Last month, we compiled our annual wine-related events calendar (including festivals, national competition submission deadlines, and large wine trail events) for our Oregon-based clients. As in all regions, there are multiple free calendars that members of the wine and related industries can use to augment social media, email, and traditional marketing.
We started with the Oregon Wine Board’s free online calendar, and we were surprised how few wineries were taking advantage of the opportunity to advertise their events. Not only did we see that a majority of wineries are not posting their events, but only 450 of the more than 700 wineries in Oregon have updated their free online profiles. It costs your tasting room nothing to upload your events and create an online profile, yet many have not taken advantage of this free marketing opportunity. BTW, of those 450, we noticed some tasting rooms that had closed still have online profiles, suggesting they are still in business (bad information hurts everyone in the area, and there are numerous examples of misinformation on social media as well).
Oregon Wine Press also has a free online calendar, and we noticed a majority of tasting rooms aren’t taking advantage of the free publicity there, either.
We then began studying maps and found many tasting rooms were not in one or more publications, including two print publications: the Oregon Wine Board’s annual Touring Guide and the Oregon Wine Almanac. And in Southern Oregon, there’s also the Travel Southern Oregon Visitors Guide.
There are many places to post your events at no cost. Look to other regional publications and websites. For example, in Southern Oregon, tastings rooms may post events at no cost on many other websites, including Southern Oregon Magazine, Travel Southern Oregon, What to Do in Southern Oregon, local Chamber of Commerce sites, and local TV and print media sites.
There are so many opportunities for free publicity for your tasting room events, and this blog post is just a starting place for ideas. Calendar listings are great as many people refer to calendars when looking for things to do. Are there places where you post events that you find effective? Please let us know where!
If, however, you want to take a more proactive stance to increase participation and expand your customer base, you have to get the word out to people who are not in your current email lists or engaged with your social media. Strategically targeted marketing campaigns will help you bring in new visitors, resulting in increased sales. If you or your staff don’t have time to pursue all of the event postings and create social media campaigns using the most up-to-date algorithms, call the Capiche team at 541.601.0114, email chris@capiche.wine, or fill out our Contact form. Winery marketing is what we do!
We were surprised how few wineries were taking advantage of the opportunity to advertise their events. Share on X
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