From the brainchild of Richard Stabile of Long Island Distillers makers of LiV vodka, Rough Bourbon and Pine Barrens Single Malt comes one of the best Rye’s I’ve tasted all year. What makes this rye so special is its aging and select finishing in wine barrels. The spirit is first aged for a minimum of four years in newly charred American oak casks. After aging it’s then finished in selected merlot and chardonnay casks. The result is a rye with a tremendous depth of flavor and a lingering finish. Speaking of “finish’, I just finished another bottle myself and the results are thus. Enjoy!
APPERANCE: A light copper color with legs that scurry down the glass. Swirling gives a nice feel of the depth of the spirit within.
NOSE: Initial flavors of oak, vanilla and spicy heat emerge. Second nose gives toasted wood, bread and some dried fruits.
TASTE: First sip is buttery with apricot some caramel and “merlot” flavors in its expression. The mouth feel is rich with flavors that demonstrates its balance. Both sides of the cheeks are coated with butter and spice that caress not overpowers the senses. The finish goes on forever with a velvety texture and flavors of caramel, toasted oak, butter and heat all at once. This is one of the most balanced and complex Rye’s I’ve tasted.
CONCLUSION: With Bull Moose Three Barrel Rye Long Island Distillers has produced probably my favorite spirit to date. This Rye delivers a cacophony of flavors on the palate and lingers on and on. This exceeded my expectations of rye and what can be done with it. The finishing in wine casks creates tastes and nuances that makes this a true sipping spirit. I’ve enjoyed most everything Rich Stabile has been putting out as of late but if I had to venture off with the “Rough Riders” and could bring only one spirit, this would be the bottle that I’d saddle up with.
In our last post, we looked at how to use Facebook to increase brand awareness and communicate with your fans and customers. In this post, we’ll take an in-depth look at how to use Instagram to connect with current and potential customers and drive sales.
First, a few basics on Instagram that should shape your strategy. Instagram is unique in that it is entirely image based. This makes it extremely valuable for enticing other Instagram users to purchase your product. This also means that Instagram is not the platform you want to use to make basic announcements about your business, unless you have marketing images appropriate to Instagram.
So now let’s talk about how to get your Instagram account set up!
We’ll start our how-to with the most important tips you need to know to set up and, just as important, launch your Instagram presence. From there we’ll look at a few tips for quickly building a large following of relevant users (i.e. potential customers). Then we’ll look at the part you’re excited about: how to make money on Instagram. Just remember: each step below is important.
Setup
It goes without saying that your username should ideally be the name of your company. This will help your customers and fans find you easily. Aside from that, follow these basic guidelines:
Important: skip the “find friends” screens that will pop up immediately after creating your account. This comes later.
Your “bio” section should include a brief description of your company, and if possible either your marketing slogan or the handles for your Twitter and other social accounts.
Be sure to add your website to the “website” field.
In your account settings, connect your Instagram account to your Twitter feed unless you plan on posting images separately on Twitter (better, but takes a lot more time).
Upload at least eight or nine photos creative captions to your account. Please: make your photos good. Bad photos count against your brand, not for it.
Launch
Now that your profile is set up, it is time to launch. Go into your options menu and tap “find friends.” From there, hit “Facebook friends.” You’ll be prompted to connect your Facebook account to you Instagram profile. Do it.
Now you’ll see a screen with a list of all of your Facebook friends on Instagram. Hit the “Follow All” button. This will act as a notification for all of your friends on Instagram to check out your account, and since you’ve already posted content, they will likely hit the “Follow” button back!
But we can boost your initial following even more. Here are some ideas:
Go back to the “find friends” screen, and add friends from your phone contact list. Hit the “follow all” button again.
Announce on your other social networks that you have launched your Instagram presence. Be sure to include your best photo in the post so people have an immediate understanding of the value of your content.
Use any company email lists to send an email blast to your current customers and contacts. If you go this route, be sure that your email is polished and professional. After all, if your email isn’t visually appealing, why would anyone want to follow you on Instagram?
Build
Immediately following your launch, you will notice a big bump in your follower count as your friends and fans connect with your account. This is good, but it is only the beginning!
Here are a few best practices to remember that will help you build your Instagram audience:
Post at least once a day. Two or even three times if possible, while maintaining relevant content.
Use hash tags. Hash tags group photos from different users under similar interests, and will help other users find you. A few common cigar related hashtags are: #cigar, #cigars, #cigaraficionado, #cigarsociety, #cigarian. There are many, many more.
Like photos under hash tags like #cigars. Every time you like someone’s photo, they get a notification. Many times, getting a like will pique a person’s interest, and they will often follow you after visiting your profile. This is one of the fastest ways to grow a profile.
Link your Instagram account to your Facebook and Twitter profiles. This will cross polinate your social media followings.
If someone comments on one of your photos, RESPOND! The users who comment on your photos are the most likely to become your next loyal customers. Don’t shut them out or they’ll lose interest and go somewhere else.
If you’ve done this well, you should end up with something like this (another account I built):
Entice
Ok, so you’ve followed the steps above and you have yourself a solid Instagram account running. Now you might be wondering, “How do I sell my product on Instagram?” It’s pretty easy and just takes a bit more work.
Take badass pictures. Nothing is more attractive to a customer than a picture of your product on an exotic beach, on top of a skyscraper, with a famous celebrity, or in any other unique situation. If your pictures are blurry or just plain unenticing, don’t expect anyone to want to purchase your product.
Reach out to your commentors. After a week or two, you’ll notice that other Instagram users are commenting on your photos. If users are interested enough to interact with you – they’re probably interested enough or almost interested enough to buy your product. Start keeping a list of the individuals who comment on your photos. When you have a solid list of 10-15 names, start tagging them in your photos or mentioning them in the comments below your next shot. Here’s a good example of how this works (see below).
Recommend cigars to your Instagram followers. Imagine you have a personalized retail experience online, where a professional is reaching out to you and recommending a product. How likely are you to take the recommendation? Statistically, the answer is “very likely.” Try posting a picture of a cigar, and recommending the cigar to a few of your followers using the @ mention.
Post your crazy awesome deals. You must run sales at some point or another, right? Well, it’s likely that one or all of your sales is worth a mention on social media. Next time you run a cigar sale, take a picture of the cigars that are on sale and drop a caption using non-salesy language. Avoid “x cigar is on sale today. hooray.” and go with something like “Do you love the Fuente Opus X?! Well get your ass down to the shop because they’re half off!” (admittedly, this would be a truly sick deal, but it’s just an example).
Here’s an example from a client I was managing on recommendations/tagging:
Keep in mind, these are only ways to get direct sales on Instagram (where someone says, “yes, I will buy that). Social is powerful, however, in that it leads to many indirect sales by heightening the exposure of your brand in general (more visibility, trust, yada yada).
So there you have it. An awesome guide on how to use Instagram to look badass, be badass, and sell lots of cigars (or anything else, honestly). Pretty simple right? The key here is to be creative and actually interact with your audience. After all, it’s called social media for a reason!
In our next post, we’ll look at strategies for using Google+ effectively and giving your company an exposure boost.
In our last post, we looked at the importance and uses of the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+. In this article, we’ll look at how to set up and launch your page, as well as a few practices for managing an effective (read:profitable) Facebook page.
This post is an introduction to best practices on Facebook. This post does not cover the nuances of Facebook advertising, integration with mailing lists and other social tools, or analytics – if you have a specific question on that, email me.
So now to get started. Order of operations is important with social media, so the next few posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Google+ will discuss setup and launch separately.
Setup
Cigar shops should register as “Local Business or Place.” Otherwise, register as a brand or product.
Setting up a Facebook page is fairly simple. First, go to this page to start your setup. After you have selected your page type, here are a few important steps:
Do NOT invite all of your current friends and contacts to “like” your page before it is completely set up. You have one chance at a first impression with your most loyal contacts, so you must make it count.
Include all business contact information in the relevant information sections. Everything. This means phone, website, email, physical address, p.o. box, fax. Everything.
Upload your company logo as your profile picture.
Upload a striking/interesting image for a cover photo that represents your product well. Make sure your image is high definition and not blurry (if it is a photo).
Add admins to your page using the “manage admin permissions” page in your page settings. Note: admins must have already “liked” the page.
Now, post your first update! This should be a message welcoming fans to your new page. Include a photo or group of photos with this post. I also suggest posting some other media rich content (videos, photos, audios, online interviews) for your audience to see when you launch the page.
Launch
Now you are ready to announce your page to the world! This is a critical step in getting early momentum. But keep in mind: the suggestions below can be used at any time, so they are still a good idea even if your page is already established.
Go to your company Facebook page, and invite all of your friends to like the page. If you are using Google Chrome, download the “Facebook Select All” extension so that you can invite hundreds of friends to like your page at one time.
Ask your employees to like the page. Then, copy/paste step 1, email it to everyone in your company, and ask them to invite their friends.
Use the “invite contact list” tool on Facebook to invite everyone in your email contact book to like your page.
If you have a company email list for customers, clients, fans, etc, upload that contact list (must be .csv file) to Facebook to invite all of those contacts to like your page.
Post a status update on your personal Facebook asking your friends to like your page.
Launch a Facebook give-away contest that encourages users to like your page.
Post a link to your Facebook page on your website, blog, and other social media profiles.
If you follow these steps , the next 48 will bring a spike in interaction, pageviews, and page likes.
Build
Now it is time to build engagement with your page and attract a wider audience. Here are some do’s and don’ts for building your Facebook audience:
Do
Post at least once a day.
Post creative and friendly content that gives fans an inside look at your company or product.
Post images, videos, and links to interesting content, always writing a caption to explain the importance of the content.
Ask your fans questions that get at the heart of their experience of your product.
Offer special, exclusive deals to your Facebook fans.
Respond to any comment, concern, or critique within 24 hours.
Ask your fans to connect with you on other social networking sites.
Host contests and other giveaways to encourage word of mouth reach.
Announce new products and tell customers where they can buy your products.
Use Facebook advertising to increase your fans and reach new customers (detailed explanation on that here).
Be creative and don’t take yourself too seriously!
Don’t
Continually repost marketing materials (this content gets very boring and will cause people to unlike your page).
Post irrelevant content about politics, religion, or humor.
Post content presenting any other company, person, or group of persons in a negative light.
Post updates expressing frustrations. Keep it positive.
Let your page become out of date. This reflects very poorly on your company.
To give an idea of what good content looks like, and how good content leads to more exposure, take these two event posts from My Father Cigars and Camacho Cigars:
Obviously, the fact that Camacho has 20x more Facebook fans has something to do with the difference in engagement. But even a cursory glance indicates that taking time to craft a post will result in more likes, shares, and comments. The post by Camacho Cigars features a well thought out image, a clear explanation of the post, and a link to the event page. Additionally, a fan commented and received a swift reply. In contrast, the My Father post above is plain, and very long. The post was also reposted three times in a row, making the My Father facebook page look uninviting.
Of course, that’s just one example. Each company has a different strategy for creating content. The challenge is to refine your strategy by listening to your audience and understanding what it wants.
To learn more about how to create the best content on Facebook, I suggest reading these articles:
There you have it. How to set up, launch, and maintain an effective and profitable Facebook page. It is true, this is only the tip of the iceberg–we haven’t covered how Facebook advertising can shoot sales through the roof or how to integrate Facebook into your broader marketing strategy, but this post is a good start. The key is to stay creative, resourceful, and attentive to your audience.
If you follow the instructions above, you should be well on your way to building a successful and profitable Facebook page. In our next post, we’ll look at some of the best practices for using Twitter to sell products and build valuable business relationships.
A great Facebook post by Drew Estate Cigars shows how social can lead to awareness, brand buzz, and sales.
In the first post in this series, we looked at why social media should be an important part of your marketing strategy, as well as a few of the (bad) reasons that so many cigar companies have ignored utilizing social media to engage their customers and boost sales.
In this post, we’ll look at a few of the important platforms to utilize, as well as some basic principles for use.
But first, for business owners who have set up their Facebook and Twitter accounts, linked the two, and called it a day, a word of caution: presence alone won’t cut it. No matter how similar some social platforms might seem on first glance, they each cater to different audiences, and also have different standards for content.
“Pinterest and Fancy, for example, might seem similar because both rely on visual collage boards. However, 97% of all U.S. Pinterest users are women using it primarily as a source of inspiration, while 60% of all Fancy members are males interested in learning about new products. These differences are crucial, and they illustrate the importance of creating unique campaigns for different platforms.”
Like any public speaker would tell you: know your audience. Only then can you cater to it.
To use social media effectively, cigar companies should have a compelling brand presence on these platforms:
Engage
By virtue of its over 1 billion users, Facebook is still the dominant force in social media marketing. Advertising is effective and relatively cheap, and word of mouth referrals through user interaction can be very helpful.
Brands represent themselves on Facebook using company pages. They work very similarly to a Facebook profile, but with a few key differences, including:
Pages can advertise to unconnected users. Personal profiles cannot.
Pages are by default open to the public.
Pages offer administrators key information in the “insights” panel.
A good Facebook page will tell a company story to using pictures, videos, and other unique content. Do not simply repost marketing materials or content from Twitter. Many brands are in the habit of this, and as a result have low interaction and actually lose followers over time. Your Facebook content should be unique, carry a strong personality, and present a cohesive image of your brand to your followers. To do this, be sure to present content exclusive to Facebook, instead of just borrowing text, images, and links from your website.
Use Facebook to:
Broadcast company announcements (new products, etc) to fans.
Announce special sales.
Post behind-the-scenes content (pictures of the factory, office, parties, etc) to increase interaction and spread via word of mouth.
Create engagement to fuel referrals.
Converse
Twitter is all about conversation. Because it is an open platform, any user can contact another user simply by tweeting at him using the @ mention. Similarly, users can send direct messages to each other, which can be particularly useful for connecting with customers, building relationships, and bringing them into your retail location.
Twitter is also incredibly fast moving. On Facebook, some estimates suggest that while a Facebook post might have an average life span of 5 or more hours, a single tweet clocks in at about 45 minutes before it is buried. With so many tweets, it is important to post more often on Twitter to stay a part of the conversation.
The structural differences between Twitter and Facebook make for huge differences in strategy, and are why reposting Facebook content on Twitter (or vice versa) is harmful to your brand. We’ll talk more about Twitter in a later post.
Use Twitter to:
Interact one on one with customers and potential customers – greatly increases referrals and brand loyalty.
Answer customer service complaints – increases brand loyalty and limits damage done by unhappy customer.
Share important company news announcements – keeps your Twitter audience in the know
Make new business connections – no need for an introduction, just join the conversation and watch the relationships grow.
Entice
Available only on mobile phones, Instagram is a community of photographers, hobbyists, and life-lovers that share the best moments of their lives. Since cigars are all about the good life, it makes intuitive sense that Instagram would have a large cigar community. And it does. Every day, thousands of cigar smokers post pictures on Instagram. By reaching out to this community and posting unique, beautiful, or behind the scenes cigar related photos, you will build an audience that is very aware of your product and (if your product is good) very likely to buy your product in the future.
When I work with cigar companies, Instagram is a platform that I really focus on because it is so easy to convert an Instagram follower to a customer. Often times all it takes is for me to ask a smoker that commented on my photo if he has ever tried my brand for him to express enthusiasm for buying my cigars. But the real magic isn’t in the resulting business transaction—the magic is when that same user posts a photo of my cigars a few days later, and I see his friends asking him where they can buy some for themselves! That’s the power of social referrals.
Use Instagram to:
Entice followers to buy your product.
Follow up with customers after they visit or purchase.
Proactively engage your customers and followers.
Inform
Relatively speaking, Google+ doesn’t have a large user base. Your customers, in fact, probably aren’t using Google+ consistently.
So what makes it so important? Simple: your Google+ page is almost guaranteed a top search result on Google searches, which provides a great opportunity to put your best foot forward in a top Google search result. If you load your Google+ page with links to your business website, you’ll also get a significant SEO boost for your website.
Google+ is now also integrated in to other important Google tools like Google Maps and Google Places. When someone finds your business on Google Maps and clicks “More Info,” that user is now sent to your Places page, which pulls its information from your Google+ business page. So, no Google+ page means:
Lower SEO score (less traffic to website).
Probable blank page on Google Places.
A big opportunity missed to make a good first impression on a Google search.
By the way, this applies to everyone, not just cigar companies. If you are an actor, a freelancer, or a big company, you need to set up your Google+ page… now. If you still aren’t convinced that you need to utilize this great, free online boost, read this and this.
Use Google+ to:
Get an immediate SEO boost for your company website.
Inform casual searchers about your company, location, products, etc.
Place a positive, relevant link on the top of a search result for your company.
Interact with customers on Google+.
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That is a basic overview of the importance and uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+. Of course, it is important here to note that to manage social media successfully, you must identify upcoming trends in social media and be prepared to expand to new platforms. Platforms like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube are all important and can serve luxury brands well. But small and even midsized businesses rarely have a full time social media team that can suit the needs of posting across five or ten platforms. In my experience it is best to choose only the platforms that will best serve business, and then build brand equity from there.
Now that you have a general idea of the uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+, our next post will look at some specific strategies to a) build a large audience, b) increase engagement, and c) make sales.
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It’s well known and through great sacrifice I‘ve spent years testing the theory that spirits and cigars go hand in hand. A fine Scotch or Cognac can bring out the nuances of a cigar just as a premium smoke can enhance the flavors of your drink of choice. Two great pleasures in harmony with each other are what I call relaxation. This weekend I had the opportunity to sit back and do just that with one of my favorite bourbons of late and a Cuban regional cigar from Portugal. My findings were interesting to say the least. Enjoy!
First, the bourbon:
Bourbon: Rough Rider- Long Island Distillers
Being a fan of this bourbon already I knew what to expect. Nose of sweet vanilla, toasted oak and the first sip hits you with some lovely cinnamon spice, and maple wood. The finish coats the palate with a butteriness that lingers on. Further tasting, the Rough Rider develops toasty notes with traces of candied fruits and some nice heat on the way down. The buttery finish along with the toasted wood are the lingering factors with this bourbon that keeps you wanting more. I am really looking forward to their next batch as soon as it hits the shelves. Long Island Distillers focuses on small batch releases so they can spend more time on maintaining quality. I’ve visited the distillery and it is quite a hands on and expertly run facility.
Cigar: Cuban Punch Descobridores Exclusivo Portugal
Blend specifics
4 7/8″ x 50
Wrapper: Cuba
Binder: Cuba
Filler: Cuba
The dry draw on this cigar has hearty flavors of fresh tobacco and an earthy quality. Upon lighting the full draw yields toasty notes with a bit of leather on the finish. The first third gives leather, earth and a bit of spice on the retrohale. Lots of rich tobacco taste which shows me the quality and care in the blend which doesn’t always happen in regional cigars. A lot of ER’s that I’ve smoked can be a bit of a crap shoot in terms of decent blends and properly treated tobacco. This cigar has been a pleasant surprise and of exceptionally quality. Midway the Punch offered more toasty flavors and graham cracker. The last third gave a salty taste with more of that full tobacco engulfing the palate.
The Pairing:
As I drank and puffed the interplay with the spirit and cigar where quite appealing. The toasted oak of the bourbon further enhanced the Punch ER’s lush and toasty tobacco flavor. The spice from the bourbon added a nice kick to the tobacco flavors. The buttery finish of the Rough Rider bourbon balanced the savory leather notes of the cigar exceptionally. As the earthiness of the Punch came through the Rough Rider bourbon came back with that finished oak which took the cigar and spirit to another level of flavor and pushed them both to their peak performance. Both cigar and bourbon left me satiated with a resonance of flavors. A truly perfect pairing.
When I pick a cigar and spirit I try to go by what I know of both in terms of flavor and look for complimentary contrasts or balance. There are times like this when I haven’t had the cigar and like I said with the ER’s you don’t know what you can or will get in terms of flavor and blend. Fortunately I struck gold with these two as they not only had balance but their contrasts raised the bar of both their flavor profiles. If you can grab this ER it’s a worthwhile smoke and you should treat yourself to some Rough Rider bourbon even if you can’t find a Punch Descobridores Exclusivo to pair with it. So, my strenuous efforts continue to support the theory that cigars and spirits work oh so well together. All In the name of science.
