Vineyard & Winery Management

May/June 2013

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UNCORKING PR PAUL WAGNER B2B as Vital as B2C Effective campaigns target businesses as well as consumers ost communications experts will tell you that business-to-business (B2B) campaigns are often very different from the typical campaigns aimed at consumers. But I'd like to suggest that they have more in common than you might think. Whether you are a winery or a supplier, the marketing communications challenges are the same – and so are the solutions. The first issue is the size of your market. If you are a winery supplier, your market is pretty darned defined, and that should make your job a lot easier. There is nothing worse than trying to market a product and not knowing who, if anyone, might want to buy it. For most small wineries, the same is true. You know that you are not going to sell wine in all 50 states, and you are not going to sell wine to people who don't drink wine. So you've already defined your market both geographically and demographically. How cool is that? The second issue you have to address in any communications program is your unique selling proposition. What is your USP? Whether you are selling wine to consumers, or barrels or grapes to wineries, this question still must be asked, and answered. What makes you different from your competitors? And why should your customers buy from you instead of others? If you can't answer those questions, you can't do effective marketing for anyone, be they suppliers or wineries. Wineries and their suppliers often struggle with this. + You need to have a clearly defined Since we specialize message that distinguishes you from in the wine industry, we your competition. do both kinds of mar+ Tightly define your audience so that keting. We help wineryou can choose your media wisely. ies find customers and + Focus on cost-effective solutions markets, and we help that will reach the most likely cussuppliers find customers tomers with the strongest message. as well. There are a lot of common threads in + Everything you do should help build these two activities, so relationships and create a commuit makes sense to comnity of customers around your brand. pare them. Let's take the various elements one by one, and talk about how they can help you communicate your brand and build relationships and customer loyalty. SHORT COURSE ADVERTISING What makes your company stand out in the crowd? You should know the answer before launching a communications program. Photo: Digital Vision/Thinkstock w w w. v w m media.com I'll be the first to tell you that there are many more cost-effective and efficient ways to reach your core audience than advertising. That is, unless you focus the advertising efforts on publications with a narrowly defined target market. In the case of a supplier, this may be one of the handful of wine trade publications whose audiences are primarily wine industry readers. M a y - J u n e 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 17

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