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WINE WISE MARKETING ELIZABETH SLATER Tackling Tourism Advertising Budget wisely to reach this important market segment dvertising is a tricky business and always has been. As department store pioneer John Wanamaker, considered by some to be the father of modern advertising (he also invented the price tag) once said, ���I know half of my advertising works, I just don���t know which half.��� That statement is as true today as it was when Wanamaker first said it in the late 1800s. Many companies that advertise don���t really know what works and what does not. Should you be advertising your winery, goods and/or services? To help answer that question, I���ll cover some of the ins and outs of advertising, and what you should be aware of before signing any contracts or checks. Rather than covering all types of advertising, the focus here is on the tourist market, a big part of most wineries��� target audience. Advertising is not inexpensive, so you want to do everything you can to increase the odds of people seeing your placement and taking the action you suggest in it, such as visiting the winery or buying your wines. Doing everything you can includes creating a budget and choosing advertising vehicles that will get you to the audience you wish to reach. When trying to attract tourists to your winery, consider and analyze your media options, from magazines to Google. w w w. v w m media.com Whether you have $1,000 or $100,000 to spend on advertising, it���s important to spend that money wisely. Start by making a list of the types of advertising you believe will work for you. Put all your options on the list, and then narrow them down by cost and how the demographics for each medium suit your target audience (this information can usually be found on media companies��� websites). Consider everything: local tourist guides; wine, food and travel magazines; radio and TV; billboards, and Facebook and Google ads. Your budget should also include the costs of having the ads created. SHORT COURSE + Have your ads professionally ALIGN WITH DESIGN designed. + Know your audience and how best to It���s important that your reach it. ads are designed to be of + Let your local tourism and conveninterest to the readers/ tion and visitors bureaus help you. viewers of the advertising mediums you choose + Make sure your ads show how you from your list. Unless are different from other wineries. you have an experienced + Look for opportunities to share the graphic artist on staff, cost of advertising with other wineries. hire one, or hire an advertising agency, to create the materials for you. An advertising agency will also recommend media targets and can place the ads for you (at a cost, of course). Find a graphics professional with lots of experience designing advertising and promotional pieces. It���s important that the designer understand your objectives, and it helps if he or she has experience in the wine business, because the regulations concerning alcoholic beverage promotion are often different than those of other products, and they vary from state to state. Equally as critical is the quality of the ad itself. As with everything you do, your J a n - F e b 2 0 13 | V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T 21