Most conferences use the traditional method of education in which an expert or experts at the front of the room provide their wisdom to the audience. We, too, do this at the Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference.
However, this method ignores the collected wisdom of everyone else in the room. So historically at the WMTC we have had lengthy Industry Breakout sessions in which our attendees gather by industry group (wineries, tour operators, etc) to discuss issues of importance to them. These are often rated the best sessions of the conference.
This year we are taking these industry breakout sessions and making them even more cutting edge. We will break into two groups, focused on Marketing and Tourism, and share Best Practices on each subject. The sessions will be 360 degree participation with you and your peers providing the advice.
We will start by having each person in attendance take one minute to relate a success story in the subject of wine marketing or wine tourism. You can choose anything you want, on any subject, with large results or small. We will use the remaining time to delve deeper into any of the success stories or, as a group, walk through a series of topics related to wine marketing or wine tourism. With each group consisting of various types of attendee (winery, association, DMO, tour operator, marketing agency, hotel, etc), there should be plenty of great ideas flowing.
Please come prepared with at least one gem your organization has done in marketing or tourism that has worked great for you and be ready to share. And to take notes.
Our Moderators
For Marketing:
Anne Hallock
Director, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships, FessParker Winery & Vineyard
Anne Hallock is Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships at FessParker Winery in Los Olivos, California, which focuses on small lot, vineyard designated and clonal selection Rhône and Burgundian varietals. Before that she established and scaled global strategic marketing for The Trade Desk, a programmatic demand-side platform. Anne previously executed public relations and digital marketing assignments across multiple brands as a group manager at the Clorox Company.
Jeremy Schubert
President, Lunabean Media
With over 18 years of digital marketing and web development experience in the wine industry, Jeremy brings full-spectrum knowledge of the digital tools available to wineries from SEO to websites to email marketing to social media. His practical and whole-picture approach to implementing these highly effective tools help his clients grow their brand, reach new customers, increase tasting room traffic and DTC sales, and ultimately, deliver exemplary customer service and retention rates. Jeremy has a B.A. in English from Boston College and co-founded Lunabean Media in 2009 to merge his wine experience with his digital marketing acumen.
For Tourism:
Natalie Inouye
Vice President of Destination Marketing, Visit Lane County
Natalie oversees comprehensive destination marketing for the leisure tourism, convention & sports markets for the Eugene, Cascades & Coast region of Oregon. She manages sales, PR/marketing and services in each of the core external markets. Natalie’s over three decades of service in the visitor industry, combined with her extensive community outreach and connections, makes her a key leader in countywide destination promotions.
Heather Jordan
Senior Director of Marketing & Sales, Biltmore Wines
Heather Jordan is Senior Director of Marketing & Sales for Biltmore Wines, where she has worked for the last 13 years. Located on George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate outside Asheville, North Carolina, the Biltmore Winery is the most visited winery in the country with approximately 600,000 visitors each year. Heather is responsible for marketing strategy, market analysis, sales forecasting and wine portfolio development for Biltmore’s extensive wine business — both on property and across the United States.
Lynda Schenk is Executive Director of Wine Communicators of Australia and owner of the marketing firm Purple Giraffe. For over three decades she has worked in marketing in both the wine and other consumer industries. She is the winner of the 2018 Wine Marketer of the Year award and was a finalist in the 2019 Business Woman of the Year award in Australia.
Tammy is president at 
Originally from the Loire Valley, France, Nelly graduated from the Kedge Business School in Bordeaux with a Master’s degree in Business. Nelly joined the Sopexa family in 2018 and today leads several European wine and food council accounts, managing 360 campaigns that include trade relations, walk-around tastings, PR and influencer relations, as well as consumer activations.
Author of the highly acclaimed “When Great Wine Is Not Enough – A Wine Sales & Marketing Guide For Wineries, Négociants & Wine Brand Owners”, Eric Guerra was named the 2018 North Bay Business Journal Winery Sales & Marketing Officer Of The Year. With over 17 years of wine experience, having managed or sold over 20 million cases of wine and developed over 500+ wine brands while receiving 14 packaging awards, Erica has led some of the industries’ most iconic wineries and wine brands, including his recent wine venture Reserve Tastings Wine Club.
Sarah Miller, CEO of Axis Entertainment Inc, has over 16 years of strategic experience in public relations and marketing within the Tech, Entertainment, Sports & Lifestyle Industries. She has helped launch numerous start-up’s and also worked with notable brands including Playboy Mobile, Sony Music, Ted Talks, Hilton Hotels Digital, LA Kings, NASCAR Mobile, Visa Mobile, and NFL Mobile. Sarah is also the Founder & Chair of the Mobile Excellence Awards, one of the most prestigious and influential mobile awards in the mobile technology, entertainment & media industry.
Sarah has just shy of a decade of experience helping food & beverage, retail, lifestyle and travel brands reach new audiences through public relations, digital marketing and content creation. At Sopexa, she creates campaigns that educate, engage and inspire across print, digital and social. Sarah entertains a strong network of industry media contacts, creatives and influencers. She was awarded the PRNEWS Award for best “Diversity and Inclusion Campaign” in 2016 and the Gold Stevie Award for “Event of the Year” in 2017.
Paul has been an instructor for Napa Valley College’s Viticulture and Enology department for the past twenty-five years. He is also a guest lecturer at many universities, including the Wine Tourism MBA program through the universities of Bordeaux, Porto, and Rovira Virgili, and has spoken at more than eighty conferences throughout the world on wine, wine tourism, wine education, public affairs, and wine marketing. With Liz Thach and Janeen Olsen, he authored a book: Wine Marketing & Sales, Strategies for a Saturated Market by The Wine Appreciation Guild, which won the Gourmand International Award in 2008 for the best wine book of the year for professionals. His second book: Artisan Public Relations, is due to be published in 2019, and a third book, Wine Sales and Distribution, with John Crotts and Byron Marlowe, was published in 2019 by Rowman and Littlefield.
Experiential Marketing, or Engagement Marketing, allows you to take your go-to-market strategy to a whole new level to strengthen and engage consumer interaction with your brand. New marketing platforms today, such as social media, are designed to be two-way direct lines of communication with a community. But while social media is limited to what can be delivered online, experiential marketing includes all senses to attract and retain customers. Says Sarah (quoted here and in the following quotes):
Having managed iconic brands like Kendall-Jackson, Mumm Napa, Gary Farrell Winery, Vineyard 29, and the prestigious Maison Perrier-Jouët Champagne, Eric knows luxury marketing.