Public Relations

We make wine brands recognizable.

The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times. Food & Wine. Wine Spectator. Decanter. CNN. CNBC. National Public Radio. All these outlets, and many more have recently covered our clients.

But PR has changed 180 degrees with the introduction of powerful social networks and inexpensive digital tools. In our opinion, traditional PR's definition has changed from the generic "public" relations to more specific "community" relations -- we coordinate messaging to communities such as wine club members, restaurant sommeliers, women's feature story writers, etc. Traditional press relations, however, are more important than ever as fewer professional journalists work in a consolidating media industry. Our approach is to leverage both traditional PR and "PR 2.0" for client benefit.

And the agency is well positioned to do so. Our clients benefit from the creativity, speed, and attention that boutique agencies provide. But our press contacts and reputation, as well as social media skills and digital tool kit, are characteristics of much larger agencies. Additionally, Benson Marketing Group is the only wine marketing agency with offices in Napa Valley and New York City. We have a presence in the heart of the U.S. wine industry, as well as in the nation’s media capital.

Benson’s PR 2.0 practice focuses on generated editorial coverage and communicating with specific communities using a mix of the following services:

  • Deep Press Contacts. Aggressive outbound story pitching to wine, food, lifestyle, business, broadcast media and the full range of bloggers. Our New York office gives our clients unparalleled access to the business and lifestyle media that call the Big Apple home.
  • Social Media Savvy. PR and marketing communications campaigns all have a social media component. Benson can set-up and run, or hand-off to internal teams, a complete social media campaign with robust metrics to measure its impact. 
  • Coordinated Press Tours. In addition to coordinating national press tours, we make the best use of client travel time by scheduling in-market interviews with winery principals and winemakers.
  • Wine Writer Visitor Program. The agency coordinates wine country itineraries for key media. 
  • A Proprietary Media Outlet. We feature client news in our popular Internet news clipping service, Enews Monitor, which is emailed to more than 4,000 trade professionals and 100+ journalists each week. No other wine agency has a media property like Benson’s Enews Monitor.
  • Wine Event Visibility. Benson Marketing Group places client wines and executives on panels at the most influential wine consumer events and seminars around the U.S.
  • Category Marketing. We generate coverage for our clients as leaders of appellation, varietal or advocacy groups. 
  • Digital Tools of the Trade: We regularly use live webcasting, video and other digital tools to communicate effectively with client's communities. This information is summarized in our Digital Media services section.
  • Media Training. We use our team's experience as former broadcasters and industry spokespeople to coach clients in the verbal, and non-verbal, language of the media.

Full service Public Relations campaigns start at a $6,000 per month. Alternatively, modest-sized wineries may be interested in our Emerging Winery Communications Package—click here for more information.

We are proud of the results our clients have achieved. For a list of current clients, click here.

Contact
For more information, contact Jeremy Benson, president, at 707.254.1107, or benson@bensonmarketing.com.