Services

Importer Services

We help you support and improve wine sales to your target markets, with our experienced insights on agency management, planning and marketing.

Our Approach

We will help you identify and implement improvements to your strategic planning and marketing for your wine agency management, to gain the most from your producers in support of sales and marketing of your portfolio.

Strategic Business Planning

We provide guidance and insights on all aspects of agency management for small importers to facilitate your overall business planning or provide input and expertise for specific projects.

Strategic Marketing

We can advise on or work with producers to manage their expectations and establish good communication and cooperation, to have the right resources and information in place in support of your sales and marketing.

Communications

We can offer targeted communication to launch and support your wines via our extensive network of UK trade and press and provide insights on best practice to clearly communicate your specialist portfolio.

The Producer Toolkit: a structured and interactive approach to help small producers stand out in the UK wine market.

We capture that which is benchmark and unique, all the relevant technical and factual, as well as engaging and descriptive information. Their ‘Story’ is crystallised and communicated in two professional presented, simple formats, entirely tailored to you or your producer:

Producer Profile
Wine information (Tech) Sheets

We can offer linguistic support in both French and Spanish.

Strategic Business Planning

We provide guidance and insights on all aspects of agency management for small importers to facilitate your overall business planning or provide input and expertise for specific projects.

Import strategy and planning:

offer management – demand creation for the relevant channels, allocations and en primeur
forward planning – related stock purchasing, storage, and logistics management
financial planning – effective costing, pricing and margin calculation matched with viable shipping, invoicing and payment terms

Organisational systems and structuring:

Price list planning, development, and management
Data, stock and pricing information systems management
Producer and wine information and resources management to meet customer service demands

Project management:

Systematic, structured approach to forward planning and implementation
Pragmatic and cost-effective approach to delivery, working within a limited budget and resources

Strategic Marketing

We can advise on or work directly with producers to establish good communication, manage their expectations and ensure cooperation, to have the right resources and information in place to support sales and marketing of your portfolio.

Considerations for good strategic marketing to maximise working with your producers:

Clarifying mutual aims and objectives in your annual planning
Identifying and understanding your target markets for your area of specialism
awareness of relevant generic or regional promotional initiatives
annual planning for price list and offers timing and communication
Best practice to maximise limited budgets for marketing activity

Organisation and structure of your internal marketing systems to develop and maximise your resources in support of sales:

Customer and prospects database creation and refinement to facilitate efficient, ongoing management
Marketing resources library creation and refinement for efficient access to product information, digital images and bottle shots, press content, articles and awards

We can also offer guidance on creation and delivery of specific promotional activity including all aspects of event planning & organisation, tastings, seminars, dinners.

Communication

We can offer targeted communication to launch and support your wines via our extensive network of UK trade and press. We provide insights on best practice to clearly communicate your specialist portfolio.

A systematic approach to covering the groundwork for good communication in support of your sales initiatives:

improve visibility with the trade, wine writers and trade press
new agency launches, highlighting range developments or individual producer promotions
Simple and effective content planning for press releases, as well as email marketing and social media

Structure and systems to facilitate internal and external communication:

resources to support sales initiatives, sales team education, efficient customer service
developing producer rapport with sales team and customers in the market

Karen put the information together much quicker and more comprehensively than I could have managed in the time we had available. It gave us everything we needed ready for the arrival of the wines, to launch and support selling these new producers and regions.