Vin65 Blog

Wine Producers Should Tweet More

Wine Future just wrapped up in Rioja, described as "the largest wine world forum to discuss the current status of the industry," by wine educator Kevin Zraly. At this gathering of almost 1,000 wine professionals, wine social media’s tornado of passion Gary Vaynerchuk didn’t hold back on how he feels. He said that wine producers are missing a huge opportunity to talk to wine consumers via Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

From the Decanter.com post: "I don’t give a crap about Facebook and Twitter but I care about consumers," Vaynerchuk told Wine Future’s attendees. "You should be embarrassed if you don’t recognise that this platform allows you to talk to them."

Gary emphasized that his success isn’t due to his high energy, wacky personality and toys he keeps on his table during Wine Library TV, but rather because he’s passionate and he cares.

Love him or not, there are many wine consumers who flock to him, believe and trust Gary to show them the way, gain wine confidence and value their own palates. From the Decanter report, it sounds to me like he’s making it clear as to why wine producers need to get savvy on Facebook and Twitter if they aren’t there already. It’s a huge missed opportunity not to engage with wine consumers.

Similarly, Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer at Kodak, described his team’s social media ROI philosophy at last week’s SM2Day conference as: ROI= Return on Ignoring.

Photo Courtesy of (CC) Derek Wilmot. www.derekwilmot.com -http://www.flickr.com/photos/derekwilmot/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
 

Nov 19, 2009 at 9:00 AM

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Speed Sells

Are slow loading web pages causing you to lose purchasers?

The holiday season is the busiest season for winery websites. If your site isn't optimized for the load, you're selling yourself short. Earlier this month Get Elastic posted some of the research from Forrester Research on web page loading speed on their blog. Here are a few notible excerpts:

• Next to pricing and shipping issues, poor site performance is a major cause of dissatisfaction.
• Overall, 52% of online shoppers stated that quick page loading is important to their site loyalty.
• 61% of online shoppers who spend more than $1,500 online per year insist on pages loading quickly.
• After a poor site experience, 27% are less likely to buy from that retailer off-line.
• Not only does an under-performing site lead to customer frustration, but 64% of shoppers state they will simply purchase from another online store.
• 40% would abandon if it takes more than 3 seconds

There are 3 factors that cause slow loading pages.

1) The webserver is slow. There is a trend (especially in ecommerce) to have more dynamic content which places a larger load on webservers. Webservers can become slow because there is too much traffic, the database may be slow, the hardware might be under powered, and/or the software application may not be optimally constructed. There are a number of ways to combat slow webservers such as load balancing, caching queries, adding more hardware, and reviewing overall code architecture. There are lots of load testing tools available to web developers and your developer should have a sense of how much traffic their webserver can hold.

2) The web page has large images, lots of images, large flash files, or is poorly constructed. Obviously larger images, more images, and large flash content all take longer to load. There are ways to combat slow pages including using a content delivery network, ensuring images, css, and scripts are cached, compressing and/or minimizing files, and using preloaders. Your web developer should be able to tell you the overall size of your web page and give you options to have it load faster. (Tools like YSlow make this really easy.)

3) Connection speeds are slow. Internet service providers don't always provide the connection speeds they advertise. We still see a decent percentage of traffic that is still on dial up networks. Your web page probably still needs to cater to a percentage of dialup users. (Your analytic software may give you a sense of what percentage of traffic is still on a dialup connection.)

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The holiday season is almost here. It's probably a good time to ensure that your website is performing at an optimal speed before the traffic increases.

Nov 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM

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3 Mistakes When Redesigning Your Website

Thinking about redesigning your winery website? If so, here are three common mistakes to avoid before jumping into your redesign.

1. Forgetting about Search Engines and Inbound Links

Even though your old site might be dated, it still garners traffic from outside sources. Half the people visiting a winery website enter via a search engine. Inbound links from blogs, social media, and other websites also represent a good portion of traffic.

These links to product pages, company pages, contact pages, etc are often broken in a site redesign. (Different platforms and designers handle URLs differently, and often you will want your URL structure updated for search engine ranking and other reasons).

The proper way to handle updating URL structure is:

• Look at your site analytics and determine where your traffic is coming from and what links people are visiting.
• Create 301 redirects pointing traffic from your old links to your new links. (A 301 redirect is the proper way to inform search engines that the redirected URL is the new URL for the old content). Your developer should be able to do this for you (or in the case of our platform you can do it inside our content management system)

2. Forgetting about your Frequent Customers

Your most frequent site visitors probably don't want you to drastically change the site design (even if it's better, people don't always want to learn a new way of doing a task).

In an ideal world, your site would be continually enhanced rather than drastically altered every few years. If your club members are used to coming to your site and quickly placing an order, and you then completely redesign the store, it often throws the user way off.

Consider the redesign we did this past year for Twisted Oak. The new site is more of a progression on the old site rather than an evolution. The overall navigation structure and location of the wines and products didn't change that much and previous visitors should be able to find their way around.

Bottom line, think 'evolution' rather than 'revolution'.

3. Not Setting any Goals Before Jumping In

We see a lot of redesigns just because a site is dated. While it's fine to redesign a dated site, it's even better to set goals for your site.

Design is very important to your site, but you should look first at function, structure, goals, and business objectives of the site. Your designer should walk you through a design process that starts with these goals.

We start all of our sites with a goal questionnaire followed by wireframes. A wireframe will allow you to focus on function (for example what are the key elements on the homepage and what are their goals) rather than on design.

Bonus:

One more thing to think about when redesigning your site is the historical data. If you are switching platforms, it's important that order history, customer lists and other data be brought over to your new site. The longer you sell online, the more important this data becomes. (Being able to build lists, segment customers, etc off historical data is a very effective way of marketing.)

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If you are thinking about a redesign, there are more options and better tools than ever before. Just make sure you are thinking about the overall affects rather than doing a redesign just for the sake of a redesign.
 

Nov 3, 2009 at 10:00 AM

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Customers want simple.

If you are launching your new web site and wonder what customers want - customers want simple!

1. Customers don't want to give you their birthdate before they enter your website.
2. Customers don't want to read about your wine in one part of your site and jump to another part of your website to purchase the wine.
3. Customers don't want to create an account, give you a username and double confirm a password just to buy wine from you.
4. Customers don't want a long drawn out checkout process.
5. Customers don't want to be tricked into signing up for a newsletter.
6. Customers don't want to be spammed.
7. Customers don't want to be forced to buy minimum quantities.
8. Customers don't want flash.

Everything we force a customer to do before they get what they want carries consequence. Choose and weight those things carefully.

Oct 19, 2009 at 10:00 AM

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Connecting to your wine website visitors

In my last blog post "The Experience" I talked about how winery websites face the challenge of sharing a persuasive experience on their website, or share the essence of the winery and wine.

I just wanted to point out a great way to enhance the connection between your winery and visitors to your web site, which is video tasting notes or messages from the wine maker and/or wine owner.

I thought this was really powerful for a couple of reasons:

1. Builds a personal connection between the people in your winery and your customers. Faces matter more than you think
2. Although people can't taste and smell wine on your site, seeing and hearing someone doing that might just want to make them come and try it out.
3. Visitors are more likely to watch someone talk about wine than read a couple paragraphs about it.
4. Videos are really easy to share.

Here are some great examples:

Inman Family Wines: Video message from Winemaker/Owner Kathleen Inman
Ceja Vineyards: Tasting notes on every wine, here is an example.

If you are thinking about adding videos to your wine website there are lots of ways to get out there from doing it yourself which is totally acceptable in today's social media scene, or go pro - Artisan Media specializes in digital marketing for wine.

Oct 2, 2009 at 11:10 AM

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5 Stars Dominate Ratings (in Video and Wine)

Youtube blogged earlier today how Five Stars Dominate Ratings. I quote: "great video prompts action; anything less prompts indifference." And in their blog they posted the graph on the right.

I wanted to compare how closely YouTube's ratings match how consumers rate wine. We pulled the data from all of the websites on our platform using our 5 star rating widget. Almost 50% of consumers rated the wine at the full 5 stars. (The full results are in the graph on the right).

A couple of objection we hear from clients about allowing consumer ratings and reviews are:

1. What do we do if there is a negative rating or review; and
2. Not all consumers rate wine on the same scale (for some 3 out of 5 might mean it was good, while to others it means mediocre)

The statistics above basically coincide with what we have often thought.  There are very few negative consumer reviews (less than 10% of ratings were 1 or 2 stars) and there are an overwhelming amount of positive ratings and reviews.

More importantly, we know that ratings and reviews will increase conversion other industries report 20-50% increase in conversion). So while YouTube debates the merits of its 5 star rating system for video, to me a 5 star rating system on a winery website makes a lot of sense.

What do you think?

Sep 22, 2009 at 10:00 PM

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Who should be the voice of our winery’s social media program?

(This is a guest blog post from our PR and Branding consultant, Melissa Dobson of Melissa Dobson PR & Marketing.  Melissa blogs at http://familylovewine.wordpress.com/ )

You’ve been reading up and researching social media. You’re ready to get started and incorporate a couple of the platforms into your winery’s marketing and relationship building strategy. Now, who should be the face behind the voice that will represent your winery?

Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Think of your staff including owners, staff and their families. Is there someone or a few among them who are already passionate participants in social media for their own personal use? If so, do those people have a good understanding of the day-to-day, behind the scenes stuff that goes on at the winery? Are they personable, engaging and responsive to questions?
• Discuss the possibilities of social media engagement during a staff meeting. Ask for experiences and feedback from staff. Ask staffers to research and speak about some other winery examples who are already present there, what they’re doing, what you could do that’s different and representative of your winery’s core branding.
• Divide and conquer. If the owner and winemaker have a tight schedule (imagine that!), rotate who will post or update throughout the week even if it’s just posting a few photos with comments and photo descriptors when you’re pressed for time. 
• If you decide to divide and conquer, create a posting schedule to keep on track and for consistency.
• Try to carve out time to dedicate to learning more about social media platforms and continually assess your program. 
• Although a winery PR person, wine club manager or tasting room manager work as a good representative for a winery social media program, many consumers are clamoring to hear from the winemaker and owner directly. Bring them in as much as possible.
• Be sure that your winery social media “faces” are responsive to inquiries and feedback from consumers. This can be time consuming, but the trust and loyalty that this direct responsiveness brings is well worth the time.
• If you receive a negative comment about your business or your wine, take the time to address it and provide any additional insights or information and create a customer service opportunity to make things right or overcome the negative impression. A thoughtful response from the owner, winemaker or appropriate staff person can make a difference, if not with the comment writer than for those who read the comment and response in the future. I recommend only deleting negative comments that are vulgar or inappropriate.
• Don’t forget to promote other wineries, regions and collaborate with others in the industry. Jump into conversations about things you’re passionate about, provide resources if you have a recommendation or feedback. These types of interactions are essential to building trust and credibility. Show an interest in others, rather than only talking about yourself and your business.

It will take a little while for your winery’s social media faces to “find their voices”. Listening first by monitoring conversations that are already going on and following the practices of social media thought leaders in the industry on Twitter and Facebook are a good way to get started.  Don't be afraid to ask for advice from those who are already participating in social media.

What have been the biggest challenges in getting started with social media for your winery? Do you have advice for newbies?
 

Sep 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM

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The Experience

As an owner of a wine web site one of the biggest challenges you will face is conveying "The Experience" of your winery, facility, vineyard, and wines. At Vin 65 we often get asked to capture as much of the atmosphere of the winery in the design of the web site as possible. We use all kinds of things like flash and photos to give the visitor to the web site as much as we can.

At Vin 65 we have lots of fun ideas, some are really out there. My current personal favourite is offering an online tasting pack. The purpose is give a visitor the option to have a virtual tasting room experience. In a tasting room there is a $10 fee or something to taste some wine and then you get a credit towards your purchase. So why not built a tasting pack around 6 small bottles that are like 200ml or 150ml each and send it out for $25.00 or something with a $20.00 coupon towards their next purchase?

In this way you can give someone the option to try and savour some of your amazing wine if they can't get out to your winery for a tasting. It allows potential direct to trade customers to sample without spending hundreds of dollars. Getting out to the winery is the best, but if someone back East can't make it out this year for your new vintages, give them an option. How are you going to capture new customers or give your current fans a vehicle to send their friends a cool tasting gift.

Anyway, back to the main point of the post and that is sharing what your are all about on the web site, as limiting as a web site is. One thing you never see is a 360 view of your wine bottle. Now, hardly anyone does this, maybe because the impact just wouldn't be worth effort. I saw it for the first time the other day and was shocked how much more impact it had than I thought was possible. It looks really impressed on silk screened labels, but works on any bottle. Take a look at JAQK Cellars - and click the 360 view on the drilldown page. I like it - a lot, I feel like I am experiencing that bottle of wine as much as I can with out opening it.

Sep 8, 2009 at 9:00 AM

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Fine Tune Your Newsletter Sign Up

In my last blog post I talked about the email newsletter still being critical to promoting your wine website and developing your loyal fans. In this post I wanted to talk about optimizing the sign up funnel so that you get the most out of the pixels that you devote to that widget or process.

I think for the most part winery websites simply put up a form to capture email addresses in the hopes that people will sign up for fun, and to say that there is a newsletter sign up on the website. This strategy or lack there of isn't effective and leads to a very small group of individuals to market to. Which in the long run doesn't create a valuable business resource.

So how can we make this better?

Here are some tips:

1. Add some benefits. When you ask someone to sign up for a newsletter the customer is giving something up, so you want to give them back something in return. You don't have to give away the farm, but how about 15% off a case or tasting. If you are a low production winery then you can offer them first refusal on new vintages. Give the customer some incentive to give up their email.
2. Make the sign up as painless as possible. We commonly see wineries asking for every piece of customer data they can think of, which is a massive turn off for people. Why do you need to know my city to send me an email newsletter? Generally we would recommend only asking for the email. Once you have earned more trust you automatically get that information, especially if the prospect becomes a customer by buying your wine.
3. Make sign up even easier and more relevant by getting them to create an account at the end of the check out. This is makes that sign up even more valuable because they are also a customer.
4. Offer an example of an email newsletter and tell them how often you send out correspondence so the person signing up knows what to expect.
5. Sign them up in the tasting room. If someone buys a wine or a tasting why not offer them a discount if they sign up right on the spot.

Building a trusted email relationship and creating a database of customers who want to hear from you will serve you well in the long run. Customers get a lot spam, but if you are willing to work at building the trust and giving the customers on your list something worth signing up for it will mean more sales and stronger loyalty.

Aug 24, 2009 at 7:30 AM

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New Admin Interface

A little bit of a self promotion. This morning we launched our new interface on our admin panel. (137 websites are awaking to the new interface today, the other 160ish sites are seeing the new UI in the next couple of weeks).

We have some clear goals around our admin panel. It has to be as simple as possible. We want the user interface to be intuitive and friendly (both for a positive experience for our users and because it cuts our customer support costs).

We have some lesser known goals. The interface has to work with some of the technology in place. The CSS has to be light and fit well into existing code. The overall interface has to be 'white brandable' for some of our partners.

Here are some of the decisions we made with a new user interface:

1. Our users vary in the technology they use. Unfortunately 7.3% of our users are still using IE 6 and we felt we had to still support that 8 year old browser. 15% of our users are on Macs.  Firefox and Safari both represents sizable percentages of users (so no browser specific code). Screen resolution also varies drastically, with 27% of our users still using the 1024x768 resolution.
2. Our users involvement vary. 40-50% of users login on a daily basis. Other users don't log in for months. We wanted to make sure when users first login, they would not feel overwhelmed by the new interface.
3. Our users vary in their technical capabilities. While we don't rank our users technical savviness, we know that some of our users are very web savvy, while other users are not as savvy. We needed to make sure the non-savvy people would feel okay with the changes.

If your a current admin panel users - we would love your feedback. Either email me directly at andrew@vin65.com, or leave a comment below.

Aug 19, 2009 at 8:00 AM

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