A thriving Virginia winery, Naked Mountain Winery and Vineyards now has a new logo, new marketing materials, new labels at the printer and a new website all designed by the team at TRUE creative services! The new site is designed to enhance the winery’s social media marketing campaigns, as well as cater to their already loyal following. New owners Randy and Meagan Morgan are ready busy with new internet marketing techniques as well as grass roots event-based marketing. For the best view of the new logo and the lovely Virginia scenery, take a trip out to see the winery for yourself and enjoy a tasting and perhaps an afternoon sitting on the deck overlooking the vineyard and mountains. The winery is less than an hour outside Washington, DC in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
We were also proud to have been contracted to name their new Blush wine, now being bottled with the delightful tease “Make Me Blush.” We wanted to incorporate the playful “Drink Naked” tag line to celebrate this wine’s beautiful hue of pink. Go have a taste, and tell them we sent you!! Enjoy!
The weather afforded a beautiful artistic filter - no Photoshop needed!
Marketing Virginia Wineries is a fine blend of appealing to the consumer’s tastes, desires, and emotions. Appealing more and more to wine enthusiasts is the “destination winery”. These are the wineries and vineyards that offer spacious tasting counter(s), ample indoor and outdoor seating, a welcoming atmosphere for sitting and enjoying wine purchases with friends and family with tasty snacks – either purchased at the winery, or brought from home, live music, stunning views, and friendly, knowledgeable owners and staff. A winery with these qualities will rely heavily on word-of-mouth marketing. Owners must invest in social media marketing through vehicles such as Twitter and Facebook, a Search Engine Optimized (SEO), well organized, attractive and informative web site with social media tools, blogs and contact-capturing forms for direct contact with consumers.
One of the tasting counters at Barrel Oak Winery
My recent trip to Barrel Oak Winery – even on a rainy day – demonstrated this very point. The atmosphere of the tasting room was warm, friendly and welcoming and the owners, Sharon and Brian Roeder, were delightful, passionate, and a wonderful source of a marketing success story. Heavily invested in Social Media and on-site face-to-face contact with visitors, Barrel Oak Winery has quickly become a marketing success story.
Karl Stoll entertaining at Barrel Oak Winery
Adding to the atmosphere was the added bonus that my friend Karl Stoll was entertaining us with music and song. I found Barrel Oak to be an excellent example of a “destination winery” that I will return to with friends again and again. Great atmosphere, great marketing!
Our current exciting project is the complete rebranding and new website for Naked Mountain Winery & Vineyards in Markham, VA. We are honored and thrilled to have been brought on board to design the new logo, company identity, branding, label designs, marketing consultation and website design and development.
While we are still in the creative process, I could not help but give a sneak peak and give my cheers and applause to Randy and Megan, the new owners of Naked Mountain Winery & Vineyards.
We have been doing intensive research of the Virginia winery market and found a great list of all Virginia wineries at VirginiaWine.org as well as Virginia’s wine trails. Our journey of research, consultation and brainstorming has brought forth the creation of a new, modern, sleek and sophisticated logo that pays homage to the history and background of the now “vintage” brand. We are looking forward to applying the new logo to promotional items and wearables and proudly wearing the wineries tongue-in-cheek tag line – “Drink Naked!”
Randy and Megan have been positively delightful to work with and I have enjoyed my many afternoons with friends and loved ones sitting on the lovely deck overlooking the vines and beautiful mountain views. Their tasting room is warm and inviting with a welcoming feel that matches the owner’s personalities. We are looking forward to helping to promote their upcoming events such as their ongoing lasagna lunches and appearances at various Virginia wine festivals and events. I plan on “Drinking Naked” outside and enjoying the mountain air as the weather warms!
We are still working on the new website and wine label creation for current and new-release wines. (Incidentally, we are very much enjoying our tireless hours of research)! More exciting updates to come!
I recently met personally with a selection of Virginia and Washington DC Association professionals to discuss Web VS Print for marketing and member communications. One of the questions I was seeking to answer was how much they are relying on their website and email for communication and marketing and how much they are relying on traditional print media such as magazines, brochures, trade show materials, etc. The most important pearl of wisdom that came from all of the information is how important it is to survey your members. Overall the results of member feedback gave the associations the knowledge that while they can, perhaps, reduce the amount they are printing, large numbers of their members still want printed material. Some of this information came to them as a surprise.
While many members the associations thought to be web-positive, surveys found that at the end of the day many of these computer-savvy professionals simply did not want to look at their computer to get information when they had been on their computers all day. Others, due to alternative factors, were not in fact as computer savvy as hoped.
While it is unquestionably more cost-effective for the association to provide their communications electronically, the goal of the association should be to provide desirable value to it’s members – thereby maintaining member renewal. In economic times such as these, associations need to really prove to their members that they are listening to what the membership needs all year round, and not just at renewal time.
Also important when preparing information for web posting, is that just because you are creating a PDF and not a printed piece, it still needs to have a well thought-out design, be visually attractive and have a professional appearance that maintains the brand and image of the association. Also, don’t give into temptation to over inform – just because your aren’t paying to put ink on paper, that does not lengthen your viewer’s attention span. A poorly presented electronic file will be sure to discourage your members.
Our summary: When deciding to cut back on your printing budget make sure your members support the decision and when creating materials for web download and email, make sure to maintain the professionalism and quality of presentation that represents the image of your association.
Thank you to all of the association professionals that gave me 20 minutes of their day to meet with me in person to assist me in my research!
Kris Brinker
President
As a Graphic Design Company serving Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC, offering
Branding, Graphic Design, Marketing Services, Printing Services, and Website Design for companies, associations, publishers, government agencies and organizations, we have been making ourselves find the time to recreate our own website. As we all know, it is the hardest to find the time to do the very things we advise for our clients.
We are done! We are thrilled! We are tired! AND, we are happy to welcome you to the unveiling. Please have fun and become informed as we post useful tidbits of knowledge and experience that we have gained over our 20+ years of serving clients.
As the TRUE alternative to other ad agencies, marketing agencies, and graphic design and website design firms, we want our site to not only be a marketing tool, but also be a resource for information for our clients and associates. We also hope that we can be an occasional source of levity and smirks. Please check back in to peek at our blogs and visit our frogs. (OK, levity, smirks, and maybe some groans and eye-rolls).
We are very excited to be announcing the preliminary launch of our new website. We are still working on updating and creating, but in the mean time, feel free to look around.