Great suggestions (and of course I agree about Tablas). I’ve given multiple presentations on this topic to winery audiences, framed from a journalist’s perspective. To your excellent list I’d add only a timeline listing all key milestones in the company’s history: date of founding, land acquisition, plantation, winery build-out, first release, additions, TR opening, whatever, along with who did that work (esp. important for multi-generational wineries). If we are to create a strong narrative we need a solid timeline; piecing this together from various information sources is time-consuming, frustrating, and error prone.
Excellent! Journalists need facts, not fluff. We like tech sheets, timelines, bios, acreage, varieties, yada. We don't need the marketing blather. The blather part is our job. 😆
I think it really depends on what their goals are. If they want to get more placements, then the more robust the better. Bare minimum, they need tech sheets for whatever wines they are distributing, logos, and a handful of hi-res photos (refer to "The Basics" section of this post). As with all marketing, they will get out of it what they put into it, and if they aren't putting a lot of effort into their trade page then they likely won't see much in the way of retail placements (or at the very least they'll end up spending a shit ton of time doing the admin work of sending assets to distributors and retailers, and for small wineries their time and resources much more scarce, so investing the time and enegy now into a more robust trade page will save them time and energy in the future).
If they sell 100 percent of their wine by allocation, maybe not—but that’s the only case in which these materials might be less useful. Otherwise they absolutely need the basics (speaking principally from my perspective as journalist, although I’ve been a wine marketer, too).
Great suggestions (and of course I agree about Tablas). I’ve given multiple presentations on this topic to winery audiences, framed from a journalist’s perspective. To your excellent list I’d add only a timeline listing all key milestones in the company’s history: date of founding, land acquisition, plantation, winery build-out, first release, additions, TR opening, whatever, along with who did that work (esp. important for multi-generational wineries). If we are to create a strong narrative we need a solid timeline; piecing this together from various information sources is time-consuming, frustrating, and error prone.
This is a GREAT suggestion! I’m going to suggest this to FOXEN who are working on building out a new website
Excellent! Journalists need facts, not fluff. We like tech sheets, timelines, bios, acreage, varieties, yada. We don't need the marketing blather. The blather part is our job. 😆
Hi Heather!
Not 3 months ago, I cold-called (email) a local winery and offered to fix their half a dozen, half finished tech sheets.
No response!
Do you think it’s accurate to say that smaller wineries don’t need a robust ‘Trade’ section on their website?
I think it really depends on what their goals are. If they want to get more placements, then the more robust the better. Bare minimum, they need tech sheets for whatever wines they are distributing, logos, and a handful of hi-res photos (refer to "The Basics" section of this post). As with all marketing, they will get out of it what they put into it, and if they aren't putting a lot of effort into their trade page then they likely won't see much in the way of retail placements (or at the very least they'll end up spending a shit ton of time doing the admin work of sending assets to distributors and retailers, and for small wineries their time and resources much more scarce, so investing the time and enegy now into a more robust trade page will save them time and energy in the future).
If they sell 100 percent of their wine by allocation, maybe not—but that’s the only case in which these materials might be less useful. Otherwise they absolutely need the basics (speaking principally from my perspective as journalist, although I’ve been a wine marketer, too).