The Best Way to Promote Your Winery

I know, it's been a while since I've posted.  Thanks to all my readers for their patience (and  for the wonder of RSS subscriptions, which means they have't had check this blog everyday, only to be disappointed).

Seth Godin has great advice in his latest post, Not so grand:

...the best way to promote something is consistently and persistently and for a long time.

The hard thing is that "consistent and persistent" requires some thoughtful advance planning, something that is frequently in short supply for the small winery owner.

The best answer I have is to spend a quiet hour or two this week thinking about what you are going to do to promote your wines for each of the next 12 months.  Then add the necessary reminders to your calendar, and execute.  Plan on trying 2 new methods of promotion during those 12 months.  And, of course, think about how you can measure the results of your efforts, to decide what works, and what doesn't.  Rinse and repeat.

(Thanks to Paul Mabry, CEO of Inertia Beverages, for the nudge)

Comments

[Paul Mabray]

By the way, I 100% agree with this post. The best way to promote is planning, executing and measuring.

Inertia - Powering the Wine Revolution

--Paul Mabray - Chief Strategy Officer

[Gabriella]

Although Seth Godin's comment on how to promote something is dead on, try to convince your clients of this logic in the digital age. At least for us, when promoting our online marketing strategies to Iberian wineries, I can't tell you how many times we've heard these words come out of a winery's mouth, "So if I start blogging today, I should see some serious traffic and increase in sales tomorrow, right?" Wrong!!! Like any relationship, it takes time to build up trust, and just because you can pop your frozen fish sticks in the microwave and have dinner five minutes later doesn't mean that online marketing works in the same vain. As Seth so astutely points out, trust and loyalty are built with consistent presence, persistent effort, and over the course of time.

[el jefe]

You know how the computer programmer drowned in the shower? "Lather. Rinse. Repeat."

Anyway... 24 "new" methods of promoting a year? And then 24 more the next year? Pretty daunting if you ask me - and I strive pretty hard to do that anyway, but it is bloody hard nonetheless...

What I am finding after two years of blogging is that after figuring out "48" ways of promoting my winery is that I am baked - in fact I am a canned ham, fully cooked and boneless.

I used to say that the trick is to keep it up for a few months - now I am realizing that 2 years is also a plateau. But I gotta!!!