Does Your Winery Have a Marketing Plan, or Just a Lot Going On?
Most wineries have a lot going on.
There are releases to promote, wine club shipments to manage, events to fill, tasting room traffic to think about, social media to post, emails to send, wholesale partners to support, and a website that probably needs attention. Maybe harvest is coming up, the holidays are just around the corner or you have a new release to promote.
The problem isn't that there's too much to market. It's that every piece of marketing is happening separately, with no plan tying it together.
That's when winery marketing starts to feel reactive. Everyone's busy, but no one's quite sure what matters most. The tasting room is promoting one thing, the email list is hearing about something else, Instagram is posting whatever's available, and the website hasn't caught up with any of it.
That's not a marketing plan. That's just a lot going on.
What Reactive Winery Marketing Looks Like
You may be dealing with reactive marketing if any of this sounds familiar:
You're sending emails at the last minute because a release is coming up or event tickets aren't selling.
Social media depends on whether someone has time that week.
Your wine club messaging is mostly transactional.
Events get planned, but marketing starts only a few days out.
Your tasting room staff isn't always sure what the current priority is.
Your website, email, social media, and tasting room materials all sound a little different.
You've hired people to help with individual pieces, but no one's looking at the full picture.
You keep saying you need to "be better at marketing," but no one has the time or direction to decide what that actually means.
This is common, especially at small and growing wineries. It doesn't mean your team isn't working hard. Usually it means they're doing their best while juggling the hundred other things that keep the business moving.
But when marketing is always last-minute, it's hard to build momentum. You end up asking people to buy, visit, or sign up only when you need something from them. And you miss the chance to tell a fuller story, about the wine, the people, the vineyard, the place, and the experience you're creating.
A Marketing Plan Doesn't Have to Be Complicated
When people hear "marketing plan," they picture a giant document that gets written once, presented in a meeting, and then sits in a folder for the rest of the year.
That's not what I mean.
A useful winery marketing plan is just a shared understanding of what you're trying to accomplish, who you're trying to reach, and what needs to happen to get there.
At a basic level, your team should be able to answer:
What are our biggest business priorities this quarter?
What are we asking customers to do right now?
Which releases, events, wine club moments, or offers need the most support?
Who are we trying to reach?
What do we want people to understand about our wines and winery?
Which channels are we using, and what is each one responsible for?
Who owns each piece of the work?
What are we measuring to know whether it worked?
You don't need every post, email, and event planned twelve months out. But you shouldn't be deciding what to say the day before you say it, either.
Start With What Matters Most
A winery can always find ten things to promote. That doesn't mean you should promote all ten at once.
One of the most useful things a marketing plan does is force you to choose.
Maybe your priority this quarter is growing the wine club. Maybe it's tasting room traffic during a slow season. Maybe it's selling through a library release, building awareness in a new market, growing your email list, or supporting an important wholesale partner.
Those goals need different messages and different kinds of marketing.
If wine club growth is the priority, your website, tasting room conversations, email, social, and events should all make it easy for someone to understand why joining is worth it. If tasting room traffic is the priority, your content should give people a reason to visit now, not just show them another bottle on a table.
When everything is a priority, nothing really is.
Your Customers Shouldn't Have to Piece It Together
A customer might interact with your winery in several places before they ever buy or plan a visit. They might find you on Instagram, click to your website, sign up for your email list, visit the tasting room, attend an event, and eventually join the wine club. Each of those should feel connected.
That doesn't mean every channel needs identical wording. It means the experience should make sense as a whole.
If your website says your winery is warm, personal, and rooted in place, but your emails are only discount codes and shipping reminders, something's missing. If your Instagram makes the winery look lively and welcoming, but it's hard to find your hours, location, reservation info, or current wines on the website, you're making people work too hard.
The tasting room matters here too. Your staff is one of the strongest parts of your marketing. They're often the ones who turn a first visit into a wine club member, a repeat customer, or someone telling their friends to come in next weekend. They should know what you're promoting, what story you're telling, and what the next best step is for a guest.
Give Each Channel a Job
A plan gets easier once you stop expecting every channel to do everything.
Your website should help people understand your winery and take action, whether that's booking a tasting, shopping wine, joining the club, checking event details, or finding directions.
Email is one of the best ways to build a relationship over time. It's where you tell the longer story, share a release, invite people in, follow up after a visit, and remind wine club members why they joined in the first place.
Instagram helps people get a feel for your winery and stay connected to what's happening. It's good for showing the place, the people, the wines, the events, and the personality behind the business, and it should make it easy to get to the next step.
The tasting room is where the promise becomes real. If someone comes in because of an email, an Instagram post, or an event, the experience should feel consistent with what they were expecting.
PR, partnerships, paid advertising, and wholesale support can all be valuable too. They just work better when they're supporting a clear goal instead of getting added because you feel like you should be doing more.
Most Wineries Don't Need a Big In-House Marketing Team
Most small to medium-sized wineries don't need a big in-house marketing department. You probably don't need a full-time marketing director, a full-time social media person, an email person, a designer, an SEO person, and someone managing PR.
But you do need someone with actual marketing skills looking at the whole picture.
That might be an owner who has the time and interest to do it well, an experienced in-house marketing person, a fractional marketing director, or a combination of internal support and outside specialists.
The important part is that the person leading marketing understands strategy, the platforms, the customer journey, and the business goals. They should be setting priorities, keeping the calendar moving, making sure the message is consistent, and helping the team decide what doesn’t need to happen right now.
A personal Instagram account is not the same as knowing how to market a winery. Being young, online a lot, or comfortable posting does not automatically make someone the right person to manage the first impression of your business.
If you have someone on your team doing marketing, give them dedicated time to do it. Do not expect them to handle social media, email, events, website updates, and everything else in the ten spare minutes between their other responsibilities. Block time on the calendar. Give them room to learn. Plan dedicated content creation days instead of scrambling week to week.
As your winery grows, bring in specialists when you need them. SEO, AEO, Google Ads, PR, design, and photography are all their own specialties. No one person needs to do every piece, but someone does need to make sure the pieces are working together.
The goal is not a bigger marketing department. It is making sure the marketing you are already doing has direction.
Plan Further Out Than You Think You Need To
If your marketing feels scattered right now, do not try to fix the whole year this week. Start by getting clear on what is coming.
Your bigger business priorities should be mapped at least six months out. That includes releases, wine club shipments, events, seasonal traffic, major sales periods, harvest, and anything else that will need real marketing support.
Then build an editorial calendar at least a month ahead.
You do not need to have every caption written months in advance. But you should know what you are promoting, what stories you want to tell, which channels you are using, and who is responsible for each piece before the week it needs to go out.
At a minimum, your calendar should help you see:
The two or three biggest business priorities for the next six months
Upcoming releases, shipments, events, and seasonal moments
When marketing needs to start for each priority
What customers need to hear, and where they will hear it
Who owns the email, website updates, social media, tasting room materials, and any outside support
Dedicated time for content creation, approvals, and follow-up
A good plan gives your team room to be flexible when something changes. It does not make marketing rigid. It gives you a starting point, so every decision does not have to be made from scratch.
Your winery does not need to be everywhere or do everything. It needs a clear sense of what matters six months from now, a useful plan for the next month, and someone with the skills and time to follow through.
If you're ready to move beyond last-minute marketing and bring more direction to the work already happening, learn more about Fresh Take Creative’s Fractional Director of Marketing services or get in touch.
