Only at Cyclone Liquors
These past several weeks have been very busy for us at Midwest Grape and Wine Industry Institute. As many of you may know this past May we proudly announced that we bottled our first batch of 2021 Iowa State University wines. Due to unforeseen challenges the Institute we finally found an outlet to wholesale. With the help of many people that made this project succeed, our 2021 Iowa State University wines became available at Cyclone Liquors in Ames. Conversely this brought up a new set of challenges we didn’t know how to face such as marketing of the wines to Cyclone fans, moving a large number of cases, and setting up/hosting preorders for Cyclone Liquors.
We used a plug-in for WordPress, Woocommerce to help us with pre-orders and inventory management. We then sent specific instructions to customers on the pickup and purchase at Cyclone Liquors. Communicating to the ISU community and public couldn’t have been possible without two Communications specialists.
Whitney Baxter, who works for CALS, wrote a small blurb that was put into one of the many newsletters that gets distributed throughout the campus community. Whereas our very own staff member, Jocey, focussed her efforts on Facebook posts and product images. Thanks to the buzz and excited ISU Alumni and Cyclone fans, we were able to sell half of our inventory in four days.
The institute is beyond grateful to all of those who helped behind the scenes to make the sale happen and those who supported our group by purchasing a bottle… or three. There are so many people who played a key role in getting this in the hands of the public such as Erin Norton, Ruth MacDonald, Karla Long, and Kurt Beyer. We are currently working on next year’s vintage and plan to change some strategic marketing strategies and determine many other things.