Page 125 - NEWNORMAL_ANIMATED

DIGITAL MARKETING & COMMUNICATION
WINE TALKS AND TALES

Aaron Mandel
A Missouri-licensed lawyer, American Family Insurance
supervisor and Director of the Education Section of the American
Wine Society. He has graduated from WSET, completing all its
degrees and finished his studies at the Masters of Wine Institute,
where he is, as a Master of Wine candidate, ready to defend his
final work once the restrictions on travel are released.
People tend to think of the wine market in requires investment in labels, bottles, closures,
simple terms but as you know it is very com- government approval, etc, and make sure you
plex. Wine producers come in varying sizes have a distributor and market for those sizes.
including large producers who have big mar- Canned wines are even more complex as you
keting budgets and the ability to make pro- need to design the container labeling and find
duction changes to meet short term needs as a canning facility who is able to can your wine.
well as small producers who do not have tho- If you are a small winery, that takes a lot of in-
se kinds of financial resources. Consumers are vestment at a time sales are down and money
also different: there are those who like to grab is short. If you believe the end of Covid will be
a bottle of a commercial wine as they walk less than a year away, is that investment worth
through a store, collectors who buy expensive it? Do you want to invest a large amount of
wines and everything in between. Wineries money when only a short term solution is re-
market to different segments of consumers quired? On the other hand, some of the chan-
and the answer to the questions of what to do ges made at this time may open new markets
during covid varies among different consumer for the wineries if and when covid comes to
groups and wineries. an end.
The fact is that most wineries do a lousy job Many bloggers talk about websites being
of marketing. The large wineries seem to run the solution as if consumers spend hours eve-
the same print ads today as they did in the ry day looking for new winery websites. A lot
60s: only the fashions on the models have of that is just white noise. If I do not know of
changed. The small wineries too often seem to your winery, a website change is not going to
have no marketing strategy as all, or just rely magically bring me your way. If you combine
on people driving by to sell their wines. Covid a new website with a mass email to wine con-
has changed the marketing structure and if sumers, that is more likely going to be sent to
you had no strategy and had no awareness of the trash than opened, though you might get
who your consumers are, you are in a tough a low percentage going to your site.
spot. But will that result in a sale?
We also have the problem that nobody Websites are often boring or too similar to
knows how long covid will last. Yes, right now one another to get new customers.
people are drinking more at home so selling Ooh, another hand crafted chardonnay
wine in smaller bottles or cans to allow for grown with care in special soils and lovingly
„single servings“ make some sense. But that matured by a family winery and touched with
125