Wine Needs To Change | Molly Bossardt | Barrels and Roots

In this episode of Barrels and Roots, I sit down with Molly Bossardt, founder of Bread and Butter Digital Marketing, to talk about why great wine alone is no longer enough to grow a winery.

We explore how wine marketing is changing, why consumers care more about experiences and emotion than tasting notes, and why wineries need to understand exactly who they are trying to reach. Molly breaks down the importance of brand positioning, email marketing, social media, websites, advertising, and creating enough touchpoints for consumers to actually remember and trust a winery.

We also get into why traditional wine clubs may need to evolve into genuine communities, why the industry’s conservative approach to marketing can hold brands back, and why making wine approachable, creative, and fun could be one of the biggest opportunities ahead.

Most importantly, we discuss the changing wine consumer and why Molly believes women will play an increasingly important role in shaping the future of the industry.

If wineries want to stay relevant, they may need to stop asking how to sell more wine and start asking a different question: what kind of experience do people actually want from wine today?

What do you think the wine industry needs to change to connect with the next generation of consumers?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So these are some ways that you can like kind of like some tactics that I use when I'm starting from a marketing strategy. I mean, I think everything like at the end of the day, you have to start with a a really firm marketing strategy, which is about like, you know, defining who you are, who you're for, who you're not for, right? Like to your point, I think a lot of wineries are trying to play this middle, like to this middle road, you know, with their marketing. They're scared to um, they're scared to alienate people. And I see this a lot generationally. So like let's ground it into, and this is where brands might get theoretically on this idea that, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're for someone. But then the moment I say, well, if your current, you know, wine club member is a man in his 70s, and that's majority of them, but you know that the new consumer is a middle-aged woman, you have two different audiences. You need to kind of like take a stand for who you want to be bringing in. And they can't, it's a very tricky balance that this that these wineries are having to tow right now, especially because the consumer is changing rapidly, and the new consumer is you know, is a middle-aged woman and her taste preferences are different.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Welcome everybody back to the Barrels and Roots podcast. I am your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome return guest with me today. Can you tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Molly, and I am the owner and founder of Bread and Butter Digital Marketing, and I support wineries mostly. Uh, I do occasionally work with other types of businesses, but wineries with their digital marketing. So mostly owning their direct-to-consumer marketing support. And we'll get into some details, but um I just launched a group program where I'm helping wineries at a larger scale, at a more accessible price point, to really like get systems and strategy into place in their um all of their digital marketing channels.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

So it's awesome. Why why do you think so many wineries struggle with marketing even when they have great wine, you know?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah. I mean, it's it's a it's a challenge. I think, first of all, majority of wineries are small businesses and small family-run businesses. So I think like it's not necessarily just a winery problem. I think it's a small business problem at the end of the day, right? Um, and initially when I started my business, I was working with small businesses to help them, you know, increase their um brand awareness and increase sales through marketing. I also think that it's like a priority issue. I think a lot of times, and and and a lot of times marketing falls to the bottom of the list of priorities. It's seen as a nice to have, not a need to have, which is funny because obviously, in order to have a business, you need to sell your wine, you need to sell your product. Um, so it really should be thought of as a must-have. But I do think, you know, to be fair to wineries, for many, many years, um, up until the last several years, it was up, up, up, up, up. Everything was going well. They didn't really need to rely so heavily on marketing and so heavily on digital because things were moving and product was moving. And um, and now it's just a completely different, it's a completely different market. So it really, you know, the brands that I believe are gonna win are be gonna be the ones that are thinking about marketing and uh thinking about how to connect with audiences and where they are and and utilizing smart modern marketing tactics.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, I I love it too, because I think that the idea is you can't be everything for everyone, you know, but you do have to figure out how to reach your audience, how to get across to them and how to connect to them in the right way. You know, if you can really connect to the people that are seeking you out and find your, you know, your group, then the sky's the limit. But you know, you can't be everything for everyone. You know, and I wanted to ask you a question like, what do wine consumers actually want that wineries often fail to understand?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Uh, well, I think that there's a lot of things happening here. So a lot of a lot of wine marketing has relied heavily on um on marketing features, not necessarily. So, like, for example, features. When when I say marketing features, you're talking about the, you know, makeup of where the wine is grown. Um, you're talking about like how long it's been aged and barrel, et cetera. Like consumers don't really care that much about the features of your product. They care about how their your product makes them feel. So if they can focus on feeling a lot more in their marketing messaging and connecting that feeling, and and like part of there are many ways to do that. You can do that with storytelling, you can do that with um, you know, like lifestyle branding, et cetera. Um, but I think that that's one thing that a lot of wineries tend to kind of miss the step on is they're so because if you think about it, a lot of wine owners and people who are in decision-making processes, they're like trying to make the best product that they can and they're absolutely obsessed with that. And this is what I love. Like it's there's so much passion in the wine industry, but you can get really in the weeds and you can start thinking about like, okay, well, my product is the best because I'm doing it in an XYZ way. But the average consumer doesn't actually care about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Does that make sense? Totally. They don't really care, they just want to care about the experience. They want to get out and have some fun, they want to enjoy their time with their friends. And like, I mean, it has hints of like mulberry. Man, no one gives a crap. No one, no one cares about that. They care about, you know, is this going to be a fun experience for me and my friends? And that's where I think that the the the wineries that have tastings that are experiential and fun are really interesting as well. But I mean, I think that you have to realize what people are coming to the table for, you know? And I wanted to ask you that too, because like, why is telling a story more powerful than talking about tasting notes, you know?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, I mean, it also depends upon the story that you're telling. Because let's be honest, a lot of stories sound exactly the same. So I think this is this is the major work that I do with clients, right? Yeah, exactly. It's like, how do we differentiate you from your competitors? And a lot of that also comes down to like who is your consumer, who's your customer? And and I don't think many small wineries, I mean, I think they know innately who their customer is, but they haven't really done the research. They haven't gone to, you know, their customer reviews and put them into Chat GPT and said, who is my ideal customer? How are they talking about, you know, my brand? And then create a whole identity around this to connect to their consumer. Um, so these are some ways that you can like kind of like some tactics that I use when I'm starting from a marketing strategy. I mean, I think everything like at the end of the day, you have to start with a a really firm marketing strategy, which is about like, you know, defining who you are, who you're for, who you're not for, right? Like to your point, I think a lot of wineries are trying to play this middle, like to this middle road, you know, with their marketing, they're scared to um, they're scared to alienate people. And I see this a lot generationally. So like let's ground it into, and this is where brands might get theoretically on this idea that, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're for someone. But then the moment I say, well, if your current, you know, wine club member is a man in his 70s, and that's majority of them, but you know that the new consumer is a middle-aged woman, you have two different audiences. You need to kind of like take a stand for who you want to be bringing in. And they can't, it's a very tricky balance that this that these wineries are having to tow right now, especially because the consumer is changing rapidly, and the new consumer is, you know, is a middle-aged woman and her taste preferences are different.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Right. And I I I wonder if they're even asking the right questions. You know, are people figuring out the right things that they need to be asking and figuring out how to ask it? You know, and I think that's the thing with marketing, you have to figure out like, first of all, are you asking the right questions? Are those questions getting you the answers that you need to? Because you might not really know who to ask the questions to, you know, or are where are you looking at your metrics? Like, if you're looking at your metrics from what's already existing, you know, I when I do my podcast, I let sit there and I pay attention to people who are are are watching them, you know, but there can be things that can skew that, you know, if I'm not paying attention to different um maybe I'm posting on different platforms, but I'm only looking at the YouTube metrics, but I'm completely skipping the fact that there are people consuming what I'm posting on LinkedIn as well, you know, and I think that those are the things that you you have to figure out where are you actually doing stuff, you know, and are you are you measuring things correctly? Because sometimes we don't. Sometimes we think we're asking the right question, but we're not.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I see this with clients all the time, where also like, you know, if you look at each channel, each channel is going to skew a little bit differently. So um, in terms of marketing channel, right? We think about you can look at like your email list, how different is that from like people who are following you on Instagram? And Instagram tends to skew more female, to be honest. So, you know, you might start to see that like you have more Instagram followers that are this, like, you know, this women versus like your email list might have skew a little bit more 50-50. Um, so it is really interesting. Like, I think um, I think that's also another difference. I I recently last week, I think it was last week or the week before prior, um, the SVP SVB report, um, Silicon Valley Bank report was was published. And what was really interesting for me was kind of like the intro and the conclusion to the data was that brands that are willing to take more risks and have like have this like approach to marketing that is less risk averse, right? Those are the brands that are winning. And it's down to even like the way that the businesses are making decisions because you see the businesses that are failing are the ones that have cut costs at all, at all, you know, opportunities, right? So they're just cutting costs, cutting, costs, cutting costs, but they're not getting ahead and they're not actually doing well. The brands that are doing well are the ones that are looking at their consumers and really like truly knowing who their consumers are and trying to create experiences because I think this is gonna be the next big, big thing for wineries. I mean, it already is, but people are more interested in experiences and getting together. So I think these are the brands that are gonna win, the ones that are thinking uh outside of the box and willing to take more risks.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

I 100% agree. And I think that like that trend is already happening. You hear about wineries that are and I I said this in my last my last episode of Barrels and Roots, like the the come the winery that can give me, you know, hold on. Excuse me, the winery that can give me thank you. The winery that can give me like you know what they have for puppy yoga, but the winery that can give me wine tasting and puppies, dude, I'm there for that. Like, give me wine tasting and puppies all day. I will come back as often as I can for as many wine glasses as I can and puppies as I can. Like you have me at hello. I mean, right there, you know?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Totally, totally, yeah. I think that there's, you know, it's thinking outside of the box with experiences, it's listening to your customers and what they want. And there's a huge like creativity element too, right? The more creative you can be, the more you can kind of have fun with it. We I think we've like forgotten in the wine industry that wine is fun. And I think if we bring some back, things might change a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I completely agree. I think that it's gotten too uptight. Yeah, I think everyone is stuck on their high horse about the right way, and they're not thinking about what people are actually, you know, needing and what people are actually wanting. And like, you know, here I am. I'm talking about well, why do I want puppies and wine? Because my days are stressful, because my life, I'm pretty full a lot, you know? And you know, maybe maybe you need to see that that's what someone needs right there. You know, what does someone else need? Can you figure that out and answer and create that solution? Because if you can, there's a whole world available to you, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

It's so true. I mean, it even comes down to like product decisions, which I see um, you know, in the wine world, there's the hierarchy of the big bold red as being, you know, the pinnacle of wine superiority, right? Um and okay, this weekend I read another really interesting article, which I think anybody listening should a thousand percent read. I'm not sure if you read it. It was on wine enthusiasts. It was by Tyler Balier, I think that's how you pronounce her last name. Um, did you see this article? Um Tyler, okay, so Tyler uh has been working in the wine industry for 20 years or some odd, and she transitioned from male to female, and she documents her changes in her palate and how her tastes changed, and how she experienced wine in a man's body and in a woman's body, and how you know she's really worried about transitioning and how that would impact her career in the industry. But she she said, I mean, there's this one great coach quote where she says, I could never I could never prepare myself for being a woman in the wine industry, um, and and that that was like more impactful. And what was really fascinating, and there's more science that's being poured into this, but if you look at the impact of hormones on tastes, there's very different. So her um her exact experience was that she could no longer handle bitter things. So she used to drink black coffee, for example. And then I guess there was a period when she was taking hormones for some months where she didn't have caffeine. I can't remember. She wasn't drinking coffee or she was drinking something else, and then she had a cup of black coffee and she spit it out. She couldn't handle it because it was too bitter for her. Because yeah, her taste had changed. She said 40% of her, like her sense of smell increased by about 40%. So, like, she could just smell so much more. A wine would hit her nose here, and her sense of smell was just so heightened. And so her experience with wine really shifted. And so she her preference toward um more aromatic whites completely like that's all she drinks. And even, well, I don't know, I don't want to say that's all she drinks because sorry, go read the article. It's really, really good. I don't want to take credit, but it's it's um sounds like that's like where you know her taste preferences shifted because of the hormones, and it's just really fascinating because I think in the wine industry, there is this, um, and this is something I've been fighting against for years too. Like, um sometimes I feel like it falls on deaf ears, but talking about how there's this hierarchy of taste preference and that like um you will mature into enjoying more tannic bold reds that are more bitter. Um, and that's just not necessarily the case.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Right? It's so interesting too, because that is very much something a lot of people assume. Like, oh, you know, you start out with mellow whites and then you move up to these big bold reds. But you know what? What if you want to settle out to just chilling out with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc or something? Like, why not? It doesn't have to go only this way, you know?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Easy drinking. And and the reason that I brought this up and like talking about what customers want and and products and and getting back to like this kind of the what I thought was the heart of this article, which was that the wine industry is there's only about 15% women in the wine industry in positions of in leadership positions, making decisions on like what kind of products we're making, what kind of products you know we're pushing, how we're marketing, etc. Only 15%. Meanwhile, if you look at the consumer base, they're overwhelmingly women, and majority of women are the ones who are also making household decisions. So this is very interesting. I think that like this is another thing that the wine industry is coming to a head with because um you have it's somebody uh like was saying also the beauty industry was in a similar position where it was like the beauty industry for many, many years was creating was men were creating beauty products, were creating makeup for women, right? So they're basically dictating how women should look.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Um, instead of listening. Sorry, sorry, man.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

No, no, I I'm the father of a daughter, and I I'm fascinated by that. Like that there are people we drive up the street, and uh I know it's not a wine podcast thing, but hell, why not? Um there's a plastic surgery clinic. Vietnam has this more plastic surgery clinics than they have doctor's offices. And there are these big billboards in front of the plastic surgery clinic showing like this doctor who looks like it's just a dude who's never hit the gym in his life. And he's standing in front of this girl and he's smiling, and she's just been very much modified. Let's say it that way. And you know, I'm just like looking at that, going, wow, the double standard right there is extreme, you know, it's wild like that. But you know, as we're talking about all this, I think one of the things that I want to grab from this, because I think it's super relevant, is that the whole wine world is changing. There is massive change happening right now, you know, and the whole world is changing. But if if a winery only had a small budget, where should they spend their first marketing dollars?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Uh okay. Um, this is a very hard question to ask without knowing exactly the winery. So I'm going to try to think about it in terms of like the the brands that I know and the brands that are just getting started. Um, I would say you have to tighten up your messaging and your branding, right? Like I think that this, your messaging, your strategy, this needs to be locked in before you do any kind of marketing. Obviously, that's hard when you're a small brand. Maybe you can you can sort of leverage, I think if you if you're savvy and you understand marketing, or if you have someone in your world who has, you know, experience with marketing, uh, you can leverage them and and AI. But I won't you have to be very, very clear on like your unique selling pop proposition, essentially, right? Because if you don't have that basic groundwork, anything you try is gonna fail. Um and then beyond that, I would say um, you know, from a digital perspective, you're gonna want to have a sophisticated email marketing um approach, right? So like email automations, have a good website. This is another thing where people like, because at the end of the day, if you're gonna be funneling people in any kind of like um online way, right, like you're gonna, they're gonna be purchasing on your website, right? So your website needs to be functioning and modern. Um, to be honest, it is it is hard to cut corners, like it depends upon um budget and size. But I would say like there's so many tools right now that you can uh you can leverage to make costs a lot lower. Um, but having a smart optimized website is vital. Um, and then when you're looking at channels, um obviously social is important, ads are important, you can't just do one. Uh, you need to have kind of a presence and you need to have some awareness before you can run any ads. Like I see clients trying to run ads, it's just it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

So I got into video a long time ago. And one of the things I I was working for a hair salon. And the hair salon uh was in the heart of Hollywood, and I went to my boss and I said, buy me a flip cam. A long time ago. It was like a little square or rectangular camera with a USB port that flipped out and it didn't film anything fancy, there was no zooms or anything, it just you filmed, and it was vertical, but it filmed horizontal, it's old. Um with that and iMovie, I made hundreds of videos for this hair salon, right? Yeah, and now what was wild was that um my boss was like, Yes, we're getting great success with this these videos. So, what did they do? I was very affordable, and then I was making high quantity. And they then immediately went out and paid for four videos, uh and they paid like $100,000 for videos. I was like, You guys just paid $25,000 per video? And they're like, Yes, it's a good investment. I was like You guys could have paid for me to go to graduate school and make you videos for a long period of time, a large period of time. Like you just dropped 100K, you know? And they were like, but it's gonna be, you know, we're gonna get a return. I was like, Will you? Like, will you? I mean, you're not sure on that yet. And what happened? They didn't get a return on those videos. And you know, it was wild, uh, because it wasn't what they needed, it wasn't what what so and my point being, if they had have gone out and sort of paying for those ads, and it wasn't great, you know, and but they don't have the volume behind it. My last guest came on, and she was bless her heart, she was excited to talk to me. Like I had a rough day. Um, it was not a fun day, like at all. I will hold back a family member uh and friend passed away, and it was just a challenge. And I'm okay. But like when I had someone who suddenly came on my podcast and was like, I am just I saw your episodes. I'm so excited to be here. I was like, You're excited to be here. That makes me feel good inside, you know?

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

But my point being is like, I've done enough episodes now that I've got so much content online, I've got so many shorts online that she's like, I watch everything you do, I feel like I know you. And I was just like, right there, you know. If I run ads, there's enough other stuff that people will find that it keeps it going. But if you don't have a social presence and you're going out there and you're trying to do paid advertising, but there's nothing else for people to see once they find you, man, it's wasted money. I will and I stand by that.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah, I stand by that too. I mean, um, I've seen it too with brands that are, you know, like um that either don't have a tasting room or don't have like a presence in sh in store and they just want to run ads. That that did work back in 2022, 2023, when meta ads were cheap and people were like excited to purchase wine online, maybe even 2021. Now it's a completely different thing. People are not buying like as much wine on through meta ads only, right? You need to be like everywhere. And you need to also think about it more strategically too. Like one thing that was really also interesting about the SVP SVP report was right, like majority of family-owned wineries in the states are making their sales direct to consumer. That doesn't mean online necessarily, right? That means they're driving sales through their tasting room and through their wine club. That's 70% of their sales. Um, so how do you attract people to the wine club? Okay, well, you get them on site, you get them to the tasting room. Well, how do you attract people to the tasting room? That is the that is the question. And people are not so willing in the industry, I think, to like do the things that you need to do to get them into the tasting room. And it is harder. I'll there's more competition. Uh, it's super expensive in places like you look at Napa and the prices are are like sky high. And so like tourism is is just it's a hard channel. Um, if you're in a newer region like Virginia, for example, like it's even that there's more and more competition every year because a new winery is opening up. Um, and so it it's really, really challenging. But I think the answer is you have to do everything. And I hate saying that because people want like a, you know, when I go on calls with people, they're like, I want a magic wand. And trust me, I have a business. I want a magic wand too. Like, I would love to just do one thing and know that it's the one thing that brings me clients. But unfortunately, we live in a place where, like, or we live in a time where people need like eight, maybe even more. It's I mean, the research is is murky, but like eight to 15 touch points before they decide to purchase a product or to go somewhere, right? Like to visit you.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Mm-hmm. It's so true.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah. If you're not showing up online, like how are they gonna find out about you? Like if you think about it, word of mouth, press, um, but you need to be showing up socially, I think. I mean, more and more of our social.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

100%. Well, you know, and I wanted to ask you that, like, because I think it plays into the next question. What separates the wineries that are growing with the wineries that are falling behind?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Uh, so I mean, obviously, I'm a marketer. The ones that I believe are growing are the ones that have taken marketing seriously. I actually just talked with um, this is a great uh case for me, right? I talked with a um a winery in um like like um up north, sorry, like the the finger lakes. Okay. Uh I had a conversation with them and they're growing their wine club, they're growing foot traffic, and everybody around them is like kind of it's going down. And the one thing that they've done, they've invested in marketing. They have an in-house marketer, they are doing like slowly, methodically, they're creating marketing systems, they have invested in a website, they've invested in smart email marketing and email marketing campaigns. Um, they are showing up on social media. I believe they're starting to do some advertising as well. So they're literally doing everything. And this is, I mean, this is the thing that will separate the people who are running from the people who are losing, I believe. Right? Having smart tools and hiring smart people.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

100% agree. I want to ask you this like you know, I I'm fascinated by the clubs. Like, why do you believe community though is more important than traditional wine clubs, you know?

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, well, it's generational. So if you look at like the the way that each generation um interacts with the world, cares about products, like you look at middle-aged people, they are way less interested in a discount. They don't really, I mean, that's not a selling point for them. Older people, yes. Like if you're over 60, I mean, I hate to say this, but if you're like a boomer, discounts are great, they want them, it's awesome. Of course, people like discounts, but I think like if you look at someone who is middle-aged, there's more competition for them outside of even the wine industry, right? Like their lives are very full. Yeah, they're usually they're raising kids, young kids, most of them, they have demanding careers. They a lot of them are living in like major cities, they have a lot of things going on. Of course, they want a discount, but like they're getting offered discounts in many, many places. They want to do something unique, they want to be part of something interesting. And if you look at it too, like if you look at the data around social house clubs, like social clubs are on the the rise. There's more and more social clubs being um like popping up. People are want to join communities. I think that we are simultaneously like more isolated than we've ever been because of the online culture and um more interested in connecting. Now it's nuanced, but I think this is like at the end of the day, this is why people in like that middle-aged bracket want to engage in something that's like cool and fun and hip and not like they're dust, like this dusty like club that like their parents are part of. It's just like not something they're interested in, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

I 100% agree. You know, I mean, it's but it's about being interesting, it's about talking about things that are interesting, you know. Like, are you just talking, hi, we're here to talk about what terroa is? Dude, no, we're here to try five crazy wines today. And this is what you're gonna find out by the end of this episode. Let's check it out and see which one of these wines gets me the most fucked up. I mean, wow, God, that might actually be a more interesting episode than just like today. I am trying this wine and it has hints of strawberries. It's dude, I had this wine and Jesus Christ, it's hitting hard. Um I don't know. I mean, I know you want to be classy, I know you want to get there, but like the reality is like, can you hook people? Can you pull them in? Like, we live in an area, a time when people are needing to demand on attention. You you pull into the attention and then you deliver value, but you gotta get them through the front door. If you're not getting that attention, it's really hard, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Definitely. I mean, it's it's interesting too because I think there's such a conservative approach in the wine industry. I've seen it with clients. Like, I've had clients who've literally like stopped me at almost every um point of like trying to innovate. And and it's it can be very frustrating to be honest, because um, you know, it's wasted money if you if you ask me. Like, don't hire a marketer if you're gonna say no. I don't like no, no, no, no, no. Which is a lot of times. I mean, not everybody's like that, but I I do notice that that is a very common thread. It's very conservative, uh, leaning, hesitant group, typically. And and again, the data and the research is saying you need to shift your approach to this. And I mean, if you look at like other um alcoholic beverages, like they take bigger swings with their marketing, they take bigger risks. And like for a long time there, they were consumers were gravitating toward them. Um, they're also easier to understand. Like a cocktail menu is easier to understand than a than like wine tasting notes. Like sometimes people just like literally don't even get like I mean, I I somebody was like a red current. I mean, I haven't I don't think I've ever eaten a red currant, and I'm in the industry.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

What are they on?

SPEAKER_01 32:20

I don't know. I mean, maybe I've had it in one dessert at one point, but like it's not part of my syntax, it's not something that I'm consuming regularly, and I can guarantee, I mean, that's me in the industry and someone who like my dad's a chef. I grew up in fine dining. Like, I grew up, I've been to Michelin star restaurants. Like, I have experienced elegant, beautiful, delicious food, and I still have a hard time with tasting notes occasionally.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

You and me both. I am blown away by the tasting notes that they have, and I'm just like, where are you guys going with this? You know, I I want to ask you one last question though. Uh, because if you could give every wine winery owner one piece of advice about the future of wine, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

I I can't believe I'm gonna say this and I think I'm gonna piss some people off, but I think the future is female. I think the future is female, at least the immediate future. Um, if you look at where everything is heading, I think that the smartest wineries right now are the ones that are catering toward that female, the toward women. Um, women have more buying power. Look at like, I mean, if you look even at the generation below me, I'm a millennial. If you look at the generation below me, unfortunately, like young men are struggling financially. They're struggling in many ways, and young women are accelerating and they're doing better. And I think, I mean, they are your consumer base. They are going to be the main consumer base, and the brands that can speak directly to those brands and that are speaking directly to those brands are the ones that are winning. Like, look at Abilene. Um, look at um, there's another um, it's I can't remember the McBride sisters. Like these brands are killing it, and they're speaking, McBride sisters are speaking directly to black women too. Like, that's they have their niche down. So I think, I mean, also it's not just women too. The US is changing demographically. Like, as we talk about, you know, they're talking to black women. Like, think about this. Like, the the demographics are shifting. You're no longer you're your consumer might now might be like an older white man, but in five, 10, 15 years from now, I don't think it will be.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Right. And I think that that's one of the things that you have to embrace change. And at the end of the day, for wineries, for whoever, you got to embrace that change. So I want to ask one last question. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah. So I think the best place to reach me is on LinkedIn or my website, which is bread and butterdigitalmarketing.com. It's a long one. Um, and as I mentioned, I'm doing this winery growth lab. So I just want to plug it really fast. It's a six-month program. Yeah, it's a six-month program where I'm meeting with small family-owned wineries for um one time a week. Plus, they're gonna have like access to me for QA and I'm guiding them through absolutely everything that they need to strategize and implement for marketing their brand, all the way from like the messaging core to email marketing to wine club growth to uh social media management and advertising. Uh, and we'll cover the holiday season too. So it launches very, very soon. So if they're interested, um, they definitely need to send me a DM to learn more.