Fine Wine: Five Marketing Methods Your Competition Doesn't Know About

Getting ahead in the wine industry takes more than just a fine bouquet and smooth finish. Effective promotional strategies must be used to garner new clients and transform current customers into regulars. With creative and proven techniques, wineries can get ahead of the game and reach out to their community.

Make it Free

Everyone loves free things. Imprint your winery label on promotional products such as custom hats, logo pens or custom mugs, and give them away to customers. Promotional products are a wonderful form of marketing in that they will remain in circulation for years, making them an extremely effective and cost-efficient form of advertising. Your winery can also use promotional items to make a gift basket. When customers come into the winery, they can receive a raffle ticket with each purchase. This increases the perceived product value of the current purchase. For the winning ticket, it also means that a box full of labeled winery merchandise will be distributed into the world.

Offer a Discount

Between chain restaurants and cheap grocery store wines, the wine market has become a little crowded. To get noticed in today's world, a winery should consider advertising special discounts or discount days. Pick the slowest time of the day and offer 5- or 10-percent off to customers. This helps to smooth out sudden rushes and can encourage clients to stop in when they were not planning to. During week days, a special senior day can ensure that at least one weekday is as busy as the weekend.

Host a Team

Local baseball clubs and soccer teams always need a sponsor. Whoever sponsors their team will be able to have the winery's name printed onto their custom t-shirts. To sponsor a team, the winery must normally pay for their uniform or registration fees. Some local restaurants in Sacramento, CA use promotional products by Halo as well as sponsorships to get their name and logo out into the community and draw attention to their establishment. After a rousing match, the sponsored team can be given discounts to ensure that new customers are brought into the winery.

Events

Wineries are great locations for events. Bring-your-dog days, concerts, wine tastings and classes can all bring in extra money to your winery. Each new customer that visits a class or concert will also become more informed about the different wines available. In the future, they will recall their favorite wines and return to make a purchase.

Advertise Specials

On a basic level, your winery can post specials or promotions outside of the winery. Since many people use the internet to make their purchasing decisions, your winery should have a professionally made website. New specials can be sent out to email lists and posted on the website. To attract more customers, you can create online shopping carts. By selling online, your winery will be able to expand its geographic region in unlimited directions.

Competition can be tough in the world of food and restaurants, but the best thing you can do to keep up with your competitors is to reach out into the community, constantly. You must always be expanding your fan base and trying to tap in to new markets. The more active you are in trying to reach your target audience, the more likely they are to hear you.