Lunabean Media » Featured Content

Keys to a Successful Winery Website

Jeremy — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:44:00 +0000

Having recently launched the R. Stuart & Co. Winery Website I thought it might be instructive to go through some of the key elements that we feel all winery websites should have, using the example of the R. Stuart site.

While this is, by no means, an exhaustive list of every feature we packed into the site, it does cover the most important. I hope you find it useful!

Wine Detail Page

Look at those lovely details!

While it seems obvious, many wineries forget that their website’s primary purpose is to introduce (and sell!) their wines to a passionate audience. You’ll see sites that are so jumbled up with things like Flash splash pages, music pairings, and navigation systems that bury the wine pages that it’s almost criminal (a crime against the wine). We focus on the wine. Each wine detail page is easy-to-read and offers layers of information for both the wine newbie and wine geek alike. These include: a detailed description, a large “buy now” button, previewable and downloadable tasting notes, spec data for the vineyard, vinification, and final products, a Google vineyard map, and photos.

The Store

A winery store that is actually a store!

Speaking of selling wine, we created a custom Volusion store (the store used by both Barack Obama and John McCain in the 2008 election and by the new Kangaroo) for R. Stuart which gives users a standardized (Amazon.com-esque) shopping experience. The store can handle quantity discounts, free shipping, price groups for the wine club, and gives a number of opportunities for marketing including coupon codes. It’s also PCI compliant and hosted on Volusion servers so critical data and transactions are ensured to be safe.

Contact Information in Obvious Locations

Easy to find contact info!

There is nothing more frustrating that going to a winery’s (or any company’s) site and having no clue where they are located or how to contact them. You are then forced to find the “contact” dropdown item where they may or may not have what you’re looking for. With R. Stuart, we placed the pertinent info in the upper right of every page. It’s also at the bottom of every page, in the footer. Another bonus, pull up the site on an iPhone and the phone number is automatically a link to call.

Blog / Social Media

Blogs and social media integrated into the site!

While wine is the product and, if it’s tasty can sell itself, a good dose of personality is also required. Enter social media and the blog. We place the social media all in one spot (the jquery drawer on the left of the site) so that users aren’t distracted by it, but can easily access it at any time. The blog is integrated into the site and is divided into three sections: winery postings (From the Winery), trade postings (On the Road), and recipes. We give the power to the winery staff to update the blog (and all content, for that matter) themselves. The more they blog, the more they look like a happy, vibrant business and the more it helps their searchability. Oh, and check out a recipes page and note the “Share and Print” button. You can easily print any page of the site (practical for recipes) and even instantly create a PDF of it. Very cool.

Trade Page

Don't forget about a trade page.

Every winery should be as accomodating to trade as it can. We gave trade a one-stop page for all necessary information. This includes: contact information, distributor list, winemaker bio, logo art, and tasting notes, label image, and bottle image for each wine.

Simple Navigation

This isn’t so much a wine-specific feature, but a website feature in general. We subscribe to the philosophy that less is more. This is particularly the case when trying to relay a large amount of information in an easy-to-understand manner. Navigation needs to be obvious and consistent. If a user doesn’t know exactly where a link is going to take them, they aren’t going to click (example, if you have a blog, call it a blog for goodness sake…don’t try to be cute or clever with its name).

Calendar of Events

A clean and simple cal. of events...list view or calendar view.

Most wineries have a calendar of events but make two major mistakes with it: 1) It’s rarely updated so it looks like your winery doesn’t do any events and/or 2) The calendar is difficult to navigate. We created a simple and clean list of events which quickly gives the user all of the necessary details. If the user wants, she can click “Calendar” to see the classic calendar view. Clicking on any one event brings the user to a detailed event page where they can comment on the event or share it via their social networks.

Our Social Media Services

Allison — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:17:21 +0000

Overwhelmed by the world of social media? Don’t quite understand the hype? Not sure if the staffer you put in charge of your social media is helping or hurting? It’s time to have these questions answered so you and your business can get in the game.

Social media is here to stay (check out our Social Media FAQs). It’s not a fad. It’s a fun (yes, fun) and effective way to build relationships with your current customers while attracting new ones. The most exciting aspect of social media is that it’s not difficult to utilize once you “get it”. We are here to open your mind and create the shift necessary so yours is a brain that thinks in terms of social media.

Social Media Training

We will provide you and/or your staff with our social media training. You will leave with an understanding of how to leverage the power of social media, the tools necessary to monitor your brand (tap into conversations), Facebook and Twitter skills that will impress even your 15 year old (including knowledge of how to run a Facebook Ad campaign), and the ability to get your product and/or your business in front of your friends, and their friends, and their friends…

Cost of one-on-one training: $100/hour (est. 2 -5 hours)
Cost of staff training: Please contact us for estimate.

Social Media and Web 2.0 Implementation

Do you have a blog? If so, does it talk to your Facebook page? Does your Facebook page talk to Twitter? The power of social media is, well, being social. That goes for the applications that you’re using, too.

Our Social Media and Web 2.0 services range from setting up your social media outlets (initialization, application installation, cross platform interaction), to creating blogs and message boards for your site. What’s more, we’ll make sure that all of these outlets are talking to each other, meaning that you only have to update one to broadcast it to the others. Now that’s efficiency!

Cost of Social Media implementation: $100/hour

Social Media Marketing Plan Customization

We will meet with you, listen carefully to what you want to accomplish, and ask incisive questions to learn more about your business and its goals. We will then use our unique skill set to craft a customized social media marketing plan which will utilize those services that we think will best help your business. We will also define goals and metrics so that you can better measure success. Finally, we will draft a detailed step-by-step action plan so that you can implement the strategy in-house.

If you’d like us to implement the plan for you, well, you’re in luck because we do that, too (see below).

Cost of Social Media Marketing Plan: Varies. Please contact us for estimate.

Campaign Management – We’ll Facebook and Twitter for You

If you’re a business that knows you need fans and followers but don’t have the knowledge, time, or staff to pull it off, we’ll do it for you. We can customize a plan for you that it fits into your budget.

This service is most often offered as an add-on to our Customized Social Media Marketing Plan. That is, we’ll do the Facebooking and Tweeting for you for an agreed amount of time at which point you can decide to have us continue or take it over from us. However, if you have a strategy of your own that you want us to implement, we’d be happy to determine if we can help.

Cost of Campaign Management: $100/hour (time est. varies per contract)

Social Media Analysis

Are you tweeting without success? Having a hard time finding Facebook fans? Blogging your heart out without comments (or even reads)? Just aren’t having any fun?

We will analyze your current social media strategies, tell you what you are doing wrong, and put you on a path that will get you the online attention you deserve.

Cost of Social Media Analysis: $100/hour (est. 2 -4 hours)

Web Coaching

We like to explain web coaching using the analogy of a personal trainer. Anybody can exercise on their own. They may run a little, do some yoga, and hit the weights at the gym. However, if they’re not getting the results they want, they hire a personal trainer who has the knowledge and expertise to focus their efforts on what’s important to them (your arms look great, btw), resulting in a more fit body that is firing on all cylinders.

Think of us as your personal web trainers. Many of our clients have basic web skills. They have their social media accounts set up. They have blogs. They have e-mail newsletters. They have everything from Zing-Dings to photo streams, but they don’t know how to focus their efforts. In other words, they are all over the place, a bit overwhelmed, and feel like they’re spinning their wheels.

We will analyze your online tactics and tell you where to best focus your energy in order to obtain your desired results. We can meet once for a general assessment, or we can meet regularly, so we’re sure you’re staying on the right track. Protein shakes are extra.

Cost of Web Coaching: $100/hour

Other Web Services

Social Media FAQs

Allison — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:46:04 +0000

What is social media?

Social media is the distribution of information via online social interaction. That social interaction can occur on your own website (blogs, product reviews, message boards, etc.), or on external sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.).

Social media involving your brand occurs with or without your active participation.

Why use social media?

Here’s the deal. We could go into the multitude of reasons as to why your business should be using social media, but, the truth is, there’s only one reason that really translates. Your business should be using social media because your competition already is. What’s more, if your competition is using social media effectively, they are not only stealing your potential customers, but they’re quietly collecting your current ones.

Is social media a trend that I can ignore until it goes away?

It depends. Do you think the internet is a trend you can ignore until it goes away? Since you’re reading this online, I’d have to guess your answer to this question is “no”.

Social media has been around as long as the internet has been in our homes. Back then it came in the form of newsgroups, message boards, chat, etc. What we’re witnessing right now is the evolution of social media, or Web 2.0. Social media is how people choose to communicate with each other online. While something will eventually come along and replace Facebook and Twitter, it’s important that you understand what social media is and how to effectively participate in it, because social media is now and will continue to be a key player in nearly every company’s successful marketing strategy.

Oh, and if that’s not enough to convince you, here’s a nice little video from the kids over at Socialnomics:

How much time and money will social media cost my business?

It depends. At minimum, you should dedicate five minutes a day to social media. The tools are free, so the cost is dependent on what five minutes of your time is worth. When you begin to see results, you can dedicate more time. And, because you’ll be seeing results, you won’t see social media as something that takes away from your business, but something that brings you business and adds to your company’s overall worth.

When it comes to social media, a little bit goes a long way.

A kid who works for me knows Facebook, should I let him run my social media campaign?

Believe it or not, we see this one a lot. Because one of our specialties is social media for wineries, we’ve found that many a winery simply lets a member of their tasting room staff take charge of their social media campaign. While it’s fantastic that winery has someone ready and willing to take on this task, it is dangerous to let anyone take control of your company’s online reputation without a social media plan, or without social media rules. The solution to this problem is easy. Train that person in your tasting room, and they could be your biggest asset. If you don’t (and we see this happening quite often), that person could be unknowingly and unintentionally damaging your brand.