With the vast selection of quality wines in Portugal, how can a small or lesser-known wine brand stand out from the pack, be visible and increase sales?

This was the “million” dollar question looming over the minds of the producers we met at the Lisbon Wine show in November. We’ve had these folks on our mind and thought we’d focus on a few key marketing points that could help this important industry.

The New Playbook selling wine

{note: you can read the original article here}

The 6 Key Points:

First and foremost, two necessary ingredients must exist: You have to love what you do: making great wine. And second: You need to communicate and share the quality of your craft.

Since Portuguese wines have quality, uniqueness and diversity, they’re able to compete against many international brands, so quality is not the issue. Recognition however is another story, and this unfortunately comes down to lack of good marketing. So the real issue isn’t the product, but the right marketing and communication strategy for our new, highly informed and connected generation.

Once the first two ingredients are in place, here’s what’s next:

01: Understanding your ideal customer

02: A creative name

03: Label design

04: Website

05: Blogging

06: Adegga.com

1) Your Ideal Customer

First and foremost, consumers are looking for good wines to pair with food. Today, consumers are more sophisticated and informed than ever before, hence their food choices are more dynamic and experimental. So, small and lower priced wine producers need to throw out the old playbook – and assess the right market for their wine. A good example are the folks behind Wine That Loves



Producers need to decide what type of customer they want to appeal too, and who they don’t. What got my attention at the Lisbon Wine Fair was that 95% of the wines had the allure of a high-end snooty type (the likes of 100+ Euro bottles), yet a large percentage were very reasonable and wonderful. This clearly demonstrates few wines are marketed at younger drinkers who buy reasonably priced bottles, but buy often. So a strong market who is ready and looking to buy regularly, is over looked – for one that’s highly competitive, limited and already saturated.

As a wine enthusiast, with some wine-jargon, and a customer of “reasonably” priced bottles, I would use these words to describe wine in more modern terms: fun, sexy, spicy, fresh, adventurous … however at the fair, 99% of the wines communicated:

Serious, traditional, stuffy, snooty – from branding message to wine name and labeling. Few deviated from the “traditional” theme, but the few who did, definitely got noticed! So let’s be honest, not every wine is “serious, traditional and stuffy” and that’s ok — some wines should be wonderfully bold, fresh and new to appeal to a new customer. Communicating individual character in creative new ways is the path to the new wine drinkers lips, and the parting of the red wine seas of “serious” wines.

Here’s a solution: When marketing wine, producers should look at their ideal drinkers through personas, then make sure they communicate to the needs and wants of this group.



2) A Creative Name

Choosing the right name is a delicate science similar to producing the wine. The wrong name on a bottle could completely turn off the targeted customer.

Today’s customers tend to be more traveled and informed, yet less formal. We want to be surprised, delighted and have our pallet tickled with a creative edge and freshness, so naming and labeling a wine is vital to its marketability.

Here’s three examples:

1. Fat ******* Wines

2. Dirty Laundry

3. Dancing Bull

Two key points when it comes to naming:

01: individual and unique

02: not overly difficult to pronounce.

3) Bottle design and story

Imagine standing in front of a shop, with endless rows of wine bottles and having to pick a wine for dinner. This is a nerve wracking experience for most people, so one of two things happens:

01: they pick up the same bottle they always do or

02: take a huge leap of faith and bet on something new.

Part of the goal in marketing a wine is seducing the customer. Since potential buyers can’t taste the wine, the bottle design and labeling needs to communicate cues of visual sensory to help attract a potential customer. If a customer isn’t seduced by the bottle, branding and label, then the sale is lost, and only hope is personal recommendations.

As cost is always a factor, we recommend a simple bottle with a creative, clean and beautifully designed label. This doesn’t have to be expensive. For example, see how a successful Portuguese producer turned his children’s art work into a wonderful wine label:

Wine Label

Key points to remember for bottle labeling & design:

01: Tell a story about the wine

02: Help solve the shopper’s problem by giving suggestions for food pairings

03: Don’t assume the customer knows how to pair wines with food

04: Label design should be fun, different and aimed at the ideal market group

4) Web Strategy

To date, Portuguese wines haven’t taken advantage of promoting themselves through the web. This is a mistake! The web is the key source of information for today’s culinary aware and those looking to learn more. This is an invaluable sales and marketing tool.

The good news – the web is here to stay, so wine producers can turn the web into their best friend and take advantage by quickly reaching millions of people…real people, who love to drink wine! It all starts with a dynamic website and visibility strategy that is loved by humans and respected by search engines.

5) Blogging

Blogging doubled Stormhoek sales in less than twelve months.

Blogging scares and intimidates many, but it shouldn’t. A smart producer has two options: become friendly with the wine blogging community, or start one himself, we actually recommend both. This is a fantastic way to get closer to customers first hand.

A well-designed blog can be an invaluable marketing tool:

01: Help build a community around your wine

02: Higher search engine rankings

03: Media & press exposure

04: Better brand recognition

05: Low cost

If you’re unsure about blogging and would like to know how to star a blog, or would like us to set one up for you, contact us. We also recommend, you read this article.

Here are examples of good Wine blogs:

01: Pinot Blogger

02: Stormhoek.com

6) Adegga.com

Adegga is a play on the word “adega” (only one “g”) which means cellar in Portuguese.

It is a place where friends come together to talk, share and learn about wine.

For Portuguese wine producers, here you have a captive audience of Portuguese wine drinkers and this would be an opportunity to get feedback about your wine, build a relationship with a group of influencers and naturally from this will come word of mouth. If your wine has all the ingredients in place, then naturally it will be talked about and people will carry that conversation offline at cafes, dinners, lunches and etc.

If you don’t know where to start, go to Adegga.com and get your wine’s listed for free.

If you’re serious about selling more wine nationally, across Europe or around the globe, then by all means get started on the above. And if you need our help, we will be more than happy to advise and help you with each step.



By: Moses Mehraban

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Wine Marketing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.