TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

From the studios of Media Training Worldwide in New York, this is Inside Communications, and I'm your host, Mike Baco. If you've enjoyed the wine or the Finger Lakes region in New York, it's probably because of the work of our guest today, Morgan McLaughlin. Today we go inside her five year campaign to turn the Finger Lakes region into a premier wine destination today on Inside Communications.

Morgan, thanks for joining us today on Inside Communications.

Thank you for having me.

So tell us, how did you do it? How did you turn the Finger Lakes area into a premier wine destination?

Especially for Rieslings, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time on the pavement. Actually, a few years ago when I started in the position with Finger Lakes Wine country, we started working with an agency, dci, a public relations firm, and we were trying to get additional editorial coverage on the region in magazines and newspapers. And I remember a particular case where we were meeting with an editor from a wedding magazine. And the young woman sitting across the table from me said, why would someone want to get married in the Finger Lakes when your wines aren't very good? That was sort of a light bulb moment for me.

That's the aha moment where, okay, I've got my work cut out for me. From a perception standpoint, absolutely.

You couldn't really promote a destination if there is a perception that quality cannot be found from wine. And when you're a wine country destination, the thing that must rise to the top is you have to be seen as producing quality wine.

Now, the reputation for that area certainly was not on the level of California or some other regions. What were some of the initial steps that you took just to get that first word out and then building on some of that positive publicity?

Well, the next stop we made was actually to Wine Spectator. And in wine and tourism marketing, you have the gatekeepers and you have to not only develop relationships, but you've got to understand their process of how they operate in identifying whether a region is here. So when we met with Wine Spectator, they were very clear in saying, and I went to one of the editors and said, okay, how do we get on the COVID of Wine Spectator? How does Fingerlings get on the COVID And the editor said, well, it's not that easy. You have to first start by making sure your wines are submitted for review. So up until that time, there had never been a systematic process in place for the region to get its world class wines to be reviewed by the gatekeepers or the critics of the top wine magazine. So we took that bit of information back to the region and, and reached out to our wineries and said, guys, you got to start submitting. And they felt that that process was very challenging. So we had to take it one step further and really hand hold them. And it's now been almost five years where I literally pack my car with wine and drive down to the magazines to make sure that the wines are getting delivered.

How important of a role were some of those gatekeepers and terms of informing what you would be doing? Certainly you reached out to them to see what they wanted, but how did that inform what your plans were right after that?

Well, the gatekeepers are absolutely critical in order for a region to break through. I mean, in the case of the Finger Lakes, we have a relatively small marketing budget. We're just under a million dollars. So if you compare that to wines of California and Spain and Italy and France, the European Union has very well funded campaigns. We're just a drop in the bucket. So we realize that New York City is our local market and we have an unparalleled access to the gatekeepers that the other regions don't have. So we really realized that we had to be on the street being a little more innovative, knowing that we just didn't really have a lot of mind work.

So you mentioned the gatekeepers. One thing that keeps coming up over and over again as a theme on this show are the influencers, people online. So we have the traditional gatekeepers. How about those influencers online who do online criticism? Bloggers, people like that. How did you reach out to them or is that even something that you are doing?

We are absolutely engaged with emerging journalists, bloggers, influencers. You know, wine marketing and tourism marketing has been very traditional in the past where you hired a big firm, you hired a big advertising agency, and you spent millions of dollars each year to put together an integrated campaign. And it's been very successful, that approach. But as new media has become a form of communication, it's a game changer. So you have regions that have access to the millions of dollars, are able to get their voice heard almost to the same level as these well funded regions just by reaching out through new media and influencers.

So let's take an inside look on that. You really dove into the social media realm, Facebook, Twitter, using Foursquare. How did you just bring everything together in terms of social media? Was it something that you just tried to do, see if something worked and then continue on that path? Was it a whole strategy that was laid out? How did you go step by step in terms of integrating the Social media.

Well, I've always been skeptic of people who had come out of the gate quickly as being social media experts. I felt like people became millionaires overnight just by saying that they understood this new tool was like, how can you understand the tool if you've never really used it? So a lot of our experience was just literally trial and error. Oh, you open up a Facebook page, okay, now let's figure out how you upload content and then understanding how the content that you put out on Facebook relates back to your more traditional efforts like website or email marketing. So it's certainly a lot of trial and error, but it's been a very effective tool for us to reach out to the influencers and really more importantly, to have access to the consumers that are ultimately the ones who are drinking your wine and visiting your destination.

Let's talk about something that was successful for you, coming up with these wine drops where you would have the wineries come, and then you could put it into the hands, into the mouths of people that are really making these choices. Tell us a little bit about your. Your concept on that.

Well, we've done a number of things with social media related to wine media and wine consumers. We do a program in May, it's called Riesling Month, and we bundle wine for journalists. We do a lot of online tastings so consumers can enjoy Finger Lakes wines and then Facebook and tweet about it and post pictures. So it's been very integrated into our other efforts, too, with traditional pr, website marketing. So I think the thing that we've been successful with is not realizing that it's a standalone, that you can't just do a social media campaign without the other integrated components.

You mentioned people trying out the wine. Let's talk about people actually coming to the region. One of the few regions where you've actually seen tourism grow and project it to continue to grow. How do you manage to do that, actually getting people to come to the area?

Well, one of the things we realized going back to that initial interview with the wedding publication was when you put out wine country to an editor, the first thing that came top of mind was Napa Valley, the epitome of what wine country is in the United States. And so our goal was really, in 10 years, if someone says wine country, that they're going to say Finger Lakes. Maybe not first, but certainly within the breadth of California. We also got lucky, quite honestly, with a recession. A lot of wineries in Napa Valley have gone out of business. They have really suffered severely with Visitation, Whereas the Finger Lakes, we've always been of that value, but it's always been the untold story. Our demographic has been more regional, Pennsylvania and Ohio. So when you get exposed for having world class wines, then you have affluent wine and food travelers who are like, oh, I want to go to the next great place and that happens to be the Finger Lakes. Then they do some research and realize that they can come for a week versus spending that same amount for a day in California. I mean, it's literally that difference.

So certainly over the last few years, success has been right at the forefront. How do you measure success? Is it the number of wines that get placements in Media? Wine rankings, 90 + rankings, people coming to the area? How do you personally measure success?

Well, ultimately our organization is about promoting the destination. So we are judged so solely on the number of people who come to the region and spend money. Most of our funding is generated through room tax dollars. So it's literally heads and beds, so you can have all the great wine ratings that you want. But if that's not increasing visitation, then the strategy hasn't been effective. So during that recession period since 2005, we've seen a steady ingrow, steady growth in visitation and room tax collection. And then within from 2009 to 2007 specifically, we saw a jump of 25%.

So now moving forward, how do you, we talked about how you measure success. How do you manage success? You're talking about people coming to the area. How do you work with local retailers, hotels, bed and breakfast, things like that to continue the growth, to provide people that are coming with an experience that they're going to remember, tell their friends and even come back for return visits.

Well, I think when you focus on one specific strategy. So in this case it was trying to change the perception of the quality of the wines. Well, the wineries are just one component of what we offer in the destination. So ultimately it's important that you have all of your stakeholders. So it's government officials, chambers of commerce, presidents, but ultimately the tourism businesses themselves to understand the strategy and want to be part of it. So we put out numerous year round promotions that all tourism businesses can be a part of. Then they feel excited when they see articles in Budget Travel or when you're selected as a top value destination by Sherman's Travel. Then everyone gets excited and they realize that the strategy has been affected.

So, so getting everyone together on the same page is certainly something that builds continuity in terms of the message and driving people to different areas.

And as with Any destination, there's always the complexity of the multitude of stakeholders. Everyone's got different opinions. But ultimately it comes down to the effectiveness of your work. And it's taken, at least for me, being in this position for five years. It takes a number of years to build trust for people to understand where the strategy is going. Then they see the success, and then they ultimately see more customers through their establishment or more reservations. Then it's sort of like an aha moment. The challenge will be, you know, how do you continue positive tourism growth? That will be a challenge that moves now beyond marketing. When you're looking at infrastructure issues, do we have enough room capacity for people to come?

The idea of, can you almost become too successful?

Right.

So let's take a look inside. You mentioned your five year tenure there. What are some of the challenges that were going on during year one, that now, as you get to year five.

You'Ve met those challenges, you're able to.

Pick up the phone and get the editor of Wine Spectator on the phone and talk to them about the region. What do you see as some of the challenges moving forward? You've gotten to a certain point, how do you go to that next level?

The global marketplace remains extremely competitive. There are wines being produced in every state in the United States. 50 states now have wineries. States are realizing that tourism can be a growth industry. When you package wine with your tourism message, that brings more, more people to your region. So we will see more competition domestically. Also, other countries are getting more aggressive with their wine country messaging. So you have Bordeaux and Burgundy, who have traditionally focused just on exports of their wines. Now they're realizing, wow, we can bundle this into a tourism message and invite consumers from around the world to come to France. So that will be our biggest source of competition.

And as we wrap up today, where can people find out more information?

Of course we have a website, fingerlakeswinecountry.com we're active on Twitter, active on Facebook. So whatever platform that you find most convenient for communication, chances are we're there.

All right, thanks for going inside Communications with us today.

Thank you so much.