Practical marketing thinking for Finger Lakes businesses.
How-to guides, field notes, and research from the practice — written for winery owners, hospitality operators, and regional businesses who want to do marketing better.
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AEO for wineries: how to show up in AI-generated search answers
AI search is changing how people discover wineries. What AEO and GEO actually mean for a small winery, why the first-mover window is open right now, and what to do about it.
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The Finger Lakes was named Wine Region of the Year. Here’s what that means for your marketing.
Wine Enthusiast’s 2025 designation drove a real spike in regional search traffic and tourism interest. How individual wineries can capture it — and why most won’t act quickly enough to.
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Winery marketing agency vs. consultant: what most owners get wrong
Most wineries choose between an agency, a junior hire, or doing it themselves. There’s a fourth option that usually outperforms all three — and it’s the one most owners haven’t considered.
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Winery marketing ROI: the metrics that actually tell you if it’s working
Most winery marketing is evaluated on activity — posts published, emails sent, ads run. Here’s how to measure it on what actually matters: cost per acquired member, email revenue attribution, and DTC revenue share.
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Your Google Business Profile is your most underused marketing asset
GBP appears above your website in most local searches, feeds AI-generated local answers, and costs nothing. What a fully optimized profile looks like and the five things worth doing this week.
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How much should a small business spend on marketing? The right question
The revenue percentage rule is too blunt to be useful. The framework that actually helps: cost per acquisition vs. customer lifetime value, and why stage matters more than size.
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Which marketing channels actually deliver ROI for small businesses
A ranked, honest assessment of marketing channel returns: what performs, what’s overrated, and the sequencing that matters more than any individual channel choice.
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Local SEO for Finger Lakes businesses: the foundation most skip
Local SEO determines visibility at the moment a potential visitor is making a trip decision. The three factors Google uses, what’s in your control, and where regional businesses are leaving search presence on the table.
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Beyond the platform: how to build repeat guests for your vacation rental
Platforms are acquisition channels, not relationship tools. How to build the email list, direct booking capability, and local partnerships that turn one-time guests into returning ones.
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How to optimize a vacation rental listing to rank higher and book more
The five variables that determine whether your listing ranks and converts: title specificity, lead photo, description framing, pricing calendar signals, and a review strategy that actually produces reviews.
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Airbnb vs. VRBO vs. direct booking for Finger Lakes vacation rentals
The platforms reach different audiences and produce different guests. For most Finger Lakes properties, the mix and the sequencing matter more than platform loyalty.
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Why wine club members leave — and the three windows to keep them
Annual churn rates of 20 to 35 percent are common and largely preventable. Cancellations concentrate in three specific windows, each with a different cause and a different intervention.
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Why direct-to-consumer revenue is the most important number in your winery
DTC sales return two to four times more margin per bottle than wholesale. The tasting room, wine club, email list, and website are the revenue engine — and they compound.
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Email marketing for small wineries: what to send, when, and why
Email outperforms every other channel for winery revenue. The mechanics that determine whether it does: the welcome sequence, subject lines, the one-thing-per-email rule, and how often to send.
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What winery social media should actually be doing
Most winery Instagram accounts look fine and accomplish little. The goal isn’t followers — it’s reasons to visit, join the club, or stay connected. The strategy looks quite different when the objective is clear.
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How to build a wine club email list that actually grows
Most tasting room visitors never hear from a winery again. Here’s how to fix the list-building mechanics before they walk out the door — what to ask, when to ask it, and what to do with the address once you have it.
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A Finger Lakes winery marketing calendar, season by season
What to promote, when to promote it, and how to stop reinventing the calendar every January. A practical template built around the regional season and the wine club retention cycle.
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The one number every tasting room should be tracking
Walk-ins to wine club sign-ups. It’s the clearest signal of whether your tasting room experience is doing its job — and most wineries have no idea what it is, let alone what a good number looks like.