Balzac provides relevant content to the food, beverage, and travel space to clients and prospects to get the most out of their agency relationships.
Here we discuss the latest happenings in the industry, news from the company, resources for clients and prospects, and the occasional fun article.
Content is a meaningful way to share ideas with those that need it. We’re happy to share our knowledge and experience, with the hope that our clients see our value beyond the blog.
With 30 years in the business of marketing communications, we’ve developed many tips and tricks to increase efficiency and profitability for our clients. Today, the company is led by Michael Wangbickler, who joined the agency in 2004. Since then, Michael has worked with dozens of clients from all over the world, from France and Italy to Australia and Japan.
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With Black History Month upon us, we wanted to reflect on one of our core values: focus on diversity, inclusivity, and equity. The wine business has been in crisis-mode for several years, centered around its lack of diversity and inclusion. It’s always been there. It was just ignored or discounted by most executives. The pressure…
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are those that have a deep understanding of a particular field, job, process, material, or any other specific area. This expertise comes from years (If not decades) working with the subject matter at hand. Likely, the individual has advanced degrees pertaining to their subject while also engaging in continuous education to…
Contemporary marketing involves running and monitoring different processes to attain the desired results. This can make it quite difficult for businesses to grow sustainably if they lack the right tools for collaboration, communication, customer service, and marketing. Today, over 75 percent of marketers use at least one type of marketing tool to optimize their campaigns.…
Keeping your audience informed about your products, services, or brand is essential to stay relevant within the wines and spirits industry. Today, companies are spending about 10.5 percent of their revenue on marketing activities, such as SEO, videos, blogging, PPC ads, and more. While these strategies effectively generate the desired results, many brands do not…
If this year has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. Business as usual has become business in crisis. Things happen, and it’s best to be prepared. At Balzac, we have 30 years of wine industry experience and have seen a thing or two. It’s like those Farmer’s Insurance commercials. We’ve just about seen…
One of the results of the global pandemic and resulting shelter in place orders has been a monumental upswing in cooking and drinking at home. Wineries that had once conducted the majority of sales out of their tasting rooms began seeing online sales skyrocket. Brands that offered their wines in grocery stores suddenly were sending…
A great chef once told me that people eat with their eyes first; they’ve already judged their meal by its appearance before taking their first bite. Over the past 10 years working as a commercial photographer, I find the same is true with wine photography. Quality photography is a key component of any successful marketing…
Hint: If your business isn’t doing these things, you’re missing out on a lot of potential sales Syncing Ecommerce and Email Systems This is one of the most fundamental pieces involved in doing successful email marketing. Yet it’s also something that so many small- and midsize-wineries fail to implement. Here’s why it’s critical that businesses…
Targeting digital audiences is just a matter of creating content that informs, inspires, and attracts the right customers. With up to 98 percent of B2B swearing by content marketing, it’s opportune for wines & spirits marketers to capitalize on the opportunities digital marketing offers. Most brands have had success with the use of social media…
It’s no longer simply working from home; it’s working from home during a pandemic. I’ve had the good fortune of being a remote employee during my entire tenure with Balzac, and I’ve been able to fine tune my routine and learn what works best for me over the years. But this post isn’t about that.…
When companies hire a marketing agency, they’re hoping that someone will view their business with as much excitement and respect as they do. The right agency knows your customers, inside and out, and feels just as strongly about the business mission as the company itself. A good agency-client relationship is a dream, but how can…
In the wine and spirits industry, we aim to please our customers with high quality beverages. Why not go further and show that you can relate to consumers on multiple levels? Your take on public relations during current events, such as the Black Lives Matter protests and the COVID-19 pandemic, matters. Taking a stance on…
These are extraordinary and unprecedented times. It’s safe to say that no one had a plan in place for how to deal with a worldwide pandemic. Here at Balzac we’ve put aside much of our day-to-day operations to help clients craft their messaging around COVID-19. As we gain clarity on what this means for us…
Social media is both the great promise and the frustrating curse of beverage marketing. On the one hand, it allows us direct access to our customers, without having to go through gatekeepers. On the other, it’s challenging to know what are best practices and how to most effectively use the tools. This is especially so,…
PR and sales work together in more intimate ways than what is always visible on the surface. There are many benefits to this relationship on both sides.
Winery websites are moving away from “brochureware” to real eCommerce platforms. In order to accomplish this, multiple technologies are required.
Helping build beverage websites is fun. It never gets old and is always a challenge. Because as soon as sell alcohol online, things get pretty interesting.
The Prohibition Hangover Yes, tied-house laws are confusing, and violating them may have serious consequences – fines, impacts on your license to do business in other states, and even potential suspension of your license. “Tied-house” – to most people outside the alcoholic-beverage industry (and a fair number of us in the industry), this is an…
At Balzac Communications, we work hard to connect with our clients and deliver the results they want. After all, having strong client and media relationships is what public relations is all about. That’s why initial face-to-face meetings with potential new clients are so valuable. It’s the opportunity for us to listen to them speak about…
Your choice of words is critical, whether you are dealing with pubic, trade or media. Media training often has many opportunities for a cleverly turned phrase. If a journalist interviews three or four people for a story, the interviewees who will get quoted the most will be the ones who are most articulate. Does this…
