Paso Robles Wine PR

In an increasingly digital world, and a still unsure economic climate, many wineries are asking themselves if print ads are still pulling their weight. The answer is: that depends on what kind of a print ad.

You Get What You Pay For

It’s the classic quantity-versus-quality, you-get-what-you-pay-for argument when it comes to print advertisement.

For instance, local newspapers often offer to design your ad for free—what a deal, right? Maybe not. Consider the fact that the designers making your newspaper ad know little about your winery or its marketing objectives.  With newspaper deadlines and a handful of other ads like yours to throw together, these designers have their own time and aesthetic constraints in mind. The result?  We’ve all seen one. An ad that is so terrible it actually becomes an eyesore on the page. Not the look you are going for. That free ad could just end up costing you due to the negative impact it has on your brand image.

Design Department Tips

Even a good free ad is not that valuable to a winery. Why? Because it is not your property. Say the ad is doing great in the Gazette, so now you want to put one in the Herald too. Too bad. You are going to have to start from square one in the Herald’s design department.

Prime Ad Real Estate Market is Available

This is not to say that print advertisement is a losing battle. A well-played print ad—backed by a solid marketing plan—still packs a punch. In fact, a print ad strategy could be especially effective now, when other wineries feeling the financial pressure are pulling their ads out. More and better ad real estate is opening up, meaning better visibility for your ad, less competition, and the likelihood of holding on to long-lasting preferred placement.

Choose a Marketing Agency to Help

But with your ad front and center, it’s also more important than ever to make the greatest impression possible with that ad. This is image-development 101—no shortcuts. Work with an agency that understands ad strategy and design. A good marketing team will take into account messaging, timing and placement and make recommendations according to their years of collective experience and knowledge.

With all of the t’s crossed and i’s dotted, the well-planned ad will recoup its cost through the impact it has on the consumer.

For more tips on advertising, or to get started on a fully conceptualized, locked and loaded ad campaign strategy, call the “A-Team” today!.

Follow us on Facebook!

When it comes to hiring a wine marketing agency, there are many considerations to weigh. Some agencies are national, some local. Some specialize in particular media, such as online ads or television ads. But for most wineries looking for a broad spectrum marketing campaign, it really comes down to two choices: big or small.

Obviously a BIG agency carries with it prestige and allure that can woo a young winery looking to make a splash with a new campaign. And indeed BIG agencies offer experience, strong track records, impressive clientele, a large staff and, often, versatile skills and more resources than a small agency.

However, all of this comes with a BIG price tag, as well.

And when it comes down to it, none of these items guarantees a successful campaign or even satisfactory service. Often a larger agency will treat new, small accounts according to their size and status; meaning that even if you decide to go BIG, the small size of your account may not merit the attention and resources that the agency gives to its larger accounts.

The dilemma is similar to one I faced my first year on my High School water polo team: I could either move up to the BIG varsity team, and get all of the attendant recognition, but be a little out of my league; OR I could stay in the “small” pool with the Junior Varsity team, where, though I would forfeit some clout and bragging rights, I would also benefit from being a star player and leader, getting more playing time, and honing my skills before facing tougher competition. The latter would develop me as an athlete; the former would build up my ego.

Similarly, a smaller agency can often offer more to building a winery brand, since it is sure to give new clients the time and attention they deserve. For a small agency, each account is crucial, so your business would never be relegated to lower-level service. A small agency can also react more quickly to urgent needs; cater their services to the client; and provide the personal, attentive service that makes wineries feel they are being taken care of.

In the end, JV may not sound as glitzy, but, to mix metaphors a bit, being the smallest fish in the big pond may not be the brightest move for your brand, either.

To learn more about the benefits of being a big fish in a smaller, personalized wine marketing agency, check out AR & Co. PR & Marketing.

Follow us on Facebook!

I recently had the luck to be stuck in traffic on Highway 101 North, toward San Francisco. Strange as it may seem, I do not say “luck” in a tone of sarcasm. The bumper-to-bumper delay under the hot Saturday sun gave me the opportunity to contemplate a perhaps under-appreciated form of marketing in today’s digital world: The Billboard.

In an age of online banner ads and constant and instantaneous Twitter; in a world where the drivers all around me had headsets and smart phones and GPS systems, I was suddenly struck by the strange contrast of the billboard. Like the last dinosaur, these giant and simplistic forms of advertisement remain, forming a static 2-D marketing backdrop behind the stage of our digital daily lives.

It occurred to me that it is precisely because of this stark contrast that the billboard is still relevant in the modern world. It optimizes one of the only remaining spaces and times in which consumers can not be completely dialed in. Legally, they must keep their hands and eyes on the road, and thus the road is the one frontier where touch pads and social networking and pay-per-click ads have no power.

The billboard rules the road. And a well-made billboard can go a long way for wine branding.

For example, picture yourself stuck in traffic, as I was. You are in view of a particular billboard for a good ten to twenty minutes. It is the only ad in sight and the only real visual entertainment to break the monotony. You had better believe that billboard has a great chance of being noticed and leaving an impression on the thousands who cross its path every day.

Now, imagine that it is a great billboard: well-designed, clever, eye-catching. That is an ad that will move consumers. For example, the billboard I read was for Wells Fargo. It said something like, “Your ‘Check Retirement’ Light is Blinking.” I half-smiled to myself at their clever use of car-related metaphor. That was all it took: a small moment of recognition that has turned into lasting awareness and respect for a brand. I haven’t changed banks yet; but when I do, I’ll be thinking of that billboard that I stared at for twenty minutes one hot Saturday in San Francisco. You might say the writing was on the wall for my current bank since that moment.

If you’re ready to think big and take your wine brand on the road, consult a company with experience designing signs that leave a lasting impression. AR & Co. graphic designers match the billboard’s size with creativity on a large scale. Email us or—in the spirit of strategies that never go out of style—do the old-fashioned thing, and give us a call.

Follow us on Facebook!

Back in the good ol’ days, self-respecting business people would wake up and scan over the newspaper in the mornings to read the latest “status updates” and the opinions of influential leaders.  In the time so wonderfully glorified in the popular show Mad Men, print and television advertisements were the path to success. A jingle and a billboard were the currency of capitalism.

Times have changed.

But old-school ways are yet to be found in the modern business world.

Have you ever wondered why we go to such lengths to wrap our Christmas presents? If you think about it, you’ve already gone to the trouble of shopping for and buying personalized gifts, loading them up in the car and carting them over to grandma’s house; after all that, why is it still expected that the wrapping be beautiful, expensive, and flamboyant, as well? Isn’t the gift enough?

Of course, a professional wrapper can always give a gift just the right touch of whimsy and allure, and for wineries seeking a clean, bright, shiny, and impressive wrap job, AR & Co. is Santa’s little helper this year. Take advantage of limited-time FREE consultations and complimentary assistance with marketing campaigns from the “A-Team” of skilled and experienced public relations, graphic design, web design, copywriting, and marketing experts. Call or email today while the frenzy of holiday generosity lasts.

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Gift Wrapping for Your Winery” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph: 

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Wine PR,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR and Co PR and Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblespublicrelations.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

Follow us on Facebook!

I have a favorite corkscrew. I’ve had it for years. There’s nothing in particular about the look of it—it simply works well and has not gotten lost yet. When there is another option in the drawer, I always go for my favorite. It sits out on the table at dinner parties and it’s coming to Thanksgiving dinner with me.

For this reason, and perhaps this reason only, I will never forget the name of the local winery whose logo is engraved on the side of the opener.

This goes to show that there is marketing power in minutiae. Little gimmicks, promotional items, and other branded winery equipment and accessories can go a long way in creating brand awareness. Not only can items like pens, tee-shirts, and mugs stamped with your winery logo have the luck of becoming your target customer’s favorite—these items also communicate brand strength, sophistication, and success to anyone who sees them. Little by little, hats, business cards, bottle toppers, and other marketing materials can build a big picture that your customers will remember and trust.

Of course, you can go wrong with winery promotional items. Since products like foil cutters and wine glasses often stick around a long time and pass from person to person, you want to be sure that the item presents your company in the best light possible. One typo on a hat or rack card will go on to haunt you. And though it may seem simple enough to create a button, patch or golf shirt with your company name on it, in the end it will prove costly should you should skimp on the graphic design or take the ordering details lightly.

Think of promo items as small but important brand ambassadors. They should be outfitted in the winery’s finest: a well-designed, colorful logo that leaves a lasting impression, as well as additional contact information and website, as appropriate. Other written materials, such as tag lines, winery descriptions and selling points, should be crafted and scrutinized by a suitable copy writer to avoid errors, off-messages and missed opportunities. Furthermore, a marketing professional should consider options like size and placement of logo, printing quality, and paper or material selection, as these will impact the overall effectiveness of the item in the long run.

Don’t take it too seriously, though. Promotional items, merchandise and winery marketing materials are the fun and light-hearted part of marketing. Your customers will love your well-branded merchandise—and, by connecting to them through their wardrobe and personal habits, you’re solidifying that relationship while building a new one with everyone who knows them. With a solid marketing strategy to back it up, a promotional item like my corkscrew can be the quickest, easiest, least expensive way to get your winery brand into your customers’ hands. And, when done right, you can bet it will stay in their hands—and minds—for a long time to come.

Get started on dispatching your winery brand messengers—in the form of business cards, complimentary tasting cards, stationary, envelopes, letterhead, rack cards, and more—by searching the easy-to-use library of over 850,000 promotional items at http://www.arandcompany.com/promo_items/, or contact a marketing maven to learn more about how easy it is to give your winery branding a boost.

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Winery Micro-Marketing and the Shelf Life of Promo Items” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph: 

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Wine PR,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR and Co PR and Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblespublicrelations.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

Follow us on Facebook!

If your winery has access to a list of email addresses for past and/or current customers, don’t miss out on one of the easiest and most powerful marketing tools the modern world offers: Email Marketing.

With the click of a mouse, your messaging reaches hundreds or even thousands of potential wine fans by the method most of them probably prefer to be contacted. Thanks to the digital age, emails are checked regularly, allowing wineries the opportunity to stay on the top of the mind of their target consumers. Furthermore, the effects of email marketing campaigns are highly trackable (unlike print media marketing), allowing wineries to hone their strategies according to the most successful tactics and proven results.

The key, however, to email marketing campaigns parallels that of print media campaigns in that high quality design, copywriting, and well-thought-out execution are crucial to distinguishing your crafted material from the rest of the cyberspace junk ignored by your target readers.

Set Yourself Apart from Junk Mail
Successful email marketing, much like successful print marketing, is all about the packaging. If your email looks like junk and reads like junk, then guess where it will end up? It takes just one misdirected, unappealing, or typo-laden email to lose your recipients’ interest and be banished to the junk box for good.

On the other hand, clean, strategic design combined with concise, attention-demanding writing, directed at the appropriate audience for your message will build trust among consumers. With this trust, your winery gets the golden window of opportunity to capitalize on low-cost, highly effective marketing via email. 

The Golden Opportunities of Email Marketing 
Winery Name Recognition
Once you’ve earned a spot in the non-junk section of your readers’ inboxes, you’re in, whether they read your email or not. The reason is that even if they do not read your carefully crafted message, they will see your regularly appearing mail and be reminded of your winery, if only by the subject line. This consistent repetition is one of the golden tickets to name recognition and brand loyalty.   

Trackability and Message Tailoring
Another advantage of email marketing is the incredible wealth of information that can be gathered with the click of a button. It’s the cyber-stalker-version of advertising, where you can find out who opened your email, who didn’t, how many people read your email at least long enough to click on the link to your website, and then, what happened from there. Email marketing provides the transparency you’ve always looked for in advertising. With this clear view of your marketing successes and failures, you can more easily tailor your messages to increase their productivity and focus on the proper targets. 

Search Engine Optimization
Email promotional material is built to bring people to your online wine marketplace, your website. Not only does a monthly email serve to direct readers to your site through embedded links, but the material can also be archived on your site (in an appropriate “news” section) to add valuable, keyword-rich content—the key to boosting your rank in search engine results. For that reason, archiving email newsletters and eblasts is like doubling your marketing money, for nothing.

Ready to hit send on email marketing? Read more helpful hints or schedule an appointment with email marketing experts at www.arandcompany.com. 

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Hitting Send on Strategic Email Marketing for Your Winery” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph: 

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Wine PR,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR and Co PR and Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblespublicrelations.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

Follow us on Facebook!

The old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover” may work well as a metaphor for gauging the character of a person, but it has no place in the cut-throat modern wine industry. Anyone in publishing—book, magazine or newspaper—will tell you the truth: it’s allabout the cover.

True, the wine itself should live up to the fancy façade; but when it comes down to making money, appearance matters. That’s because modern consumers, and humans in general, are visual creatures living in a fast-paced visual world of tv, magazines, and fashion. In spite of the superficiality involved, they have learned to survive by correctly and quickly sizing up their surroundings—making them exceedingly astute in the art of efficiently judging “covers.” Small distinctions like image quality, font, and aesthetic appeal speak volumes.

This shopper learns all that they need to know in a split-second survey of a wine label: mediocre, cheap, unsophisticated, forgettable, outstanding, well-made, high-quality, elite—these are the qualities shoppers read in a wine label. A less-expensive wine, for instance, must look expensive and unique, yet accessible, telling the buyer that this bottle will please palates without causing headaches, but is also not taking itself too seriously. It’s a fun, no-regrets, no-shame purchase they can feel good about. On the other hand, a label of equal value that is neither attractive nor sophisticated will collect dust because it tells the consumer nothing of the experience they will have with that wine; it makes no visual promises and is therefore not perceived as a promising investment.

As the name implies, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of marketing your website to “search engines,” or online website directories (such as Google, Yahoo and Bing); however, as search engines are used by people, and people are the end consumers of your business, people are the true primary targets of Search Engine Marketing.

As such, the highly technical world, ostensibly governed by algorithms, robots and spiders, must inevitably answer to the demands of the humans using it. Search Engine Marketing has therefore evolved from a technical process into an appropriately user-targeted process, each element of which considers the human as much as, if not more than, the robot element of the internet.

Like marketing in the real world, SEM is a broad and multi-faceted process comprised by such factors as search engine optimization (SEO), advertising, and link-back strategies. Each of these factors can play a significant role in an overall campaign, and each must first cater to the human end-user.

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization sounds incredibly technical. And, indeed, it is a process that entails playing into the hands of such ambiguous powers as algorithms and spiders. However, SEO is largely an intuitive and human-oriented process. It really just means making websites that are Searcher-Friendly, User-Friendly, and User-Approved:

1. Searcher-Friendly – Strategically abundant in relevant search terms, or “keywords,” that humans would use in search engine queries
2. User-Friendly – Easily navigable by both people and web crawlers
3. User-Approved – Widely acknowledged and validated by other reliable and relevant websites and social media sources, which link back to show support

Search Engine Optimization is best implemented from the very beginning, as it involves everything from the way a site is laid out to the words used. However, any website can be optimized at any time by rewriting copy with more keywords, improving the website’s navigation, or replacing non-crawlable elements. While SEO can take time to generate results in search engine directories, it is crucial to the success of your website in turning up in relevant search engine queries … That is, unless you’ve paid to turn up in those queries …

Advertising
Advertising online, through pay-per-click ads such as Google AdWords, offers businesses two benefits: guaranteed placement in search engine directories, and prompt placement in search engine directories. But, as in the real world, you can’t buy love – that is, you can’t just pay a fee to gain online popularity. As with traditional advertisement, the visibility purchased is not as valuable or effective as user-generated and “word-of-mouth” promotion (which, on the internet, manifest in high-ranking organic search engine results; link-backs on websites, blogs and social media; or high traffic). Furthermore, as with traditional advertisement, you pay to gain instantly the kind of visibility that could be gained the hard way, with time and proper Search Engine Optimization. Advertising can, however, go hand-in-hand with an SEO effort, since the same words determined as keywords for the optimized website would be best used in the ads as well.

Linking Strategies
Linking strategies present a happy medium between SEO and ads, in a way. Both paid-for advertisement and Search Engine Optimization can contribute to a widely-linked site since any method of increasing traffic to your site improves the likelihood of users linking back.

Other methods of generating links to your site consist of paying to be included in online directories and relevant industry directories, as well as free, grass-roots methods of generating links such as a social media marketing effort (broadcasting links on Facebook and Twitter), creating a blog that links back to your website, and reaching out to groups, supporters and non-competitors to link to your site.

Finally, a highly-linked website is the result of a high-quality website: people will want to share a link to your site with friends, customers and associates if they find the content to be useful, entertaining, aesthetically-appealing, and/or interesting. Unique Youtube videos, valuable tips, calendars, constant updates and other items that make people want to visit your site repeatedly are worth their weight in links, so to speak. (For instance, we are linking back to www.seo-news.com and www.searchenginesbook.com because we found their sites to be informative, reliable and relevant resources for this blog post, and recommend them to readers looking to learn more on search engine marketing—thus, we are increasing their sites’ search engine optimization).

So, the moral of the story is that Search Engine Marketing is just like any consumer marketing: it appeals to humans. If your marketing strategies could use a human touch, call (805) 239-4443 to speak to a real, live SEM expert, who is also well-versed in the language of spiders, crawlers and robots.

Follow us on Facebook!

What the new “Like” Button Means for Social Media Marketing

Due to the recent introduction of a web-wide “Like” button, wineries have five more reasons to love Facebook.

Essentially, the social site has offered a button which wineries can add to their websites allowing those visitors with Facebook accounts to select “Like.” In doing so, all of the people in that visitor’s Facebook circle will receive notifications of their Friend’s new-found preference. Furthermore, when a Facebook user visits a webpage one of their own “Friends” has “Liked,” they will see that person’s thumb’s up on the screen.

For Example: Let’s say Joe and Jane are “Friends” on Facebook. Your winery or vineyard installs a “Like” button on its homepage, and Joe visits and says he “Likes” the page. Jane will see this in her newsfeed on Facebook, or, if she misses it there, she will see Joe’s Facebook profile picture next to a thumb’s up when she visits the page herself.

Think of these “Likes” as those cute little sticky notes with arrows on them that point out what you should pay attention to amid the abyss of unimportant fine print you can ignore. If your business gets tagged, it becomes more relevant and valuable to the tagger’s Friends than a competitor winery’s site, or any other site for that matter.

What does this mean for your winery?

1. Greater Visibility for Your Company
Even if none of Joe’s friends visit your website as a result of his “Like,” they will SEE your winery name and logo. Repeat this a few times and you have the makings of brand recognition without having done any real promotion! This increases the chances of your bottle standing out to consumers in the grocery aisle.

2. Greater Traffic to Your Website
Another part of the new Facebook developments adds web links to the user’s profile anytime they “Like” a website. So, in the place of text lists of preferences like favorite wineries, will be the winery’s web link. With your winery’s name and link popping up in newsfeeds and profiles, you are bound to see more traffic to your site.

3. Greater Connection with Your Viewers
Before the “Like” button, you could only track the number of visitors to your site and the length of their visit, etc. Your only personal connection occurred if they emailed, left a comment, or signed up for a newsletter. NOW, you can actually identify them. And better yet, you can stay in touch with them. For example, if a Facebook user clicks “Like” on your “Red Wines” page, you can then send them a message when you release a new vintage or have a special pouring event featuring your red wines.

4. Greater Targeted Marketing
Of course the natural progression of being more directly connected with your viewers is that you can react and respond to their preferences to your winery’s advantage. If 30 people “Like” your Pinot Noir page, while none “Like” your Merlot page, you can begin planning winemaking, grape-selling, and even planting accordingly.

5. Greater Use of Social Influence
Other features of Facebook’s latest plug-ins allow websites to show a newsfeed log of the viewers’ Friends’ activity on the site, or recommendations based on the preferences of Friends (for instance, if Joe also “Likes” your Zinfandel page, when Jane gets to your site, she’ll be notified that based on her friend Joe’s preferences, she will like your winery’s Zinfandel). Essentially, this means you can easily recruit your website viewers as positive peer reviewers to sway more Friends to join in the love.

So what do you think, do you “Like” this blog post? Tell us what you think…and then tell your friends.

Information in this blog post was gathered primarily from The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Facebook release (wsj.com).  More information on the “Like” button and additional features can be found at developers.facebook.com/plugins, or feel free to contact the social media marketing experts at AR and Co. to learn more about using the “Like” to your advantage.

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “5 More Reasons for your Winery to Like Facebook” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Wine PR,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR and Co PR and Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblespublicrelations.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

Follow us on Facebook!