Welcome back to Hit the Bottle, I’m your host, Michael Wangbickler. I’ve been managing public relations programs for more than 25 years. During that time, the means of communication may have evolved, but the basic principles remain the same. PR is necessary to communicating your message and story to media, trade, partners, employees, and stakeholders. Each public has different needs, and it’s up to the PR professional to effectively engage with each.
In today’s episode, I chat with Michelle Kaufmann, Communications Director for Stoller Wine Group in Oregon. We’ve had many discussions off air about this subject, so I’m thrilled to have her on the show.
The two of us discuss PR versus marketing, the importance of third-party endorsement, and the PESO model. This episode was recorded at the end of last year, so some references are made regarding the holidays. So, we’ve almost come full circle. But the rest of the information is evergreen, and should prove useful to you, our listeners. So, without further ado, on with the show.
Transcript
Michael Wangbickler:
My next guest is a Portland, Oregon native, who earned her degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, focusing on public relations and communications. She currently holds the title of Communications Director at Stoller Wine Group, a post she’s held since March 2017.
Prior to joining Stoller, she served as communications manager for the Oregon Wine Board for six years. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the International Pinot Noir Celebration, the Willamette Valley Wineries Association marketing committee as chair, Dundee Hills Winegrowers Association marketing committee, and Visit Willamette Valley PR/marketing committee.
You could say she’s VERY well connected in Oregon.
In her role at the Stoller Wine Group, she oversees all media relations and communications efforts for the Stoller Family Estate, Chehalem, Chemistry, Canned Oregon, and History wine brands. I’m pleased to welcome Michele Kaufmann to Hit the Bottle.
Michele Kaufmann:
Thanks for having me, Mike.
Michael Wangbickler:
I’m glad you’re here. So today we’re to talk about public relations. So, before we get too far into it, actually, can you let people know how they can actually get a hold of you?
Michele Kaufmann:
Yeah, so Communications Director at the Stoller Wine Group, you can find me at Stoller Family Estate or Stoller Wine Group, that’s our two biggest and most known brands
Michael Wangbickler:
Great.
Michele Kaufmann:
And if you want, I can give you an email that it’s long and laborious.
Michael Wangbickler:
What’s the website?
Michele Kaufmann:
So Stoller S-T-O-L-L-E-R wine group dot com, and right now it’s just a pretty splash page. And from there you can navigate to our five brands and you will find me
Michael Wangbickler:
Great. Perfect. So, let’s talk public relations. So first of all, what is public relations?
Michele Kaufmann:
So public relations is spreading a message or series of messages to one specific publics. Which I don’t think most people realize is actually a plural word. So, it’s figuring out which message and which audience you’re trying to reach.
Is that consumers? Is it trade? Is it your wine club members? Is it your stakeholders? And then really conveying out whatever that message is to that specific subset
Michael Wangbickler:
Right. And it can also mean internal, so your employees.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely, yeah, your internal audience is actually one that gets overlooked a lot. And it’s something I know we, at our wineries, having multiple facilities spread out across Van Nuys. We struggle with the internal comms and making sure that nobody is siloed, and everyone knows what’s happening.
Michael Wangbickler:
And a synonym that we often use for public relations is communications, or comms. So, I think there’s probably some confusion out there as to what public relations is. Sometimes I tell people that I’m in public relations and they look at me with a blank stare. But when I say marketing, they understand that.
So, what’s the difference between public relations and marketing, in your opinion?
Michele Kaufmann:
So I think the biggest piece just comes down to that communications, a goal of PR and public relations, is to convey a message and to get people to understand said message with a goal of marketing can often be sales or more goal oriented.
You want someone to do something with marketing or PR is definitely more about Longtail relationship approach. And I almost equate it a little bit more to business development because you really are cultivating that relationship with the person and whether that actually comes to fruition immediately or in a couple of years from now is hard to say, much like this does.
Michael Wangbickler:
So, have you heard of the PESO model?
Michele Kaufmann:
No, do tell.
Michael Wangbickler:
So, the PESO model is a model when you’re looking at how you’re communicating. And it was developed by Jenny Dietrich, who is a mentor of mine, and basically PESO stands for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned. I’m sure, you know…
Michele Kaufmann:
Oh yeah yeah yeah, definitely heard of all of them. I just don’t know that I’ve heard of it in that model, which I like.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah. So, the way that I look at this is that public relations is really a function of marketing. In fact, everything is a function of marketing if you look at it, if you go back to your marketing classes of the four PS, everything is marketing, but traditional marketing within a company, you’re going to have these basic four silos.
And the way that I look at this in terms of which belongs, where is that, you know, often enough paid and owned are the purview of marketing. Whereas earned is that is the purview of public relations. Now, there’s going to be some crossovers, you know.
Michael Wangbickler:
Communications is going to create owned content. It may include paid search or paid social advertising, and it’s shared both.
Michael Wangbickler:
But for the most part, paid and owned marketing, earned is public relations. And so, the difference the difference is there meaning that you need different ways of approaching it.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely and honestly, I got into a bit of a conversation with a local public relations friend of mine up here in Oregon, and we were talking about the value of paid media when it comes to PR because did you buy samples or some samples to that writer or did you post for them for a visit over fee?
Michele Kaufmann:
See, because there is still some dollars changing hands. Even though it’s not necessarily paid coverage, because in my mind, when I think paid, you’re influencing the outcome of that article versus I send samples and I don’t have any control of what’s said or if the writer likes it.
Michael Wangbickler:
Right. I mean, that’s definitely the key to this is that earned media generally is third party endorsement and therefore you have no control over what message actually, we can spoon feed it to them as much as possible.
Michael Wangbickler:
But in the end, the writer determines what’s actually going to be written. So, we have no control over that.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely.
Michael Wangbickler:
Whereas with paid and owned, that is something that we can actually control, so, you know, another way of looking at this is, is that, you know, communications or public relations is a way of getting third party endorsements from outside of your company.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah. So why does it matter? Why does PR matter these days?
Michele Kaufmann:
I think PR matters because it’s that it is that third party endorsement and as much as we want to believe that, you know, writers or critics don’t have the same place that they used to, at the end of the day, that word of mouth is still a huge driver.
And one of the best ways to get that word of mouth is to have that coverage. It used to be top of mind, right?
Michele Kaufmann:
Whether my grandma read it in a magazine, she told her friend who then told her friend, you’re earning that trust and that relationship support. I think that. I just I don’t know what that’s like, um.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, totally so. You know, it really does come down to getting somebody else to, if not outright endorse you, that at least they are talking about you hopefully in a positive way.
Michael Wangbickler:
There’s no letters. No, no PR is bad PR, but I disagree with that. There is.
Michele Kaufmann:
I totally disagree with that. Yeah. So, if we’re doing our job, right. You know, like is the bad PR is less, right? And the more transparent we are in how we’re conducting our business, the less bad PR there is.
Sure, somebody doesn’t like a wine, they’re going to say they don’t like a wine, but that’s different than bad PR preference, right?
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, that is a crisis situation, and that’s a that’s an entirely different subject, so we’ll cover some other time.
Michael Wangbickler:
So, but for now, so like, OK, so how should beverage producers be leveraging public relations to their fullest?
Michael Wangbickler:
You know, because often times I’ll talk to clients who, you know, they’re expecting that that that big article that they got is going to be their ticket to, you know, go see Willy Wonka, you know.
Michele Kaufmann:
Sure. And it can be. But you also have to use it, right? Like, you can’t just get a big hit and then hope that that hit is going to work for you, much like getting a distributor. Right.
Like once you’ve got a distributor, that’s the first step to the relationship. From there, you have to go work it. And PR and coverage and wonderful media hits is the exact same thing.
Michael Wangbickler:
So how would you use it?
Michele Kaufmann:
So, for example, we recently, with our Canned Oregon brand, were just named one of the 15 best Pinot Noirs under 20 dollars. Our Pinot Noir cans are 375ml, so just over half a bottle of wine for six dollars a can.
That tidbit is in every single presentation that we are now presenting to accounts across the country. We are telling everyone on social, we are putting it out there in any of the kits that we’re pushing out there.
Michele Kaufmann:
So, we’re making that coverage work for us. And we are crediting Food and Wine, the wonderful publication that gave us this unbelievable honor, as much as we can, because we know that if we give Food and Wine credit, if we push content back to Food and Wine, some people go read the whole article, they are going to be more inclined to scratch our back in the future, right?
They need leadership just as much as we need that coverage, right?
Michael Wangbickler:
Well, and then also it does come down to, you’re talking to a distributor rep, who are they going to believe more when you say “this is one of the best kinds of cans right now”, or are they going to believe you who are actually making that can? Or are they going to believe, you know, Food and Wine?
Michele Kaufmann:
Hands down, right? Having that endorsement matters. You can’t just rest on your laurels that it’s happening. You have to make that coverage work for you.
Michael Wangbickler:
Absolutely. So, do you as a matter of habit, you know, any time you get a good piece of coverage, do you distribute that to your sales force and or your distributor network as well?
Michele Kaufmann:
Yes, we are getting better at making sure that our distributor knows when we get a great piece of coverage like that. We definitely tell the team and I have sort of a tiered approach of, you know, it’s a good hit. If it’s a nice regional hit, I might just send it to my marketing team and my social team to get out there and spread it out to consumers.
Michele Kaufmann:
If it’s a slightly larger hit, then we’ll send it to the appropriate national sales or even direct to consumer sales so that the tasting room staff can then click that. In fact, this morning our Reserved Chardonnay for Stoller Family Estates was just named one of the best holiday wines in Wine Spectator.
Michele Kaufmann:
Well, great. So let’s let people know who are coming into the tasting room right now for the holidays, “Hey, Augustus Weed just said this is a great holiday wine – you seem to be liking it, would you like to take this home with you?” And it’s that third party endorsement, it’s that word of mouth, it’s that badge of honor that it’s not just us telling you this is a great wine, someone else is too.
Michael Wangbickler:
So. What should the C Suite consider when they’re hiring a public relations manager or agency?
Michele Kaufmann:
I think it really comes down to strategy, what is your overall business strategy and then how can you use PR to that end? Right? Are you a regional brand that is only distributed in Oregon or in the Pacific Northwest? Great. Well, then your focuses need to be on those regional places.
This isn’t to say that you couldn’t go out and do a travel piece and look at travel writers, or like, come to the Pacific Northwest, come to the Willamette Valley, and find this local hidden gem. That’s going to be a very different pitch than me reaching out to spectator saying get my reserved chardonnay because it’s out there in every single market and it’s great for the holidays.
So, what’s your strategy? And then from there, figure out how you can weaponize PR to be the other tool in your box.
Michael Wangbickler:
So. OK, what kind of characteristics or attributes should a C-suite manager look for when they’re looking to make that hire?
Michele Kaufmann:
Such a good question. I think it comes back down to again, what’s your strategy? What are you trying to get? And relationships. Who are who are the relationships with these agencies? Have do they have the relationships that fit your strategy?
Again, you know, I’m in the Willamette Valley where 70 percent of the producers up here make 5000 cases of wine or less annually.
So, my wineries, that I work for and I represent, are much different than the vast majority of everyone else that’s out there. So, we stand apart a little bit. We can tell that story differently. For some of our neighboring wineries, though, yes, it would be great to get a hit in some of these larger publications, but they could actually drive more business to their bottom line if they’re looking at those regional pubs, or even some of those micro influencers, or micro bloggers that are out there that may not have a huge following, but my gosh, they’ve got a heavily dedicated following that’s going to ride or die by what that influencer says.
Making sure that you’re finding an agency that has that skill set.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, it’s something I’ve discussed previously, and that is that you know quantity doesn’t really matter, it matters about quality. So, I don’t care if you’ve got 2000 people in your media database. How well are you going to know all 2000 of those people?
But if you have good relationships with 20 to 50 of those, that’s money in the bank. And it’s the same thing with social influencers. Like, you know, if you if you have 10000 followers on Facebook, yet nobody actually is engaged with your brand, those ten thousand followers are useless to you. They’re not going to affect your business at all.
Whereas if you have one hundred if you have one hundred followers who are really dedicated, who are engaged with you, who have an affinity for your brand, they’re much more valuable.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely.
Michael Wangbickler:
So, what’s the downside of having no PR?
Michele Kaufmann:
I think the downside of having no PR is you have no voice at the table, right? There’s nobody out there advocating for you.
There’s nobody out there advocating for you, there’s nobody out there telling your story. And thereby you don’t really have as much opportunity to lock on the coverage that’s out there. And if you are creating owned content, let’s say your marketing team is out there slaying and doing videos and cool social stuff, you can use that owned content as a way to get owned. content, you know, send it to a writer. Hey, did you check out this thing we’re doing? Oh, my gosh, I want to make sure you’re aware of this. Have you heard of that? And use that to leverage what’s actually happening at your own business.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, that’s a great point. And that and that kind of goes to public relations is another it’s another piece of the marketing mix, right? It’s another tool in the toolbox. Just so…
Michele Kaufmann:
But you have to understand… Yeah, but it’s a different tool, right? It’s not a screwdriver, maybe it’s an Allen wrench and we do something totally different than a screwdriver. We look the same. Ultimately, we still screw a bolt into a table. But very different bolts.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yes, agreed. But that said, you know, there can be there can be crossover between marketing and PR at times. When you say it’s like, look, this cool stuff that we’re doing that could be driven through marketing, could be driven through PR. It really depends on the organization and how they’re working.
Michele Kaufmann:
Well, it’s like you said at the beginning, right, it’s communication. So, what are you communicating even in your marketing efforts or our marketing efforts?
Michele Kaufmann:
I always read our marketing e-mails. I look at our ads, what are we communicating – is that what we want to communicate, even on a visual level.
Michael Wangbickler:
Well, not only that, it is not only evaluating what it is that you’re communicating, but just making sure that you’re all on the same page.
Michele Kaufmann:
Yes, absolutely.
Michael Wangbickler:
I see I see all the time where basically the sales guys telling the story for the PR person, is telling a different story to the marketing person. And then the guy in the room has got his own story that he made up like five years ago and has been telling it ever since.
Michele Kaufmann:
Oh, absolutely. And it’s easy to play the telephone game to right where you heard something that somebody else is saying, you thought you understood that you didn’t. And so that’s where having a really strong PR effort or person on staff or company or whatever it is, is really knitting the company back together from that internal com standpoint.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah. And then go back to what we’re talking about, downsides of that. The fact is, is that you are left out of the conversation.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely, yes.
Michael Wangbickler:
If somebody has a roundup of the best Oregon Wines and you haven’t done any kind of PR on it, then you’re not even on the radar. So, you’re not going to be mentioned because you…
Michele Kaufmann:
Or you didn’t even know, you know. Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Wangbickler:
And one of the more frustrating things as being a PR professional is that when, you know, when your clients or your manager comes in and says, well, why weren’t we included in this in this publication? And you’re like, well, you haven’t been talking about anything.
So, they’re not going they’re not going to pick you out of the ether. Right, you may have a very high opinion of your own brand, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody else understands the same way you do.
Michele Kaufmann:
And you have to show up to the table, right? You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. So, if you aren’t playing a lot, that’s fear. If you aren’t actively sending out samples to various writers, if you aren’t inviting media to come taste at your winery or have an experience at your winery, then no you’re never going to show up in those publications. And when you do, it’s more by total luck than actual business and tactics.
Michael Wangbickler:
Correct. So, let’s talk a little bit about some best practices. What are some best practices that you use in your, let’s say, let’s narrow it down to media relations? So just media relations.
Michele Kaufmann:
So I try very hard to stay active with the members of the media, that I have relationships with and when I’m sending samples out, I really try to make sure that I’m sending wines to people that I think they will actually write about. Things that they will actually find compelling.
So my media list and my sample list varies depending on if I’m talking about Stoller and Chehalem, which are 10 year traditional wine brands in the Willamette Valley, versus our Canned brands, which is more alternative packaging, lifestyle driven, alternative use, case driven.
Those wines are much more lifestyle active focus versus Stoller and Chehalem, which are much more very traditional wine stories.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, and you get that information by doing your homework. It’s something I’ve worked on for years, but basically you have to put the work in in order for you to be effective.
I can’t tell you how many, you know, because I kind of have a foot in both worlds with having been blogging for a long time. And now with this podcast, you know, I get media pitches all the time, and I use several of them as examples of what not to do.
Michele Kaufmann:
And I have personally a fairly laissez-faire approach to PR, you know, I’ll send samples out and my pitch, even when I’m sending out a press release, hey, if this works and this is something that you’re interested in, great, happy to get you more information. If not, don’t worry about it. Now, you at least know what’s happening in our neck of the woods. You’ve tasted my current release wines. And if it comes back in a few years and you’re like, let’s re-circle to that, and you have that reference point.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, it’s really important that executives, marketing people, even communications VPs, that they understand that there is no quid pro quo when it comes to your relations.
Granted, there are situations where you have paid influencers, but that’s a different animal. We’re talking about traditional media relations. You, again, have no control over whether somebody writes about your products after you sent samples.
In fact, often at times, the environment today is that if a writer doesn’t like a sample, they won’t write about it. If they wrote about everything and included the ones they didn’t like, you might have a bad review on your hands. So sometimes it’s a blessing.
Michele Kaufmann:
It is also being patient, right, like the media landscape is, much like the distributor landscape, is shrinking and everything is consolidating, which means that one wine writer, or travel writer, or food writer, might actually be covering all three of those different categories.
And they might be writing for four or five publications and they may be getting as many samples from 10 different wineries per day. There’s no way that they’re going to taste all of this. It’s just not feasible. The best I can do is make sure that they’ve gotten the samples when they want the samples.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, that’s an important point. Let’s pause on that one for a second. Best practice: Don’t send samples to somebody who hasn’t said that they would accept them.
Michele Kaufmann:
And I’m guilty of doing it occasionally, but again, it’s a laissez-faire approach.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, but if you already have an existing relationship with the writer…
Michele Kaufmann:
Sure, sure. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, that’s OK. Don’t just send them to somebody that you’ve never met before.
Michael Wangbickler:
Correct. You know, and that’s and that’s a big one, because what happens is if you said you sent samples to somebody who hasn’t actually said that they would accept them either, A, they’re going to get pissed off at you and say you’re an idiot, or B, they’re just the samples just go to waste and they’ll get donated or they usually end up in gift baskets for their friends or what have you. So, use your resources intelligently.
Michele Kaufmann:
I mean, it is a delicate balance. I’m a big fan of the Moore Brothers, see more and sell more, the more you talk to, the more opportunity you have. But you also don’t want to spray and pray, right. And give out samples to every Tom, Dick and Harry and then hope to God that somebody actually writes about them.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah. And again, it comes back to doing your homework and making sure that the people that you’re sending samples to are going to be saying something that you want and or that they are going to actually say if you’re sending samples to a blogger for, for instance, who hasn’t written in two months, you know, you’re you know, you’re just pissing money away.
Michele Kaufmann:
Absolutely, absolutely. But then again, what’s the purpose of what you’re doing? Maybe they haven’t blogged too much, but they’re still super active and tasting on social. And if they’ve got a good social and they have a good presence knowing what is that strategy, what is the outcome that you want to happen with those wines that you’re sending?
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, and that’s a fair point. And nowadays it is – it’s not as easy as black and white as saying, well, they wrote up our wine in this publication because it may be included in multiple channels and might be included on a blog, on Huffington Post and on social.
So, the question is, how are you measuring the success of that overall? And does come back to measurement and how you how you measure PR ROI is sometimes difficult to say, because here’s the actions you see, it’s kind of return on your activities, but it is important that you actually track your results.
Michele Kaufmann:
Yeah, we are – one of the things that I measure by is how many samples did I send out? How many media did I host on a state? How many media visits did I have in market? And then total number of hits based on those things. Is that a perfect measurement system? No, but it’s something.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, you know, there’s some day we’re going to have that kind of perfect scenario where basically we can track, oh, our wines are written up in this publication on this day, and we could track the traffic that increased to our website when that happens, you know, the expertise is just not there yet.
I mean, the tools are there, but the expertise is not there yet. But someday we’ll be able to better track our direct results of the activities that we’re doing. In the meantime, we do have to use those proxies, like you said.
Michele Kaufmann:
Yeah, but I mean, even to that, in some end, you know, I can I can tell you that with our Canned Oregon in Food and Wine, I sell wines to several different writers at food and wine, some that do more research than definitely, right? So, this is going to be a combination of all of that outreach.
And then things like The Spectator, they did mention my winery name so that I can track the click through back, that this is still a retraining of media in general, that if you are writing up my wine, please send them to my website.
Not specifically just my website, but if you’re going to mention, let’s say, Chehalem Winery and then our INOX Chardonnay, send them to my INOX Chardonnay, because the more I can see that traffic coming back to my website, the more I will then go push that article out into the market and help give those publications a higher viewership because they’re struggling for viewership.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, I think that I think that goes a little counter to the mind set of journalism as traditional journalism, where there has always been this very church and state sort of separation between editorial and the revenue generating activities.
That has been changing, and I’m sure there’ll be more in that there is probably going to be more kind of referral-based traffic like that in the future.
Michele Kaufmann:
Yeah, I mean, the Internet, the digital world is the next frontier of wine, and if we aren’t using it either in PR or marketing to drive sales forward, we’re really missing the boat on that.
Michele Kaufmann:
And these articles and the way the journalism works is one of those pieces that we’re not fully there yet. But we should be. And we could be. And it can be bigger. A bigger, virtuous circle between brands that are mentioned and companies that are out there. Politicians are out there.
Michael Wangbickler:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, OK, I think that will do it for today, thank you so much.
Michele Kaufmann:
Thank you so much for having me.
Michael Wangbickler:
Absolutely. I always love talking to you. You’re super smart. I love I love having these conversations with you because I can tell you’re a bit like mine.
Michael Wangbickler:
So, thanks so much. And definitely check out Stoller Wine Group, they make some great wines. And frankly, they’re hitting it out of the park with their marketing PR activity. So, check them out. And thanks again, Michelle.
Michele Kaufmann:
Thanks, Mike.
