In the world of wine marketing, the battle for consumer attention and brand recognition is fierce. With the wine industry continually evolving, the need for effective marketing strategies has never been more crucial. Many wineries and vineyards face a pivotal choice: should they hire an in-house marketing team or entrust their brand to a seasoned…

The 2023 Wine Industry Sales Symposium, presented by Wine Industry Network (WIN), proved to be an unparalleled platform for learning, networking, and charting the course towards success in the dynamic world of wine sales to its attendees. The one-day educational conference featured wine industry experts speaking on all aspects of sales and marketing, including 3-Tier…

Grappa lovers get an education at Hello Grappa! Days  From June 14 to 16, 2023 in New York City, Balzac administered and managed a series of educational marketing events for the traditional Italian spirit Grappa at Hello Grappa! Days 2023. Grappa is experiencing a resurgence of interest due to its sustainability (it’s made from grape…

Last month (July 2023), agency president Michael Wangbickler was in Tbilisi, Georgia. The purpose of the trip was to conduct a day-long workshop on wine marketing and wine tourism. This was supported by a number of meetings with top officials and winery owners. Throughout the week, both Eter Gorgiladze (our expert in Georgia) and Mike…

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…

  Many craft beverage producers find themselves in need of public relations help, but often discover that hiring a specialist is out of reach. Hiring a full-service agency may be too much of a commitment at first. This is a pain point that we’ve discussed with many potential clients. We think we have the solution.…

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.

We’re thrilled to report that Emma Criswell is celebrating her six-month anniversary with the company. Criswell has a decade of experience in the wine and spirits industries and her addition adds key expertise to the management team. Not content to simply rule California, our president, Michael Wangbickler has plans to expand the company’s footprint nationally.…

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…

Napa County Agricultural Preserve Celebrates 50 YearsActivities planned throughout the year to celebrate golden anniversary Napa, CA (February 22, 2018): The Napa County Agricultural Preserve marks its 50-year anniversary in 2018. To celebrate this momentous milestone, community leaders from the Jack L. Davies Napa Valley Agricultural Land Preservation Fund and other organizations from throughout Napa…

Paul Wagner retires and Michael Wangbickler takes title of President Napa, CA (August 31, 2017) – Balzac Communications & Marketing, a leading craft food and beverage marketing communications agency, announced today that Paul Wagner has stepped down as President of the company and relinquished the title to current Chief Executive Officer Michael Wangbickler. Wagner will take…

Communications and marketing are the cornerstone pieces of our business. It’s in our company’s name and it is a part of our promise to our clients to deliver superior results. After all, we are only successful when our clients are successful. Every client is different in terms of what they want to achieve when they…

Bottle Talk with RICK and PAUL Join CPR Podcast Lineup What next? The Apocalypse? Sacramento, CA – Capital Public Radio, Sacramento’s NPR station, is now featuring Bottle Talk with Rick and Paul in its podcast lineup alongside such NPR standards as Fresh Air, MarketPlace, A Prairie Home Companion, Science Friday, and Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.  Go…

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…

A Press Kit is a critical part of any winery’s public relations program.  It defines the company, provides reference materials to any journalist who is interested, and should serve as the primary source for all messaging and information that comes from the winery. So why are so many press kits so bad? The first reason…

As a secret addict of Territory Ahead clothing catalogs, I was interested to read recently in the Wall Street Journal (which found its way into the design department from the PR folks next door) regarding “Why You Get So Many Catalogs.” The upshot is that, as we know, print and web marketing work very well…

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…