Keys to a Successful Winery Website

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Why Your Winery Should be Using Foursquare

Some social media experts have declared that Foursquare, the geolocation application for mobile devices, to be “the next big thing” in social media. Others believe it to be a passing fancy that will disappear when people tire of the novelty of it.

I, for one, don’t care about the longevity of the product. It is my job to use these tools, trendy or not, to help people increase business. This week, it’s my job to help wineries. So, here we go with a list of why your winery tasting room should be making use of Foursquare, trend or not.

The Whys

1. Drinking Games are Fun – I know, it’s inappropriate and even crass to say to a high end winery, but, it’s a fact: Drinking games are fun. That doesn’t mean Joe Bob and his friends (they’ll be starring in the rest of the article) will use FourSquare to get tanked, but it does mean it adds that extra je ne sais quoi to the wine tasting experience. Foursquare is, at its core, an online game that incentivizes visitors to real world establishments with virtual points, badges, and titles.

I worked off and on in my family’s winery tasting room for over a decade. Some of our biggest days were those when we took part in various treasure hunts or stamp events. People got very excited about collecting stamps…probably a bit more so than they would have had wine not been involved. So, in summary, Foursquare and booze, in any form, are a good match.

2. People who don’t know about it, don’t know about it – Let’s be honest. People who don’t get social media, or even specific social media applications, tend to be hostile toward it. You don’t want to annoy those who want nothing to do with social media. Foursquare is kind of like a secret club. Joe Bob can check in via his own personal web device without Crotchety McGee having a clue.

3. FourSquare check-ins disseminate through various social media networks – When Joe Bob checks in to your establishment, this information is not only shared with other FourSquare users, but, if Joe Bob set up his account in a social way, that information will be shared with his Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Bonus: If Joe Bob happens to have 20,000 Twitter followers and 600 Facebook friends, you just got a lot of word of mouth advertising.

4. FourSquare is a user generated review site – While FourSquare isn’t necessarily billed as a geolocation tracking Citysearch or Yelp, that’s pretty much what it is. If you provide an excellent product and your staff provides excellent customer service, FourSquare users will let other FourSquare users know about it. Better yet, since the the “reviews” are billed as “tips” these reviews tend to be a bit more specific, thus more helpful, than those found elsewhere. For example, instead of saying something like, “Good wine, staff was nice”, Joe Bob may say something like, “Ask to try the Temperance Hill, it’s wonderful,” or “Katie works Saturday afternoons, and she knows her stuff!”.

5. Chances are your tasting room will be added, with or without your permission – Foursquare users can add businesses to the directory themselves. It’s always my opinion that your business should be listed in the way you want it to be listed. Take control early. Not only will you be able to name your business as you want to name it, but putting your business in the Foursquare directory will increase the likelihood of being visited by Foursquare users.

The Hows

1. Nothing required – As mentioned above, Foursquare is primarily a user driven game. You don’t have to do a thing for your business to be involved. Just trust that, some day, it will be. So, do nothing, or add your business yourself.

2. Incentivize the incentives – Foursquare, itself, provides great ideas of how to use Foursquare for your business. Specific to tasting rooms? Offer a 10% discount to anyone who checks into your tasting room. Again, think of it as word of mouth advertising. If you’re a Wine Bar, and have regular customers, offer a higher discount to the Mayor (the person who has checked into your establishment the most), thus creating a little discount competition. Get together with other wineries in your area and offer a small prize to anyone who checks into all of those wineries.

If you’re not ready, yet, to offer any discounts, a simple chalkboard with the Mayor’s name on it can be enough to create buzz for your company’s presence. Not to mention, there’s wine involved, so you’ll probably be taking pictures of many Mayors…which will, inevitably, be uploaded to various social media networks.

Top 5 winery website features for sales and marketing

An acquaintance of mine, a sales and marketing director for a local winery, recently disclosed to me that he isn’t familiar with his winery’s website. While I’m sure I went pale and my jaw momentarily dropped, I made a quick recovery, smiled, and asked why that was.  He said he was just too busy.  Then I asked if he thought he was missing out on sales and marketing opportunities by ignoring the website, his response was, “Probably.  I don’t know”.

The answer, of course, is yes, yes you are missing out on sales and marketing opportunities if you choose to ignore your company’s website.  You’re missing out big time.

It’s no longer enough to have claimed some turf out there in cyberspace.  That turf now has a purpose, and that purpose is to sell your product.  What’s more, as nearly two-thirds of adults in the US claim to be online daily, they have learned to associate the quality of a website with the quality of a business.  In other words, if you’re ignoring your company’s website, customers are ignoring your business.

With that being said, here is our list of five website features that every sales and marketing director of every winery should make sure are properly installed and used on their company websites. To see them in action, please feel free to look at our Sample Winery Website.

Sales and Marketing Website Tools

1. Tasting Notes – Ask any waiter or wine shop employee and they will tell you the wine they move is the wine they know.

   Providing servers, sommeliers, distributors, wine shop employees, and even the general public (people like to know what they’re serving to their friends), with detailed tasting notes will move your wine. Make sure they are easily accessible on your website, and that they are printer-friendly (PDFs are best).

   Tell your distributors, favorite wine shops, and restaurants that your tasting notes are available on your website. Even better, include a note or card in every case that tells people to visit your site for detailed tasting notes.

2. Calendar of Events – A calendar of events not only informs people of your winery’s happenings, but it helps sell the winery lifestyle.

   Include local and out of state events such as winery open houses, festivals, tastings, winemaker’s dinners, press spots, and even tasting room specials. Harvest is coming up. Include when you expect to be crushing what.

3. FAQs – Come up with a list of your most frequently asked (and best) questions. Include questions you wish were asked, and make sure your answers are the ones you’ve provided on your best days.
4. Distributor List – Due to strict shipping laws, many people can’t buy your wines directly from you, so they need an easy way to find out where they can buy your wines. Provide a state by state list of your distributors, along with their contact information (phone AND e-mail).
5. Social Media Tools – Social media is, perhaps, the greatest thing to happen to winery marketing. It’s affordable, and, when done correctly, it’s incredibly effective.

   Social media is about building relationships with current and future customers. To ignore social media is to ignore your customers. But, like a website, it’s not enough to simply have these tools and accounts set up. You need to know how to use them appropriately, or they could actually damage your brand.

   If you want to know more about social media, please check out our Social Media FAQs.