Creating events and experiences with potential customers can be a powerful way to market your wines; events give you the opportunity to tell your story directly, they give people something they will remember and generate word of mouth.  However, creating or participating in a fabulous event can turn into a marketing disaster if you are not getting contact info, email addresses or even selling wine.

There are two ways to consider events as part of your marketing strategy; events organized by others and events that you organize. Let’s consider one at a time.

Events organized by others can include wine tastings in your local area (and also further afield), as well as events are planned in your area.  Do some digging and find out what is happening, if the audience is the right fit, and how you can become involved. For example, you may want to consider exhibition openings at galleries, wine & food and jazz or music festivals. Wine and food festivals can be especially great if there is a panel or seminar speaker opportunity. Also consider events that support local charities.  You will see there are a lot of opportunities in your local area once you start your research.

Organizers of these types of events will generally have a marketing plan supporting the event.  While you are negotiating your involvement, don’t be afraid to ask for more, if it makes sense. For example, the event may do press releases, social media, branding opportunities, email blasts, advertising, gift bags etc. These can all be opportunities for you. It is these types of opportunities that will help propel you to increase awareness of your brand in a bigger way.  You can measure them in terms of sign ups, sales, and the brand exposure that you get.

The second type of event are the ones you organize. Event planning can be a time consuming business, so you want to clearly build in how it will pay off for you – both in terms of email sign ups and also sales. Organizing your own events can be very rewarding as you get to shine and can plan it in a way that benefits your brand the most. These types of events may include media /blogger lunches, winemaker dinners, launch/harvest/new release parties. You may want to select a potential partner for these events such as a restaurant already featuring your wines, hotels (for guest happy hours), or even your best customers. Offering your best customers an opportunity to host a party featuring your wines, and you – or perhaps a sommelier to talk about them could be a great way to spread the word, and being hosted by a customer serves to act as an endorsement for your wines.

Events can be a very exciting way to market your wines, but be a little wary of providing wines to events when you are not there to pour. Pouring opportunities are great but are you actually getting sign ups to your list or selling wine? Be sure to find a way to collect email addresses of all attendees (if you can) and have them opt-in to your email. Remember, you only get one chance to do this and you probably will not see these people again. An alternative to this is to have the event organizer email on your behalf linking people to purchase wine or opt in to receive more information. Sales can be generated through the emails as well as offers in gift bags, order forms on the back of menus, and take home cards with limited time offers.   Thank them the next day with an email containing a limited time preferred pricing code, and follow up with them 30 days later by doing a follow up.

– By Mindy Joyce, Brand Strategy Coach