Wine Road Board – July 2023

Wine Road Board of Directors
THURSDAY – July13, 2023
9:00am-10:30am
Francis Ford Coppola Winery

Minutes – Pending Approval

Members Present: Lillian, Helen, Aaron, Devin, Teri
Members Absent: John, Danny, Jack, Harry, Oded, Lucas, Brooke, Katie
Respectfully submitted by Beth Costa

9:00am Call to order

9:05am Treasurer’s Report – as of July 1: checking $81,971.10 savings $150,195.24
Currently collecting assessments, no other income until WFA payout in Nov.
SoCo Tourism is sponsoring WFA for $10,000, Ron Rubin is sponsoring podcast $12,000

9:15am ZOOM Call – Paul Everoff NBC Universal – proposed streaming ads Peacock
12 weeks, $15,000 – they produce, could do multiple inserts with start/end Walk-Ins Welcome, Insider, WFA
• Board approved moving forward with this advertising proposal for WFA, $15,000

9:30am ZOOM Call – Tony Biel – Flipboard
8 weeks, $10,000 – digital, targeted – Walk-Ins Welcome, Insider, WFA
• Board approved moving forward with this advertising proposal for WFA $10,000

9:45am Retreat follow up –
Survey on home page – guest answers the one question then receives PDF version of Choose Your Adventure in their email.
We have launched this with little success, we will change wording and placement.
Insider Signs for members –also postcards for display – mailed to participating wineries.

9:50am Website – Jeremy Young
Website Reveal – thus far 500 new names – automated emails $300 month – we have a 6 month commitment, then can renew, discontinue or UP our monthlky spend for more names. Thus are about a .5% opt out with these new names.
Growth Native – SEO, 404 issues, slugs and more… $2500 month, 6 months

10:00am Marketing – print ads / podcast
VIA Mag, Visit CA Road Trips, Sonoma Mag, SacTown, Napa/Sonoma = $20,000 Insider promotion, Podcast, 130+ wineries & 40 lodgings – this is generating website traffic, map requests and new contacts for our events.
Podcast growth: We are now mentioning other wine related podcasts on our show and then, THEY mention us. Hopefully this will give us a few more listeners. Beth is also getting scheduled to be a guest on other shows, which also builds our audience.

10:05am Events
Summer Wine Trail – sold 257 tickets, Fall date, Sept. 23rd – YES, wineries are interested in another Wine Trail – every season.
Wine & Food Affair – sign-ups begin this week – VIP Ticket for additional $100, limited t0o 20 people – Limerick Lane, Friday Happy Hour, Jordan Saturday morning breakfast.
Google Tastings – July & Aug – 3 wineries & raffle – evaluate for future dates
Seminar/Tastings – Pinot and Cab remaining

10:05am Membership
Sending note to all former members. Going forward with new quarterly postcard “why you should be a Wine Road members – this quarter XXX”
Assessments are due Aug 1st, but many have already been paid. We offered members the option of making 2 payments, now and Oct. 1st.

10:10am Old Business
Wine Road Ambassador – live starting Monday, link from home page, press release out this week. Letter to members this week.

10:15 New Business

10:30am Meeting adjourns

• We moved forward with the Streaming ad and Flipboard, though we did not have a quorum for a formal vote. But in this case, we didn’t have time to wait for the next meeting.