Do you have an Editorial Calendar for 2010? If not, consider creating one.An editorial calendar is a listing of what will be featured in future issues of a magazine. All the food and wine magazines have an editorial calendar, and they (usually) post it onto their website for easy downloading. This means that you can see what the magazines are planning, all the way from January to December 2010.What’s the advantage of this? When you know what they’re planning to write about, you’ll know the types of stories to propose to them. But the only way to know what stories to propose and when to propose them is by setting up a calendar of your own. Your editorial calendar doesn’t require anything fancy; just something that you can put dates and story ideas into so that you know what to say and when to approach the media.Occasions to Include:- Holidays: Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.
- Events: Super Bowl, World Series, etc.
- Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
- “Special” events: For example, September 29th is National Coffee Day. June 6th is National Donut Day (really!).
When a specific date draws near, give thought to a food item or a wine that might go well with the occasion (romantic wines for Valentine’s Day, cool meals for the hot summer, etc.). Write up a release and send it to the media. It’s as simple as that.By planning your stories around the dates that the media plans theirs, you’ll increase your chance of getting coverage. So take a moment and plan out your own editorial calendar. It’ll pay off in the long run.
There’s still time to get your products onto the local TV programs by positioning them for Christmas. I watched the local (AZ) TV talk shows (Channel 3 and Channel 15, to be exact) this morning and here are two of the topics I saw:- Holiday Cheese Trays: simple and elegant (Channel 3)
- Holiday desserts: Traditional and imaginative (Channel 15)
Here’s the opportunity for you:During the section on holiday cheese trays the hostess asked: “What does this pair with? The guest suggested breads and fruits. I thought “NO WINE???”And one of the suggestions on “holiday desserts” was a cheese tray. The hostess said “I’ll bet this cheese would go well with wine”, but SHE HAD NO WINE TO PAIR WITH THE CHEESE…and neither did the guest.So there’s a HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU: Come up with some wines that would pair well with holiday cheeses (gouda, brie, smoked cheddar, etc.), contact the TV stations, and tell them that you can talk about fast-and-easy wine pairings to holiday cheese trays. They’d probably go for it because this is a “follow-on story”. They’ve talked about cheese, so they can now add in the wine.Follow-on stories are always popular with the media - a good follow-on story keeps audience interest because they build on a previous story. Audiences will say: "Oh yeah! I remember that earlier story!" When you provide a good addition to a previous story you'll get considered as a guest.
So take a look into opportunities like this. Every story on TV has the potential to mean coverage for you. Just watch for areas where you can add your expertise to something they're already talking about.
Happy holidays to everyone!
Channel 15's "Sonoran Living" program today had a cooking segment in which the chef prepared a dish that included white wine. As the chef stirred the dish cooking in the pan, the hostess of the program poured in some white wine. When the hostess put down the wine bottle the label came into view, and I would swear that it was a bottle of Arizona's Page Springs Cellars wine. I couldn't quite tell, but Page Springs has a very unique label, and this looked just like one of them.This brings up a very important point that will increase the amount of publicity you get: When any of your customer-restaurants are on a TV program, ask them to mention the name of your wine while they're cooking.Ask them to say something like: "Add some white wine to the pan....I'm using Page Springs Cellars' Chardonnay...". It's really that simple, and your wine has just gotten mention on TV.People remember products through constant repetition. Even something as simple as hearing it mentioned on a cooking program will add to their familiarity so when it comes time to select a wine, they'll look for yours. By asking chefs to mention your wine when they're cooking for a TV program, you're building that familiarity and ultimately building your sales.- Gordon
Christmas is less than two weeks away (!). Now's the time to begin expanding your dollars-per-sale by encouraging your current customers to consider stocking-stuffers.Most wineries and wine stores carry a variety of smaller wine-related items: foods, wine-serving accessories, glasses, etc. These items are perfect for the harried Christmas shopper to pick up as inexpensive gifts for their friends and families. It's up to you to make the suggestions to them because if they're in your store to buy a bottle of wine, they may not think of the other items. So make the suggestion and increase the dollars-per-sale.Ideas that you might want to think about:Food items:
Make food suggestions whenever someone buys a bottle of wine. Say something like: "I see you're buying a Merlot. Good choice! You know....this particular Merlot pairs really well with our smoked gouda cheese. Here...try a sample of the cheese. This cheese makes a great stocking stuffer, and it's discounted right now." This works really well. McDonald's significantly increased their sales with the famous line "Would you like fries with that?", and you can do that too.Wine-Serving Accessories: Combine items that make sense, but most people don't think of until it's too late. For example, corkscrews and bottle-stoppers, or corkscrews and vacuum pumps. If someone is going to open a bottle of wine, they're going to need to close it off, so putting these two together makes sense. And discount the price of the pair so that it's cheaper to buy both now than to buy one now and come back later for the other.Gift Packs:Bundle together specific items for gift packs. Wines and cheeses, accessories, etc. Offer your own, and also offer create-your-own gift packs. (Remember, we saw this at the Arizona Wine Festival: http://winepr.blogspot.com/2009/12/good-marketing-techniques-seen-at-az.html.) Offer a discount if they bundle together their own wine and cheese selection. Final Thoughts...
1. Always openly promote the stocking-stuffers. Tell visitors about them. They might not notice. Remember, 'tis the season to be running around like a maniac. Your suggestion may be just what they're looking for.
2. Engage as many of their senses as possible while they're shopping. The longer they're tasting and smelling and viewing your offerings, the closer they are to purchasing. Get them engaged, and your sales will improve.
Hope that gives you some ideas! Best wishes for a happy and prosperous holiday season!
- Gordon
Last weekend I attended the AZ Wine Festival at the Tempe Festival of Arts. It was great! Lots of good wine, and plenty of friendly people.
I checked out the marketing techniques that the food/wine booths were using, and I'd like to share a few with you. There were plenty in use, but these particularly caught my attention.
Best Technique for Gathering Lots of Potential Buyers:
Send "walkers" out into the crowds with samples. One of the food vendors had hired a couple of teenagers to walk through the crowd handing out product samples. This is a great technique because it draws people in from all over the event - especially people who may not have even gotten near your booth while they were there. Excellent! Granted, you can't send samples of wine out into the crowd, but what else could you do? (Hat tip: Eleanor Joseph Confections)
Best Technique for Enhancing the Customer Experience:
This is for wineries: Include something that the wine can be tasted with. Have a couple of food items available for the samplers to taste with the wine so they can taste how well it pairs with food. One of the wineries had chocolate (M&Ms) in a bowl that could be tasted with their wines and port. Nice! (Hat tip: Jerome Winery)
Best Technique for Stimulating More-Than-One Purchases:
Offer "create-your-own" gift packs. We've discussed gift packs earlier. This company made it an option for the customer to create their own customized gift packs ("Pick any three sauces"). Here's the advantage to that: customers are more likely to buy if they aren't locked in to only a couple of choices. It's easier for them and easier for you too....you don't have to dream up a bunch of combos for gift packs! (Hat tip: Sweet and Saucy)
There were a bunch of other good marketing techniques that I saw, including a *great* one for stimulating continuing sales after-the-festival. They are, however, too numerous to mention here. Also, I've posted photos from the festival on Twitpic.com. You can see them by following me on Twitter: @WineAndFoodPR.
Great job, everyone!
Christmas is approaching quickly. Here’s a fast way to increase your sales.Create gift packs. Put together a bundle of special holiday-themed items and sell it for one price. You’ve all seen gift baskets, I’m sure. It’s the same principle.Holiday shoppers like buying bundles of items because they make great gifts. Also, people throw a lot of food-related parties during the holidays. If you can provide a wine/cheese combination or a wine/snacks combination, you’ve just saved the home chef a bundle of work. They’ll buy it just for that.Taste your wines, figure out what will go well with them, and then put those items together. For example, one of the Arizona wineries has a Merlot with a light smoky flavor. Pair that wine with a smoked gouda or a smoked cheddar cheese, and you have a great match. Put it into a colorful package, add a holiday ribbon, and you can sell it for more than the cost of the two put together.However, don’t just bundle products together without thinking about it. Take the time to put together winning combinations. Remember, YOU are the expert in the wine/food area. Customers look to you to help them have a satisfying wine experience. If you bundle together some great flavors, they’ll remember you and come back for more.This will help with your PR as well. The local daily TV programs (Channel 3, Channel 15, etc) are always looking for stories that will help the home chef. If you can provide suggestions for improving their viewers’ holiday parties, the TV stations will be interested in talking with you.And remember: Actively encourage your potential customers to *experience* the gift packs. When you’re displaying the product gift packs, provide tastes of the wine and cheese together. Tell the tasters that those are the items in the gift pack and that they’re specially chosen to go together. The more senses the customer uses (taste, smell, sight) to experience your product, the more likely they are to purchase.And it doesn’t have to be just cheese. Sausage, chocolates, fruit, cakes; whatever goes well with your particular wines will work.So before you head out to that next tasting to show off your wines, put together a couple of gift packs and offer them to your customers. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many more sales you’ll gain by doing this.
