So harvest is over. Now What?
How to channel your pent up energy/momentum/interest from harvest into your marketing
Here in Santa Barbara County, we’ve officially wrapped up what has been one of the longer and more baffling vintages I’ve experienced since entering the wine industry in 2010. It actually reminded me a lot of 2010, actually, with the long, cool growing season and sporadic rainstorms smack dab in the middle of harvest. It was a lot of “hurry up and wait” this year, but the various shenanigans that come with harvest made for some really interesting content to share across social media.
And while the slow trickle of holiday promos has begun to take over our inboxes (seriously, why are we starting Black Friday in October now?), it has been rather quiet around these here parts. A little too quiet.
Now, as someone with ADHD, I can tell you: the worst thing you can do right now is sit down (metaphorically… or fuck it, literally, too). Because once you start doing The Sits™, you often lose all motivation to do The Moves™, so here are some ways I am taking my pent-up energy from this weird harvest, and putting it into something that Future Me (and my marketing strategy) will be very grateful for:
Recap the vintage (while it’s still fresh in your head)
Your brain might be ready to repress it already, but now is the perfect time to gather up all of your notes, photos, videos, and voice memos and do a cute little recap. Especially if you found that your followers enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes of how the vintage came together, a harvest or even entire vintage (from pruning to harvest) recap should land really well. Bitches love an end to the story. Explain why this vintage was special, unusual, or weird. Talk about any projects you are excited about from this vintage or about any challenges you faced. Even better if you can get your winemaker or someone else to be in a video, or provide some quotes for the caption.
Here’s a couple of examples:
Build out your content calendar for 2026.
I like to do this every December. I find that planning even a loose year-at-a-glance now while I still have the energy from harvest helps give me the clarity I need when things slow down. Here is an article I wrote last year that can help guide you on how to start making your plans for the coming year:
I’m also thinking about doing a live mini course/webinar where I can walk you through how I help my clients plan their marketing strategy for the year. Is this something you’d be interested in?
Map out offers for the slow season.
This goes hand-in-hand with the previous tip but, if you aren’t quite ready to deep dive into what your entire 2026 looks like, then at least start with Q1, which tends to be a lot slower than most of the rest of the year. What do you want people to do in January when wine sales naturally dip? Sign up for your email list? Join the club? Make “try new wines” their New Year's Resolution? Think about how to keep people connected and engaged with you in the off-season and plan your offers accordingly.
Batch your emails, blogs, or other long-form content.
You know all those ideas you had during harvest but you were too sticky and busy to do anything with? Now’s your window! Set aside an afternoon to knock out a few blog posts or emails. Bonus points if you plug them right into your calendar and schedule them out. I find that it’s easier to write a bunch of posts/emails in an hour than it is to write a single post/email in an hour. IDK, it has something to do with Newton’s First Law of Motion: Objects in motion, stay in motion (hence the danger of The Sits™).
Organize your photo library.
If you have a camera roll or a hard drive full of the photos and videos you captured over harvest, now’s the time to sort through them. Pick out the best shots, tag them by theme (people, cellar work, vineyard, grape variety, wine style, bottle shots, etc.), and create a little internal library you can pull from all year. You’ll thank yourself when it’s time to make your next post, and you don’t have to scroll back 4,000 photos to find the good one.
If you do one of these things a week before the end the year, you’ll be sitting pretty come January. Stay in motion. Don’t let The Sits™ win.
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Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease.