be
mobile compatible
More people are looking for a
good, quick and uncomplicated
approach: join wine
tastings, receive wine
recommendations in the
phone, travel with a group to
share a unique food&wine
experience
18. Techn
ology
Macro trends
Servic
e and
expert
ise
Individ
ual
and
image
Easier
living
Macro
Trends
Wellbeing
Individual and image
Many people are keen to use their
consumption and their consumer
behavior to create an identity, a
sense of belonging.
Food and drink habits are a
common way of marking where
we belong. Wine clubs fill an
important role.
Service and expertise
Customers don’t want to feel like
part of a crowd: they want the
interaction to make them feel
special – feel “chosen”. They want
easy access to the guidance and
advice they need.
The winners will be those
companies who dare to be
personal, and who see the
customer behind the computer
screen. Through the club you can
meet your customer and share
experiences together.
19. 2014, 2015 and beyond…
1. Wine clubs will continue to play important role in
the Swedish wine business – it can be great way
to meet the wine lovers and your customers
2. Our members are our best clients and “sales force”
3. We will continue to do what we and do it better
4. We will try to expand our concept into new
markets!
Good morningeveryonebody and welcome to this session about Wine clubs!First of all I would like to thank Faye, Marc and the team of WBIS for giving me the opportunity participate to this summit today.I also want to Thank you all,in advance, for your attention.My name is Fredrik, I am one of the founders of the wine club called Club Amarone.
Almost 1mln euro it is still quite a small business but we are still running I ton our spare time.
Our wine club was founded back in 2005 by my husband Fredrik and his university mate Håkan both wine enthusiasts truly and deeply in love with amarone joined by me who fell-in-love-with-an amarone-lover!
Let me take you quickly through this journey started in 2005.The first year we launched the website and started the club. We travelled to Vinitaly where we met a15 producers from Valpolicella, we explained our vision about the club and we managed to collect many samples. We organized tasting sessions inviting friends and the friends of their friends to taste the different AMARONE and select the products that would be interested for our potential customers.2006 we continued to do wine tasting and launched 5 products in the monopoly. The club kept on growing and we organized the first trip to Valpolicella to let people know by person the producer and share with them the history and the way the wine are produced in Valpolicella.In 2007 the club grew and tripled the number of members just WOF, at that time social media were at the very beginning of their diffusion and we organized the second trip to ValpolicellaIn 2008 We introduced a Gold Membership level in the club that gives the members premium services and offerings and also the opportunity to be part of a funny and unique porject of producing our own Amarone aged on Swedish oak2009 high lights was to get married with my wife Martina in Valpolicella under the sun in 35 degrees sharing amarone with our best friendsme and Fredrik move to Canada for one year. We are still able to continue with the club2012 Systembolaget introduces its own e-commerce platform and forces this to be the only allowed system for placing orders in SwedenThe members must learn a new system to place their orders and we see a 50% drop in sales volumes. It takes about 6 months to get the members used to the new system and get volumes back up
Top priority is to maintain a high ranking on Google SERP and we try to do it by …
We are lucky to collaborate with your and talented people – this is Camilla the owner of Massima that we just launched this week
This is our history and what we have done since 2005 and now I would like to share with you what we see in Sweden in terms of Macro trends that are likely relevant for other countries.I am talking about few reflections how the wine clubs fills an important role in the world of wine.