Love Wine | Spit Wine | The personal blog of Lloyd Benedict, Founder of AmericanWinery.com
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Category — Walla Walla

Walla Walla Wine Marketing Summit Recap June 16th, 2008

by Lloyd

June 17th, 2008
Sunday night was quite a brain racker.  I felt like I was back at Whitman preparing a Biology presentation–half my time preparing was spent trying to figure out Power Point (in this case it was Keynote) and the other half was spent trying to figure out what I was going to say.  However, this time around I was able to speak about something I am really stoked to talk about!

I was given about an hour and fifteen minutes to speak about ways wineries can open new channels within the direct sales model.  My goal was to introduce new technologies that may be easily implemented, be easily managed and are essentially FREE!  Here were the higlights that I hope people took away from the presentation.

  • Facebook–Mark Zuckerburg has a site with over 500 different wine groups and nearly 500,000 users that are apart of those groups, start your FREE profile and build your community and let Millennials follow your winery.
  • Gary Vaynerchuk–Be sure to send him an email, garyv@winelibrary.com.  He will respond.
  • Google Analytics–Google has released a totally free web analytics program that is very easy to use.  Just plug in the code and find out who, when, and where from your visitors to your site are coming from.  You can’t learn what’s working from above with out the analytics piece. Go to Google.com/analytics
Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to go into CSE’s Comparison Shopping Engines or SEO Search Engine Optimization but both of those are a little more difficult to crack and more technical
Lastly, even if you don’t understand how these things work or if you carry the “if I don’t use them than I bet no one else does,” mentality you are way off course.  These tools are used to drive sales in all other web businesses.  They are proven and effective.  If you don’t want to manage them your self, have an employee who is web 2.0 savvy make sure they keep you updated and fresh in your facebook account, blogs, and videos.  First time setup for all of these tools combined should take less than an hour for a web person to install. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.
I hope my presentation was helpful and perhaps inspiring concearning what is possible when a little passion and technology are mixed.
Cheers,
Lloyd Benedict

June 17, 2008   No Comments

Walla Walla Marketing Summit Is Nearing

by Lloyd


I was lucky enought to be invited to speak at the Walla Walla Wine Marketing Summit being held at the Walla Walla Enology and Viticulture Center.  I will be speaking about “Innovative Ways to Market Wine on the Web.”

I am so stoked to do this because I have so much to say.  With FREE sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, My Space, and many more, marketing and building relationships to consumers has never been cheaper–for the first time your resulting sales made through this channel are only dependent on how much effort you expend.

This is a big deal because the net levels the playing field in so many ways for small wineries…the type of wineries the make up the majority of WW producers.  

Some areas Im going to explore in my hour and fifteen minutes.

Basic “Best Practice” web marketing initiatives–from emai aquisition programs, frequent communications, blogs and video journals.

The Facebook and Google Phenomenon–What this means to your winery and the future of marketing.

SMO–Social Media Optimization, FREE ways to get the word out about your wines and let your wine lovers sell your wine!

SEO–Basic Introduction to Search Engine Optimization and the importance of being the top results on Google.

 

This is sure to be a great event for northwest wineries looking to build bulletproof marketing plans.

Cheers,

Lloyd Benedict

Details For The Walla Walla Wine Marketing Summit

When? 
June 15.16.17, 2008

Where? 
Center for Enology & Viticulture
500 Tausick Way 
Walla Walla, Washington 99362

Who Should Attend?
Wine marketers, wine sales, concierge staff, tasting room staff, winery owners and anyone desiring a professional understanding of the marketing and sales of wine from the Pacific Northwest.

What will you learn? 
Participants will learn about new channel focused methods and tools for selling wine direct, to retail and to on-premise accounts. Industry experts and innovators will lead informative sessions that include:

  • Finding New Markets for your Wines
  • Marketing Sustainability – Understanding Consumer Market Trends
  • New Ways to Rethink Your Direct Sales
  • How to Maximize your Selling Potential with Wine Club Members
  • Get Your Wines on the “List” – Working with Restaurant Wine Buyers
  • How to Partner with Retail to Extend Your Brand
  • Distributors, Agents and the Likes… Understanding the World of Distribution
  • Plus much more!

Cost 
$295 for the two day conference. Cost includes Welcome Reception, lunch each day and comparative tasting (must be 21 years old).

Register Now!

June 10, 2008   No Comments