Spring is here and the busy summer season is quickly approaching for wineries. Visitors will soon flock in droves to wineries to enjoy the weather, the wine aromas and the unbeatable Midwest winery experience. To ensure all our visitors have a pleasant winery experience, please share these Simple Tasting Room Etiquette Tips with your visitors by posting in [...]
How do you attract customers and keep them coming back? In this mobile, socially connected world, wineries need to be at the top of their marketing game because making great wines isn’t enough. Successful tasting rooms must find new customers, retain current customers and engage with them to keep them coming back. Follow these 6 [...]
Recently, I read a marketing article that said if the fish aren’t biting in your fishing hole, you need to either change your bait, move to a different fishing hole or change your fishing techniques. Look at what you did last year and if you didn’t get the desired results, change the plan. Start by [...]
How has your year been? Holiday sales can help end the year for your winery on a high note. It’s easy for wineries to get lost in the shopping frenzy. To stand out from other businesses, make your customer’s lives simpler during the holidays by offering solutions to their gift giving dilemmas. Here are six [...]
During this weak economy, lack of sales seems to be a common complaint from wineries across the country. Wineries need to sharpen their selling skills and brush up on customer engagement techniques to make each visitor a loyal and satisfied customer. Follow these six simple steps and watch sales grow and customer satisfaction increase. [...]
Would you like to increase your winery tasting room revenue? With wine country visits increasing during the fall, now is the time to make the most of sales opportunities and increase your bottom line. Here are four simple ideas to boost tasting room revenue: Increase sales to existing customers This is the easiest way to [...]
I am on a mission to encourage wineries to focus on their websites. Having a mobile friendly website can have a huge impact on the number of visits to your business. A simple question from a VESTA student in the Winery Marketing class I teach started my most recent quest to help wineries improve their websites. [...]
One of the student projects I assign for my Viticulture Enology Science Technology Alliance (VESTA) Tasting Room Management class is an evaluation of a winery tasting room. The number one area my students say needs improvement in wineries is customer service. Wineries are popping up everywhere, and for a customer who has a bad service experience, there is always another [...]
Recently, I spoke at the License to Steal Conference in Ohio. I have been attending and presenting at this conference since its inception. It is one of the best marketing conferences for wineries in the country. Donnie Winchell, the Executive Director of the Ohio Wine Producers Association, is the brainchild behind the conference and her knack for [...]
Recently, I spoke on the wine club panel at the Eastern Wine Expo in Pennsylvania. To prepare for the presentation, I interviewed a handful of wineries who don’t have wine clubs yet to find out why. The most common reason winery owners gave for not starting a wine club is that they did [...]