A FRAMEWORK FOR ELECTRONIC MARKETING: EXPERIENCES OF AN EARLY INTERNET ADOPTING AUSTRALIAN WINERY

Abstract

This paper uses the case study method to detail the motivations and activities for electronic-marketing (e-marketing) by a small and successful Australian winery. The paper reports on the adoption and incorporation of the Internet into the operational activities of the winery and how the winery sells some 70% of its annual wine via direct online sales – a technique that uses email permission marketing in tandem with website ordering. Furthermore, the exemplary e-marketing practices identified can be quite easily emulated by other small wineries that may experience high product demand that allows them to reap high returns through a direct customer sales channel. The paper links successful e-marketing with winery business characteristics associated with profitability, direct sale channels and product demand – characteristics that are used as the foundations for proposing a small winery e-marketing model. Arguably, the experiences documented could be easily adopted by other wineries in various countries elsewhere in the world.