1. Wine Marketing Paul Wagner, President, BALZAC
Instructor, Napa Valley College
Wine Marketing & Sales

2. GOAL OF MARKETING: OPENING THE DOOR
Define Winery Position
Understand Distribution
Support Sales

3. How are Sales and Marketing Different?
Sales is the transformation of inventory into cash.
Marketing is the development and protection of the brand.
These are not mutually supportive goals

4. What is a brand?
A brand is the symbol that consumers associate with your company and products.
It’s worth is a direct measure of your marketing success.
If you have a company, you already have a brand.

5. So what is your position?
If you have a brand, you have a position.
Do you know what it is?
How can you affect it?
What do you want it to be?

6. That’s really big question:
What do you want your brand to be?

7. So how do you answer it? Build on what you have Eliminate the negative
Look down the road

8. SWOT DIAGRAM
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

9. SWOT Analyze competitive marketing programs
Focus on high return programs
Invest in long term strategies

10. Build your Brand Lead the category Own a word in the consumers’ minds
Create value for the company
All this will help sales

11. PULLING THROUGH THE PIPELINE
How does marketing help?
Who really gets people to buy a specific wine? Role play it.
What can it do that advertising can't?
Can it build long term success,
relationships, results?

12. DON’T JUST TALK; LISTEN
“Propaganda ends where dialogue begins.”
Marshall McCluhan

13. WHAT EVERY WINERY WANTS
QUALITY
Best buys
High scores
News
Interesting photos
More buyers, better sales

14. WHAT THE MARKET WANTS QUALITY Authenticity Personality Best buys
High scores
Interesting photos

15. WHERE DO YOU APPLY THIS? Promotions Placement Pricing Product!
This is your brand. This is your message to the world.

16. DON’T JUST TALK; LISTEN
“Propaganda ends where dialogue begins.”
Marshall McCluhan

17. COST EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS :
Public relations
Promotions
Special events

18. SWOT—AGAIN Analyze competitive programs Focus on high return programs
Invest in long term strategies

19. HOW DO YOU CONVEY QUALITY?
Scores, Prices, and your own marketing
Scores: everybody gets good scores these days
Prices: what the market will bear
How to convey quality?

20. THAT’S MARKETING Do you stage your house when you sell it?
Do you detail your car?
Now it’s time for your wine
Packaging
Marketing Affiliations
Strategy and Tactics

21. WHAT ARE QUALITY CUES? Heavier bottles– like heavier silverware.
Label paper vs. design
Cork, Capsule, Case
Wood boxes?

22. DO CAPSULES MATTER? They prepare the consumer’s perceptions
They affect perceptions immediately
Point of Consumption—at home,
Or in a restaurant.

23. CREATE PERCEPTION Is a capsule a message? Who receives it?
Plastic or Pure Tin?
Everything you do matters 

24. MARKET RESEARCH TO DEVELOP PROGRAMS
Read the stories, study the trends
Talk to them, find out
what they want
Give them what they want!

25. SOUND HARD? Frank Lloyd Wright
“Except as I were given some well defined limitations or requirements -- the more specific the better -- there would be no problem to work with, nothing to work out; why, then,
the Artist?”
Frank Lloyd Wright

26. TELL A GOOD STORY Stories are about people, not things
Give readers a way to respond
Give yourself a way to connect

27. CREATE A GOOD DESTINATION
What do visitors want?
This is not about wine—it’s about lifestyle.
Get them involved

28. CREATE RELATIONSHIPS Make your visitors feel at home Get them involved
Give them an experience

29. CREATE COMMUNITY The best source of new business is existing customers
Call them. Talk to them. Write
them.
Connect on and off-line.

30. EVERY INTERACTION IS AN INVITATION
Always create a reason to talk again
Call key customers and talk to them
Remind them of your relationship

31. SPECIAL EVENTS Wine festivals Donations Market visits
Word of mouth—the buzz

32. WINE FESTIVALS: GOALS AND BUDGETS
Trade show booths--play to win, don't just show the flag
Who will notice if you're not there--and how to deal with them
Wine costs, travel expenses
Piggyback for cost effectiveness
Everyone else will be in town
at the same time

33. DONATIONS: GOALS AND BUDGETS
Play to win--and think big
One big role is better than twenty bit parts
What can you get in return?
Negotiate

34. MARKET VISITS: GOALS AND BUDGETS
Distributor meeting
Key accounts lunch
Media lunch
Consumer event

35. IN SUMMARY Know your message Identify your audience
Deliver the message
Evaluate results

36. DEFINE EXPECTATIONS Goals and budgets
Hard results vs. Image enhancement
Be accountable—for all our sakes