Get Your Best Customers Involved in Your Online Marketing

It is not unusual these days for wine lovers who are considering a visit to your winery to spend time on your website checking out your winery information and your wines. Your online presence is an important tool that can encourage visitors to visit your winery rather than someone else’s.

How long is it since you have updated your winery website? Keeping your website up to date is an important part of drawing people to your business and encouraging them to buy wine. Once prospective customers have found your winery website, you want to give them reasons to keep going back. That means adding new information to the website regularly.

This does not mean that you should totally redo your website every three months but have at least one page that can be easily updated to reflect new and interesting things that are going on at the winery over the next two to six months. In addition to a regular calendar of events, plan informational tidbits that can be easily added to your site. 

Think of seasonal things that will encourage both new and regular customers to visit. Feature different wines for different times of the year. For example, a discussion of hearty reds in the winter and lighter whites in the summer.

Most wineries have customers who love them. If any of those customers like to write, ask them to write a review of a particular wine for you. The piece doesn’t have to be very long, but it is a testimonial to the excellence of your wine by someone who thinks highly of it. Or ask one of your best customers to write a short paragraph about how much they enjoy coming to the winery and why.

You probably have many people on your mailing list who would love to write a review or a short piece on why they come to your winery. If you want to make it a competition you can offer prizes for the best pieces or a free tasting for anyone who writes a review.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Getting Guests to Your Winery

Consumers have a lot of choices when it comes to deciding which wineries to visit to taste wines. Therefore, it is important that wineries make every effort to bring people to their winery.

Potential customers are likely to find your winery online. I went online and looked for wineries in a certain state and area and a number of them popped up in my search. For many wine consumers their first introduction to your winery is likely to be through the web, either on your website or through a website that lists wineries in certain areas.

Once found, does your website invite people to the winery?

Think about the feelings you are trying to create and choose colors and a font that will reflect those feelings.

Check the website regularly to ensure everything is up to date. Some websites are stagnant and have not changed in information, style, layout, or colors even as the winery has gone through changes.

•How long is it since you have updated your website?

•Is everything on your website still current?

•Is the look of your website up to date, reflecting what consumers expect today?

Ask your staff what they think of your website and what they would do to change it. If staff and customers think your website is good the way it is, you are doing fine. If they have suggestions on what you can do differently, it might be time for some changes.

While you are looking at the website, look at your key messages. 

• Are your key messages relevant to today’s wine market?
• Do the messages spark a desire to visit the winery or buy wine?
• Is it time to rethink your sales messages or bring them up to date?

Consider how important your website is to the success of your business. Give possible and current customers the information they want and need to choose to visit your winery and to buy wine either during their visit or later through the website.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Make Your Websites More Personal

I have lately spent some time going through winery websites. I do this every few months to catch up on what wineries in different regions are up to.

I have been amazed at how many wineries have no information on their owners and staff. I know that tasting room and other staff members may change regularly so continually changing out pictures can be time-consuming. Fair enough, if all your staff members do not have their photos and a short bio on your website. However, there are things that you can do that can be easily changed if needed.

The First Law of Connection

If you want people to buy your products, join your clubs or come to your events give them the opportunity to connect.

When I am reading ABOUT US sections of websites, they usually contain paragraph after paragraph of “We planted vineyards”… ”We made wine”…” This is our passion”…” We want you to come and visit us.” While this is all very nice, I am much more likely to come and visit you if you have told me who you are. I am also more likely to buy what you are selling.

In order to connect with people, you have to start with their emotions. It is hard to connect with an unnamed, unknown entity and relate to him/her as a person.

To quote John Maxwell, “Connection is not about you but it begins with you.”

What is the first thing you usually want to know about someone to start a connection?

That’s right, their name. It is much easier to get people to give you their names if you have told them yours first.

So imagine reading the website for a business that you may be interested in visiting and finding that the company talks about “we, we, we”, but does not introduce the people who own it or work there.

Take a look at your website and see how you can make it more personal so potential customers will have another reason to connect with you. There is a lot of wine out there to choose from but there is only one YOU!

A tip of the glass from me to you!

 

Wine, wine, everywhere!

We are still seeing more and more wineries opening up all over North America. In addition, there is a great deal of growth in the craft breweries and small distilleries industries, and I don’t see that it’s going to stop any time soon, which means that you may be getting less attention and fewer visitors at your winery.

Lately, I have been speaking with winery owners and managers who are concerned that they are not seeing as many people in their tasting rooms as they had in the past. It’s not that there are less people out and about tasting wine, but that there are a lot more wineries to visit in any given area. As more wineries open up, there are more choices for consumers, so it’s even more important to differentiate your winery from others around you.

Many consumers plan holidays and day trips through the Internet to help them decide on the location as well as the activities. Take a look at the websites of wineries and similar businesses around you. Do you see anything special that makes them stand out or offers a different experience from other businesses in your area? Then take a look at your website.  What are you offering? Are your offerings very much in line with other wineries in the area, or do they invite and encourage consumers to visit you?

Remember, it’s not all about the wine. Add to your website other reasons for people to visit. Are there other activities that would interest visitors who come to your winery? Add those to your website and link with those businesses, so you are also added to their website. Lots of people travel with their children, so listing family activities can be helpful.

It’s going to be a great summer and a big year for wine sales.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

Becoming More Effective With Your Website

Getting your messages out to customers and prospective customers is critical to increasing traffic, sales, profitability and success.

A great way to increase the overall success is to have a more effective website. Consumers who are planning vacations or day-trips will consult websites to find out where they want to go and what they want to see while in the area.

I look at a great many winery websites and find the wineries are not attempting to connect with or engage viewers from the very beginning. There is neither rhyme nor reason to the functionality of many websites, with some of the most important things hidden three clicks deep under a main heading – such as information on a tasting room or events.

Checking out “About Us” pages often does not lead to information about “Us”. It doesn’t contain information on the family or people who started the winery, but about the acreage farmed, grapes grown and wines made. I have no objection to wineries giving out that information, though I encourage you to talk about yourselves and why you started the winery or vineyard, about your passion and enthusiasm for what you do and the joy you can bring to people who enjoy wine.

The website also needs to let people know about events coming up, yet, at this time of the year (spring), I find website calendars have very few events listed on them, or show events with no dates. Worse yet they show last year’s calendar. Consumers need time to plan, so the events, dates and other information need to be listed on, months in advance.

Lately, I have been getting more requests from wineries to evaluate their websites and present them with a detailed report that they can use to make their websites more effective.

In Short Direct Marketing is now offering website evaluation to wineries and other businesses, as a regular service. The evaluation can be in-depth, providing lots of detail and recommendations, or it can be an overview that takes a couple of hours.

We are also offering help with email messaging, evaluations, recommendations for subject lines and copy. We can even write your emails for you, if you wish.

If you’re interested in a quote, drop me an email at E@inshortmarketing.com or call 707.836.8730.

A tip of the glass from me to you!