The Winery Web Site Report

New Media And Wine

(Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers. I'm thankful that you take the time to read and comment.)

If you haven't already flipped through this presentation from VinTank, take a few minutes and do it now:

New Media and Wine

The big takeaways for me were "fishing where the fish are," the idea that social media is your "free" club, and the fact that e-mail still drives sales.

Definitely worth the time to flip through the slides and draw your own insights.

Love And Hate And Winery Web Sites

Brandy Bell, over at Donati Family Winery sent out the following message on Twitter:

hey #winos, what are you looking for in a winery website? what do you hate about some sites? gimme the dirt ;)

Larry Chandler gave her these replies:

@DonatiFamily Love: Few clicks to buy wine + Flash-free. Hate: must register before knowing total cost + search 4 the buy button

@DonatiFamily Also: hate sound without asking. Love clear bottle images. Love brief descriptions with option for more.

Brandy thanked him, and asked another question:

@LarryTheWineGuy GREAT feedback, Larry! what about consumer education?

To which Larry replied:

@DonatiFamily If educating consumers about your wines, terroir, and winemaking fine. Otherwise link to existing educational sites.

All great advice, all aimed at improving visitor experience.

So, what do you love and hate about winery Web sites?  Please leave a comment!

Winery Web Site Navigation

Here's the navigation from a winery Web site I recently visited, for a high-end Napa Cabernet Sauvignon:

• Acquire
• Wines
• Winemaker
• Vineyard
• Pedigree
• Mailing List
• Contact
• Trade

There's nothing terribly wrong with it (aside from its position on the page).   The question is, "Could it be better?"

The purpose of navigation is to help your visitors get where they need to be on your site, regardless of where they start (remember, visitors from search engines may land anywhere on your site).  As I've said before, visitors come with a goal and a Back button.  You want to make sure they reach their goal, whatever it is.

Back when I created the original idea for The Winery Web Site Report (a custom, printed report), I believed that there were four primary types of visitors to your site, based on their goal in visiting:

1. people who want to buy your wine right now (possibly as a gift).
2. people who want more information about your wines
3. people who want to sell your wines (the trade)
4. people who want to write about your wines (the media)

I think this remains true today (although I've learned there are some important nuances to consider). 

The problem with most navigation is that people don't seek to improve it based on measuring what people do (another reason to make analytics your first priority).  Navigation (should) appear consistently (same items, same place) on every page of your site (with the possible exception of checkout, since that's a process you don't want to interrupt).  Typically, navigation is a horizontal bar below the page header, or a vertical list in the left-hand margin.

Here are the things that absolutely need to appear on every page of your site.

• Winery Name and Logo - every page should make it clear what site the visitor has reached.  Having the logo be a link to the home page is a standard convention.  
• Address and E-Mail - the address may be your street address, or it could be "Diamond Mountain, Napa, California."  Regardless, it should probably link to a Google Map (unless you don't want visitors).
• (Toll-Free) Phone Number - make it easy for people to talk to you, whether to ask a question or order.  Remember, people use the Web like the Yellow Pages.  Don't make them hunt around your site for contact information.  Toll-free service is cheap - use it.  And track whether people called via your Web site.
• Buy Now - this provides clear direction for people who came to buy.  This link should take the user to a simple list of all the wines you have available for sale.  If you don't sell online, that's fine.  Tell people where/how they can buy your wines.   You've got a potential customer in hand - don't lose them.
• Our Wines - this link is clear to visitors who may want to buy, but want more information about your wines first.
• Trade - information for this item is less important than the preceding two, but should be visible.  Generally, smaller type and a position off the main navigation bar are best, but don't hide it below the fold.
• Media - as for the trade, this is not a primary item for most people, but important to its intended audience.
• More Info - Yes, it's a catch-call.  Yes, I'd like a more elegant name for it.  This is intended to give visitors who have a goal other than { buy, wine info, trade, media } a clear place to go.  Here is where you describe and link to the "next most important" items on your site.  This is the one place that a drop-down menu might be appropriate.
• Sign Up - every page should allow you to capture the visitor's e-mail address for future contact.

Your name, logo and contact information are really part of the header on each page.  The links for Trade and Media are "de-emphasized".  The Sign Up is a (ideally) small box in the left or right column (topic for a future post).  As a result, we've really only got three items on our navigation menu.

Buy Now

Our Wines

More Info

In addition to the essentials above, here are some navigation items to consider (and test) as part of your navigation menu:

• Visit Us - if you want people to come to the winery, or you are known as a great place to visit (V. Sattui does this well), then it probably deserves consideration as a navigation item.
• Give Wine - if a lot of the wine you sell is sold as gifts (or you'd like to increase the amount), consider giving site visitors clear directions.  Don't just assume that people will check the "gift-wrap" box during checkout.  Again, even if they can't do it online, explain what you can do, and who to call.  I always point out that wine.com makes "giving wine" part of their primary navigation for a reason.
• Blog - if you have one, be sure to link to it.  A common omission.
• Events - for some wineries, one of the main sources of foot traffic are events.  Like Visit Us, if it's likely that a visitor to your Web site is looking for event information, consider adding it to your primary navigation.
• Wine Club - if club sales are important, and you actively promote your club, then it's likely that people will be looking for it, and should be able to find it easily.
• Shopping Cart - if someone places an item in their cart, it's good to enhance the visibility of the fact.  Many sites use the right column for this.  You might also have a cart icon which changes depending on its state.  This is a "low emphasis" navigation item, and not a candidate for the primary menu.
•     - like an 800-number, these 16x16 "social media" icons make it easier for people to connect with you.  These are small items which, like Trade and Media don't require prime navigation real estate.

Look at your analytics to find the top 5 search phrases that deliver traffic to your Web pages.  Ask yourself: If I came looking for this, would I know from the navigation elements where to click to move closer to my goal?  If the answer is "No," consider changing your page navigation.  The goal is for a visitor to look at the navigation and easily decide on their next click.  While More Info may not be elegant, it is certainly clear.

Of course, don't go off the deep end.  Five clear primary navigation items is about right.  Seven is right out.  I'm not a fan of drop-down menus in general, as you end up playing hide-and-seek.  And I  absolutely hate dislike cutesy menu item names.  "Acquire" is probably OK, given the high-end nature of the wine in question, but I still think "Buy Now" is about as clear, direct, and imperative as you can get.

As you can see, not all navigation elements are equal (e.g. trade and media, your blog, the shopping cart).  A good designer can help you give the proper visual emphasis to each element (e.g. smaller, lighter text for less-important items, proper placement of items on page).

"What about the ubiquitous About Us menu item?" you ask.  Frankly, that's not what people are most likely to be searching for.  It may be interesting, and you may want to link to it from your home page, but it's not primary navigation.

What do you think?  I'd love some comments from people who actually test the effectiveness of their site navigation!  And feel free to link to examples of great (and not-so-great) winery Web site navigation.

Lazy Sunday: Question Assumptions

I've been harping about the need to test how your winery Web site performs.

What if, instead of selling wine, you were dealing with something  really important, like electing a President?

This video (at the 10:45 mark - just drag the progress button to the right) spends less than 5 minutes demonstrating --  in a very dramatic way -- that your intuition about what compels people to take action is very likely completely wrong.

Enjoy it with your Sunday morning hot beverage of choice.  It's worth watching all the way to the end (at the 33-minute mark -- the last 15 minutes is Q&A), as he follows with a segment on how a visitor's prior experience changes what they respond to, and another complete case study not related to political campaigns (but not related to wine, either).

Lessons From Wine.Com

Wine.com sells a lot of wine.  As a result, I think that wineries looking to sell more wine online should look at wine.com to see if there are any lessons to be learned from how they do things.

Here's a brief MarketingSherpa case study of how wine.com lifted order value 15% by making better recommendations to site visitors: 

The system made relevant suggestions in real time as customers browsed the site. The types of recommendations included: 

• Customers who viewed this item also viewed...
• Customers who bought this item also bought...
• Products ultimately purchased by customers who viewed this item...
• Top sellers in this price range...
• Customers who searched for "xxxx" ultimately bought...
• Items related to search "xxxx"...

Obviously, this doesn't apply to a winery with just one wine to sell, and the level of technical sophistication is beyond many winery Web site owners.  But you're probably not making any recommendations at all, and that is a mistake.  For example, you could routinely suggest adding some of your best-selling wine when someone makes a purchase of a different wine.

If you're interested in the article, be sure to print it out, as it goes behind the MarketingSherpa "pay wall" after November 28th.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

A Winery Blog Post: Match Vineyards

I've been toying with the idea of a "winery blog post of the week," but it obligates me to more than I'm willing to undertake.

In lieu of that, I will occasionally point out a winery blog post that I think is worth looking at, and try to explain why.

In that spirit, I'd like to recommend this post from Match Vineyards on their Baconbrook vineyard.  Go read it.

Having read it, aren't you interested in drinking the wine from this vineyard?  There's a story (the second, unintended vineyard purchase), the tiny vineyard, the quality of the grapes, the description of the wines made from this vineyard.

Does this post resonate for you?  Why or why not?  There are no right answers, so please leave a comment.

(If you're curious, you can see all the wine-related and winery blogs I follow here.  Just scroll down to the Ws.)

The 7 Harsh Realities Of Social Media Marketing

Here are a few cautions from CopyBlogger:

1. No one is reading your blog.
2. You've got to give (some of) your best stuff away.
3. It will eat your life if you let it.
4. Social media hates selling.
5. What they say is a million times more important that what you say.
6. A blog is not a marketing plan.
7. You don't get to opt out.

It's not exactly encouraging, but the article has suggestions on how to deal with these realities.  As usual with a general marketing article, not all items apply directly to wineries (e.g. #2).  But for wineries looking to use social media for marketing, the last four are especially relevant.

(Social media, of course, includes blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a raft of similar sites.)

For your winery, what are the best and worst aspects of social media?  Please leave a comment.

A Free Web Site For Your Winery

Courtesy of Sonoma State University and eWinerySolutions.com.

The winning winery will receive both the completed new design and the ecommerce website, and free hosting and maintenance services for one year from launch date...The website will be designed and built by Sonoma State student teams during the 2010 Spring semester, under the guidance and tutelage of Sonoma State faculty and eWinery Solutions management.

Apply here.  Note: your winery must be located in Sonoma County.

You may want to read the rest of the rules before throwing your name in the hat.   Technically, you're nominating yourself to be in the running for a new site, which is perfectly fine.  As I write this, there are already six nominated wineries.

I guess someone forgot to include me (recognized authority on winery Web sites) on the announcement.  I had to find out from Wine Industry Insight this morning.  Some days, I'm just not feeling the love.  <grumble>

Seriously, I look forward to seeing the results.  Maybe they'll ask me to judge. <grin>

Smart marketing on the part of Richard Kline to get the SSU wine program's tacit endorsement of his product.

WineRelease.com Surveys Winery Mailing Lists

 

Neil Monnens at WineRelease.com recently conducted two surveys on winery mailing lists (one for consumers, one for wineries), and he's now released the results.  To encourage you to go look, here are the questions:

CONSUMERS (435 responses):

1. How do you feel about the following winery mailing list practices? (6 practices to rate)
   
2. Should US wineries adjust their pricing, as Bordeaux does, depending on the quality of the vintage?
3. If a winery gave a discount to long-time list members who consistently purchase, would you { purchase every year, increase purchase amount, not change }?
4. What is a reasonable shipping/handling cost, per bottle.
5. If a winery has more wine to sell, which method do you recommend?
6. Do you ever resell wines you're forced to take in order to stay on a winery's list?
7. Are you on any mailing list with the intention of reselling the wine for a profit?
8. Over the past year, have you { increased, decreased, not changed } your mailing list purchases?
9. What percent of the wine you purchase is purchased direct from the wineries?
10. What method do you prefer for receiving information from wineries?

 see the results

WINERIES (155 responses):

1. Do you offer a mailing list?
2. Does your mailing list require any of the below? (6 potential requirements)
3. Should US wineries adjust their pricing, as Bordeaux does, depending on the quality of the vintage?
4. What do you charge for shipping/handling, per bottle?
5. If you have more wine to sell, which method do you use [to distribute the excess to your list]?
6. What is your method of communication with your customers?

see the results

One of the nice things is that Neil includes the verbatim comments for each question, which makes the survey results much less sterile.  This is a great way to see how mailing list customers view the world, and how other wineries handle their lists.  Go read them.

I also wanted to call your attention to Neil's site, WineRelease.com.

WineRelease.com informs wine enthusiasts about upcoming North American wine release dates.

(Like this blog, WineRelease.com is a labor of love, aided by a handful of winery sponsors and some advertising.)

Neil has about 2,000 subscribers, and he strives to make sure that people who subscribe do, in fact, actually read the newsletter by periodically re-qualifying his list.  Here's an example of the monthly newsletter Neil sends out to his list. 

Astonishingly, only 1,519 wineries use WineRelease.com to distribute information about their new releases For a winery, signing up is as easy as sending an e-mail to Neil (see here for the address), and it's free!  

Why wouldn't you take advantage of one more way to let people know about your wines?  By implication, if you are telling people when your wines will be available, they must be worth knowing about.

Lazy Sunday: Judging Wine

From this excellent Wall Street Journal article on wine judging, it appears that wine critics aren't particularly consistent, nor do they share the same opinions of a given wine.

Francesco Grande, a vintner whose family started making wine in 1827 Italy, told me of a friend at a well-known Paso Robles winery who had conducted his own test, sending the same wine to a wine competition under three different labels. Two of the identical samples were rejected, he said, "one with the comment 'undrinkable.' " The third bottle was awarded a double gold medal.

So, drink what you like, medals and points be damned!