Good Marketing Techniques Seen at the AZ Wine Festival in Tempe

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!