Ep. 1666 Amanda McCrossin And Kristen Reitzell | Masterclass US Wine Market With Juliana Colangelo

The Italian Wine Podcast is the community driven platform for Italian wine geeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italianwinepodcast.com. Donate 5 or more euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, My Italian Grape Geek Journal, absolutely free. To get your free copy of My Italian Grape Geek Journal, click support us at italianwinepodcast.com or wherever you get your pots. Welcome to MasterClass US Market with me, Giuliana Colangelo. This show has been designed to demystify The US market for Italian wineries through interviews with experts in sales and distribution, social media, communications, and so much more. We will quiz each of our esteemed guests at the end of each episode to solidify the lessons that we've learned. So sharpen your pencils, get out your notebooks, and join us this week to learn more about The US market. Hello. Welcome to MasterClass US Wine Market. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Amanda McCrossan and Kristen Reitzel to the Italian Wine Podcast. We're here today recording live at Wine two Wine in Verona, at the Italian Wine Podcast headquarters. So a little different setup. So just to introduce my guest, Amanda McCrosson, certified sommelier, wine personality, and TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube creator. And we also have Kristen Reitzel, senior vice president of communications and digital marketing at Jackson Family Wines. Kristen manages all aspects of the company's communication strategy, overseeing corporate and family communications, as well as PR, digital marketing, and influencer marketing, which is what we're here to talk about today. For recording, again, live in Verona, Kristen and Amanda are both speaking this year presenting a session called the influencer marketing playbook, which is gonna close out this year's conference. But we get to hear from them today about the key takeaways. And if you didn't make it to wine to wine this year, in this episode, we'll give you a great overview of everything that they shared in their presentation. It's so great to have you both here at Verona. We see each other usually in Napa or New York, so it's a lot of fun to be over here on the other side of the pond. Thanks for joining me. Happy to be here. Very happy to be here eating pasta and sharing thoughts. Yes. Exactly. What could be better? Drinking wine too, of course. Right? Okay. So before we dive into today's discussion about influencer marketing, let's tell our listeners a little bit more about both of you and how you found yourselves here today in Verona in this sound booth with me. So, Amanda, let's start with you. You've been on the TimeLine podcast before, so our listeners might already be a little bit familiar with you, but give us an overview of your story. Yeah. Last year, I got to come to Wine two Wine to talk about all things TikTok and wine because that was a platform that I started building a few years ago. But my background is in wine. I have a previous background in theater, film, and TV which is sort of how I came to really put all those things together after I worked the floor at a restaurant in Napa Valley called Press and run the wine program there. I started my social media presence about eight years ago and started with Instagram and YouTube and subsequently left the restaurant business in 2020 completely unrelated to COVID. But perfect timing. Perfect timing. And took my content creation full time in the wine world. So today, I am a full time content creator, digital creator, influencer, if you will, and, wine speaker. And so I'm excited to be back at Wine two Wine this year, sort of moving the needle a little bit more into the social media world, but then also talking about the hows of influencer marketing. Because last year, we talked more about the whys. Right. Definitely. And I think that's so valuable for this audience, the how. Like, how how do they approach it? And, Kristen, that's where you come in as well. And tell us a little bit more about you. Yeah. I mean, I'm thrilled to be back. I had the opportunity to come in last year and actually more talk about just getting social media to work for a US audience. I'm excited to dive into more of the a niche y topic around that, and that's something I touched on very briefly last year, was how to work and use influencers to be part of your overall marketing strategy. So digging deep into that with Amanda, I think that, you know, as a winery, I can come from that perspective. But hearing the perspective of the influencer, the creator is really important. So I think it's gonna be a really great topic where whether you're a producer or you are thinking about working with influencers, you're really gonna hear from both of us and our perspectives, and it's the best way to marry this topic. But I've attended Venetia Lee International with our winery, Arcino and Chianti Classico, and I heard about this conference and was really excited to be asked to speak last year and come back this year. So Yeah. It's great to have you both back again. Let's dive in at three key takeaways for today's master class and what you're both gonna be presenting on at Wine two Wine, but we're also what we're talking about today. Number one, what do influencers look for in winery partners? Number two, ways that you can work with influencers to capture compelling content about your brand. And number three, how wineries can measure the ROI of influencer marketing. So like we said, we're really talking about the how in today's episode, which I think is gonna be great for our listeners. So, Kristin, let's start with you. For any of our listeners that aren't yet convinced about why they should do influencer marketing, tell us about the benefits of a brand investing in influencer marketing based on your experience, you know, at Jackson Family Wines. I will preface answering this question with, I hope I never have to answer the question around why should you be working with influencers. I think it's more how to better work with influencers. I think that influencer marketing is a cornerstone now of our marketing strategy across all winery brands in the portfolio from La Crema, which is available across the world really and really predominantly in The US, up to Cardinal, which is very exclusive, hard to get, very allocation based. And we work with influencers across all of that. So the first thing I would say is that it should be something you're looking at as part of your marketing strategy. It's absolutely these are independent voices. They have built in audiences. They're creating compelling content that gives context to wine, and gives context to what wine is in our life. And I think that they have a really interesting point of view. And if that point of view matches what you're trying to be and present yourself as a winery, it's just another opportunity for storytelling, just like in a magazine, or a blogger, or, having your own podcast. And I think that if people are hesitant about that, just look at it as like another media channel. Especially if you're looking at it from a traditional media perspective. And sometimes it's hard to grasp that, it's absolutely just like working with another media partner. And there's so much value in that, and it's a bit more authentic than some of these other third party endorsers. And I would add a bit more accessible. I I mean, I think the the cost of entry when it comes to placing an ad in Wine Spectator or a mainstream media publication like the New York Times is extremely high. And with influencer marketing, there's lots of different levels. I know we're gonna talk about the cost of influencer marketing, but really there's lots of different ranges in which you can work with influencers, which I think is another key. Right? Yeah. And I think that there's so much more ad value you can get out of that partnership and that investment where you, I hate saying stretch your dollars more, but there's an opportunity for, you know, u