Best Marketing Techniques at the AZ Wine Festival at the Farm

The AZ Wines Festival at the Farm happened last Sunday, and it was awesome! A large number of the Arizona wineries and winemakers were there, showing off their excellent wines. Great wines and great people! A good time was had by everyone. I'm looking forward to next year!

Public-oriented events like this are perfect opportunities for good marketing. Everyone did a great job, and I'd like to point out some of the best marketing techniques I saw.

1. Flyers and handouts. Almost everyone had something to give to the people who stopped by their booths. That's very good. Always give your visitors something to remember your wines.
Special Mention: One winery handed out a list of "Our 2010 releases", circled their name, and told me the month the wines would be available. Very good move. It made me remember them.

2. Collecting email addresses. Almost everyone had an email sign-up sheet to collect the email addresses of the visitors. Great! You always want to collect the contact information of people who stop by your booth.

3. "Best Method": The best marketing technique went to one of the wineries who handed out a card that entitled the bearer to a free gift when it was brought into the winery. Excellent! Makes me want to visit them. Plus, they weren't handing them out to everyone, so I felt like I was "special".

Good job, everyone!

A couple more ideas:
I'd like to add a couple of ideas that could make your marketing efforts even better (If you don't mind, of course. I *have* had a little practice doing it: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-parlova/0/1a/4a3 ).

1. Actively encourage people to sign up for your emails. Everyone had their sign-up sheet there, but nobody pointed it out to me.

1. Work it into conversation with the tasters: ("If you sign up for our email newsletter, we'll send you recipes to go with this wine").
2. Print out a copy of the newsletter (so they can see what they'll get), and a short "pitch". That'll sell the newsletter without you having to talk. It's a "silent salesperson"!

2. Immediately send an email to the people who signed up. The next day is best. People will remember you better if you remind them of you right away. We all see hundreds of ads and meet lots of people so we're going to forget who we met and what we did. If you email them right away, they'll remember you. A couple of tips:

1. Send them a "Thanks for Stopping By Our Booth" email the next day.
   
   
2. Two to three days later, send them a coupon or a recipe via email. Anything that has *value for the recipient*. This will cement your winery in their minds, and they'll look forward to the next email they get from you. This is also an excellent time to send them a list of stores where they can find your wine.
   

Again, the AZ Wines Festival was great! Arizona has wonderful wines and wonderful winemakers! Let's do this again and show the world how great our wines are!