REthink Wine Blog

These are my principles.  If you don’t like them, I have others.   Groucho Marx

As we’re all very much aware, shifting market trends have made it a tough time for wine sales.  Eric Asimov summed it up in a recent article for the New York Times when he stated “Cash may be trickling, but anxiety is gushing forth.”  And while uncertain economic times may make it tempting to pull back on marketing spend or concentrate resources on the latest and greatest trend, it’s worth remembering that huge benefits can often be gained by focusing on the basics.   The essence of marketing is to understand the needs of your customers and develop a plan for meeting those needs.  With that in mind, I believe that all marketing efforts should fall into one of four buckets:  1) Building Equity, 2) Generating Demand, 3) Garnering Loyalty, or 4) Enhancing Channel Sales and Profitability.  By compartmentalizing in this way, all promotional tactics are focused on specific goals and objectives, allowing you to more easily measure results and plan for the future.

Build Equity:  Put simply the focus here is on acquiring new customers.    This includes all efforts to gently guide potential customers through the relationship cycle: from awareness, to contemplation, to preference for your wines (and your brand) and finally to loyalty and word of mouth.  Several tactics fit into this bucket, including but not limited to the following:

• Focus on direct marketing and list building strategies.  Maintain and stick with a promotional calendar.
• Reach out to both traditional media and the wine blogging community.
• Social Networking is a great way to attract new customers of every age (most notably younger generations), to add a human touch, and to build good will.  Whether developing a Facebook page, joining the conversation in Twitter or utilizing YouTube, you will need a strategy for both participating in and monitoring conversations. 
• If you’re feeling adventuresome, consider developing an online video.  Video can be used for many purposes:  winemaker interviews, culinary productions, or telling your story in general.  It can add a whole new dimension to your marketing effort.
• Build traffic to your website using SEM and SEO.  SEM is an often overlooked method of paid advertising which if approached correctly can be very powerful both in building brands and in generating demand.  Use it to build awareness for your winery, as well as for short term promotional efforts.  Focus on niche keywords, your winemaker, your winery and other terms which are important to your brand.

Generate Demand:    This involves the use of promotional methods to generate sales and increase the average spend per customer.

• Focus on the tasting room:  invite people to events, sponsor other local events and work with neighboring wineries if feasible.  Capture information that will allow you to approach these visitors in the future:  incentivize them to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list, and always encourage wine club participation.
• Recognize that tourists are looking closer to home and reach out to locals.  For California wineries, this might mean anyone within a three hour radius.
• Build upon your eCommerce strategy.  Remember the adage that “Content is King” and revisit your web site.  Make sure that content is up to date and product images and descriptions are clean and well thought out.  Also be sure that your site is frequently updated, with news, events and other happenings.  Don’t allow it to get stale or give the appearance of nothing more than an online “brochure”.
• Consider different techniques for increasing average order value:  offer product bundles, case discounts, or shipping incentives on volume orders.

Engender Loyalty:  The use of creative methods to increase the lifetime value of customers and club members

• Attack email campaigns and club promotion strategies with renewed vigor (use geographic and other forms of segmentation to ensure promotions are focused).
• Examine ways in which you can add value to club memberships.  Acknowledge milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, club longevity.  Offer “members only” events, tours, and tastings.  Include re-order materials with your club shipments.
• Focus on current club members and solicit updated credit card information when necessary.
• Revisit your customer service policies and customer relationship management strategy and ensure club members are treated accordingly.  In turn, this will allow you to rely on your customers to help with marketing - happy customers and the word of mouth they generate can be very positive.  And remember that social media is not just about acquiring new customers; it is also a great tool for generating customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Be sure to utilize relevant metrics so that you always understand the value of your customers.

Enhance Channel Profitability:  The pursuit of new growth opportunities and customer acquisition strategies via expansion into new and profitable sales channels

Direct to Consumer Opportunities:  As new marketplace opportunities become available, the landscape for direct to consumer sales will begin to change dramatically.  Participation in these marketplaces, whether Inertia’s new direct to consumer marketplace “CollectiveVine.com”, or via a Marketing Agent provides many benefits, namely:  1.) A captive audience and the ability to introduce your wines to an expanded customer base.   2.)  New opportunities for market research and testing without the traditional costs associated with them.  3.) Costs for participation are significantly lower than through traditional channels, resulting in better margins.  4.)  Customer acquisition: participation in winery direct programs means that customers are delivered to you for future marketing opportunities.  5.)  An opportunity to build brand equity:  today’s wine buyers are savvier and are accustomed to searching out preferred brands.  Online marketplaces provide an excellent opportunity for building awareness.
 
Direct to Trade Opportunities:  Wine REvolution, our direct to trade marketplace provides an opportunity to reach restaurant and retail buyers directly via an ecommerce platform, providing several benefits:  1) Access to new markets and trade accounts, 2) Control over your brand and 3) Increased profitability.  Make the most of your participation and aid trade partners by providing complete product data.  In short, make it easy for partners to sell your product.

Finally, as you reach out to new customers via channels which have not been available in the past, I think it’s important to remember that you are building a brand. With that in mind it is essential that you maintain a consistent customer experience across all sales outlets:  from sales collateral, product descriptions, prices, and the content and images provided to online marketplaces all the way through to the customer service experience.  Customers should know and respect your brand regardless of the touch point.

2 weeks ago I attended my third WITS (Wine Industry Technology Symposium). Though I have yet to earn my badge of ‘seasoned industry veteran’, I feel able to reflect on the impressive in-roads technology has made in the wine industry. Only now am I able to catch a glimpse of the huge transformative effect information technology can have on the industry.

On display at WITS was a lot of cool technology, all with great potential. Yet there was little evidence of truly transformative technology – the kind that radically changes an industry and captures the attention of non-wine folk.

It’s no secret that the wine industry lags far behind others when it comes to living the great economic revolutions information technology is capable of unleashing. IT has completely changed the game in so many other industries, yet for most wine industry vets, that change still remains elusive.

“Technology does not drive change — it enables change”

New technology has already greatly changed the way wine brands are marketed and the traditional function of wine marketing has been revolutionized. For brand building and consumer engagement as key functions of the wine industry, technology has indeed enabled change.

When it comes to the sales function, new technology has revolutionized the way direct sales are conducted. Yet it is worth noting that while the direct sales channel and online sales have risen greatly in the past few years, it still remains a marginal portion of all the wine that is sold in the US. Whereas new technology has already altered the wine marketing function, it has yet to enable dramatic change for the wine sales function.

Contrary to what I once believed, “direct” is no clear salvation, or at least not in the next decade. It will be a long while before the US wine market will ever resemble a free market – there is no realistic mid-term alternative to the 3-tier system, not with what’s currently preoccupying state legislatures…

The “Wine 2.0” movement and the emerging ecosphere of wine marketing agents still face an uphill battle to change the way the industry operates outside of the direct channel. Even as direct sales grow with the astute combination of cool technology and clever marketing, this trend does not yet really change ‘business as usual’ for most of the industry.

Large retailers and large distributors are themselves working through intense and expensive technology projects to create even more efficiencies for the “traditional” system. Believe it or not, the established wine world is not immune to new technology; it’s just not sexy new technology like facebook (think dour SAP). So the big boys integrate large solutions to sell more and better, while the “new tech” folks upstream battle it out on the web to find a way to convert buzz into sales.

If a bridge is built to seamlessly integrate all these new tools into the 3-tier system, only then can the visions of so many wine tech entrepreneurs really take flight. The brave new world of wine technology will come about when the new world of wine tech meets the old 3-tier world.

To paraphrase the great W&S article summarizing WITS (zoom in on the ‘Tech and the three tiers paragraph), I want you to imagine a world where any small winery can participate in the 3-tier EDI (Electronic Data Interchange: the process of connecting trading partners on the same systems so they can communicate seamlessly).

• I want you to imagine a world where it will actually make economic sense for the regional wine buyer of a large retailer or restaurant chain to actually pay attention to wine social networks and blogs to increase sales.
• I want you to imagine a world where wholesalers of all stripes will feel comfortable in sourcing new brands whilst following the hum of online demand and user-generated content.
• I want you to imagine a world where it will make economic sense for large distributors to care about suppliers with no deep pocket and for them to find profit in catering to niche markets. 
• I want you to imagine a world where wine suppliers of all sizes can build elements of control over the whole wine supply chain.
• I want you to imagine a world were a Kafkaesque regulatory maze and a severely oligopolous distribution system will not severely hinder entry to market for new suppliers.
• I want you to imagine a world where the long tail can actually work in wine.

Why has this bridge not been built yet? For those familiar with our industry, just ponder this concept and how it relates to 3-tier: path dependence. The barriers guarding the wine market are so complex that until those barriers are tackled effectively, all other efforts will be hobbled in their potential.

On a strictly operational level, this bridge will require a strong foundation of streamlined compliance tools and clearing models, optimized logistics and standardized dynamic product data systems. On these pillars a road will be built: it will be the multitude of plug-ins and APIs that will allow supply from any tier to connect to demand from any tier. The smooth asphalt will be an array of online tools to facilitate wine marketplaces. On that bridge you will see pedestrians, cars, semi-trailers and trains alike, easily go from one side to the other… you get the analogy: selling wine today is like trying to get around the Bay Area with no bridges.

Only once this bridge is (or bridges are) built, will the wine industry live to the full potential that is on display at WITS. The pillars supporting this bridge are still discreet, but the technology, the knowledge, the plans and the vision are in place. It’s just a matter of time.

As part of the Inertia Direct-to-Trade (DTT) initiative, I’ve recently spent time on the street in various markets calling on restaurants and retailers, introducing our DTT program and, ultimately, selling wine.  As you all know, it’s a difficult market right now.

To give some perspective to my comments, I’ve been selling wine for 31 years, starting with carrying a bag for a Gallo wholesaler.  I’ve called on thousands of accounts, selling wines of all prices, and this is hands down the toughest market I’ve seen.  Okay, so you already know this.  The question is, what to do about it.

First thing to keep in mind is that consumers are still buying, drinking, and enjoying wine.  There was a study done in 1981, the last of the Carter years, that said that consumption of alcohol beverages will only decline when unemployment exceeds 11%.  Last I saw current unemployment is around 8.5%, so we are good there.

However, while volume of consumption doesn’t decline, price point does.  The consumer is buying less expensive wines today than they were a year ago.  No great revelation.  But again, what can you do to keep your wine moving?

If you have distributors, I’m sure they are telling you that the market is awful.  My suggestion is don’t take their word for it; they are selling wine.  In many cases, they are decreasing their inventory, so while they are selling wine, they’re just not buying as much.  Your job is to make sure they sell your brand, not just the other brands in their portfolio.  How? Be aggressive. Make market visits.  In tough times, it’s all about getting distributor share of mind.

Next, I would consider adding markets you’re not already in.  Is there a market or state that you have no representation in, but would like to?  Maybe the Inertia Direct-to-Trade program could help.  In the same vein, make an effort to sell to trade accounts in your area. Right now the trade is in control.  Give them attention, feed their egos.  They still need wine to sell.

The other avenue to consider is your Direct-to-Consumer business.  Inertia will be holding a Workshop for our clients on May 14th, specifically focused on how to grow your Direct-to-Consumer business in these tough times.  If you are an Inertia client, look for announcements on the dashboard of your RTE.

Lastly, this is a time to be patient.  However, being patient doesn’t mean accepting current results without trying to counteract the trends.  And, it does mean not damaging your brand by selling wine at prices so low, you’ll never recover from.  At all costs, you must protect your brand equity.

My guess is that we are in an inventory correction right now, and by holiday 2009, we will start seeing a return to recent form.  At least I hope so.
Good selling.

If you’ve not done so already, you need to watch Tina Caputo’s brilliant “Robert Parker’s Bitch”. Setting aside the controversy, one of the many great points of the documentary is that wineries should not let voices other than their own dominate the message about their wines and brand.

At about minute 8:40, Paul Wagner, one of the many very smart people interviewed in this documentary, says:
“We have a distribution system in this country that puts the winery at one end; and any message, any marketing materials that that winery creates needs to work their way through a distributor, a distributor sales person, a retailer, a retail sales person and eventually get to the consumer (…) the wineries don’t have the leverage to communicate directly through the consumer.” - Now that really struck me.

So much of my day is spent thinking about more efficient ways for wineries to directly reach demand and control their sales. Our creed at Inertia has long been to help wineries sell more and better by enabling their online direct-to-consumer channel. But no matter how great your wines are, you better make sure to write some relevant things about your wine and let the words and facts read like the voice of your best salesperson (particularly if that’s your winemaker). So to Paul Wagner’s point, the first conclusion I hear is ‘have something good to communicate’. The second conclusion is ‘think about how to get the message out; don’t rely on others to do it’.

If the message is to say your wine should be successfully summarized to a pseudo-scientific 100-point scale so as to reflect the personal tastes and palate of a minority (hum…) - then maybe you don’t care so much about doing the talking…
Now, if you don’t want to be “Parker’s bitch”, find ways to spread YOUR story. To follow Wagner’s message about the message - getting from the winery, through 3-tier, and to the consumer - you need marketing materials (I mean this as a concept, not just as paper tasting sheet or a press book).

Paul Wagner is a successful PR man (owner and president of Balzac Communications), so he knows about marketing materials. Thanks to some great technology wineries are now able to reach consumers outside the tasting room, through their website and the cool platform powering it, and syndication of their content to marketing agents.

The reality is that some 90% of all the wine sold in the US is not sold directly to consumers. It must first be sold to those (wholesalers) who can legally sell your wine to those (retailers) who will sell your wine to the end consumer. Wineries need to get in/through the 3-tier system. Then they need to get their marketing materials through that 3-tier system to adorn the shelves of fine retailers and help sommeliers support their wine lists.

The message about the message struck me because I live and breathe is Direct-To-Trade. I’m quite obsessive about transferring the lessons of direct-to-consumer sales to the byzantine halls of the 3-tier system. Inertia’s DTT technology now gives wineries direct access to the trade, bypassing or supplementing the “find a wholesaler” hurdle. There is exciting technology in Inertia’s pipeline that will also give wineries, and importers, a very efficient way to get their unadulterated message to the trade in order to sell to a wider audience of industry buyers.

So the best way to control what is said about your wine, or to better influence wine buyers, is to take control of your content first. And when it comes to online trade marketing, you need “clean” wine data, because downloading tasting sheets just doesn’t quite cut it. After all, you would not expect Wine.com to try to sell wine online by sharing .pdf files, right?.. A brave new world of online winery trade marketing awaits…

This is the time of year when our need to make the sale is ever pressing.  How do I convert all the traffic in my tasting room to become club members?  How do I get my distributor to feature my latest vintage? How do I get the restaurant to add me to their list?  You might be surprised to know that the steps to making the sale is the same in all of these scenarios.

Step 1 - Curiosity

To make a sale you must have the customer’s attention.  To get their attention, they need to be curious.  How do you build curiosity?  It can be as simple as asking a tasting room visitor if they would like to have access to select wines.  Or you could ask the distributor if he was aware of the great press your new vintage has gotten, or even if he has tasted it.  All you are trying to accomplish here is to get the customer’s ear.

Step 2 - Trust

They are now ready to listen, but are they ready to believe.  This is the most important, and hardest step in the process.  You must build trust quickly.  If you are dealing with a long term relationship, trust has already been built.  But if you are standing in front of a trade account for the first time, you need to do something on the spot.  One technique I use is to show an authoritative grasp of pertinent information.  As an example, you are calling on a restaurant, hoping they will buy your 2005 Howell Mountain Cabernet.  You might say something like “You might have heard that 2005 was a difficult year, especially in Northern Napa (I’m not saying it was, just an example).  In our vineyard we decided to drop 50% of the fruit….”.  You then go on to explain how these actions created this exemplary product.

Step 3 - Need Assessment

Their listening, they trust you, but what do they want/need.  This is where the questions come in.  If you are talking to a tasting room visitor, questions like; where do you live, are you able to get a good selection of wine there, what is your favorite wines, do you like to entertain, do you like to try new wines, what influences the wines you generally buy, etc.  Only ask questions that you have a solution for.  “Do you like to entertain” “yes I do” “one benefit of belonging to our club is that you get great wines that aren’t available in your market, which makes for a real conversation starter. We also send food pairings and recipes with every wine”.

Step 4 - Need Addressing

I touched on this at the end of the previous section.  Here is where you make a recommendation to the customer.  You’ve uncovered through your questions that the distributor is feeling a lot of pressure from his big suppliers.  So you recommend a fun program, designed at  getting a small goal achieved, say placements in five high end restaurants, and offer to do a wine maker’s dinner.  You’ve addressed his need to not let your objectives get in the way of his corporate goals, and presented a win win solution.

Step 5 - Agreement

You’re feeling good.  You’ve developed rapport, you listened to what the customer needed, you offered a solution.  Now comes the dreaded close, ask for the order.  The trade account has tasted the wine, they love it.  You’ve established that the wine is a nice complement to the list.  Now you have to ask, “Can I send you a case to be here next Tuesday”.  If you don’t ask for the order, you won’t get it.  Do not expect the customer to offer one up, i.e. “this wine is great, send me some”.  It happens sometimes, but not often.  There are a number of closing techniques, and next month I will blog on some of them.

Remember and practice these steps, and I’m confident they will lead you to greater sales.

Inertia’s 5th Annual Direct Symposium will take place on July 11th, from 9-3:30pm at COPIA in Napa. This year, we’ve expanded our agenda to include interactive sessions on topics chosen by attendees. Last month, we released a survey on what we were hearing from our clients and industry partners as the ‘hottest’ topics in the direct industry. Topics included:

• Website Design
• Website Merchandising
• Selling Direct to Trade 
• Direct Shipping Compliance
• Allocation Program Management 
• Wine Club Management
• Wine Blogging
• Online Social Networks

We asked attendees to ‘vote’ on their topics of choice for breakout sessions at our July Symposium. The results were tallied, and we have our winners… 

• Selling Direct to Trade: Access. Control. Sales. 
• Direct Shipping Compliance: A Dynamic Marketplace. Your Options.
• Wine Blogging: Brand Building, Customer Loyalty and Sales
• Online Social Networks: Consumer- to-Consumer, Peer-to-Peer Engagement
• Website Design: Designing for Best User Experience & Greatest Sales
• Website Merchandising:  Sell More Online 

Our Symposium agenda will allow attendees to participate in two breakout sessions of their choice: One in the morning, one in the early afternoon. During each of these sessions, panelists will lead an interactive discussion with the audience around a designated topic. Based on several workshops which we led earlier in the year, we know our clients are eager to engage and look forward to some good interaction.

Because of limited space in each of our breakout sessions, we request that attendees reserve their spot in the session of their choice as soon as possible. Signups will be taken the day of the Symposium, at check in, but to ensure you get a seat in the topic of your choice, send your request through today (along with your RSVP if you haven’t already!) to rsvp@inertiabev.com.

See you in July!

I recently had quite a serendipitous episode that drove home the idea that we must approach Direct-to-Consumer e-mail marketing much different than we approach Direct-to-Trade e-mail marketing. While eating at one of my favorite spots Cesar trying to choose a bottle of Albarino, our waiter saw me struggling with the menu. He approached our table and asked if he could help and soon started going into the generic, descriptive words that typify all Albarinos; crisp, citric, and somewhat high in acid… Being in the industry these descriptions weren’t very helpful and after explaining I had a bit of background he then started describing one of his favorites. He went into the details of the vineyard location, the soil at the site, age of the vines and even the wine maker, I was sold. The key is that that once we find our audience we have to modify our message appropriately.

We’ve nearly mastered the art of wine focused DTC marketing, crafting messages that paint beautiful pictures of family, hard work and the individual journeys that lead each of us to the Napa Valley (or whatever valley or peak you claim as home) where we could fulfill a lifelong passion of wine making. Now that we enter the realm of DTT e-mail marketing we must reassess our message as we’re speaking to a different audience. As Direct-to-Trade sales increase every month , one of the many tools used to sell wine through this channel has been e-mail campaigns. Some of the most successful campaigns focused on messaging that included:

*The value of the channel. Direct from the winery to you! Currently unavailable in your market. The exclusivity of your product in their market is one of the biggest selling points!

*These are wine savvy people who taste through piles of wine on a weekly basis; the black cherry and cocoa descriptions are useful but let’s get into the meat and potatoes of what makes your wine stand out from the rest.

*Who’s your Wine Maker?

*Where is your vineyard? What kind of sun exposure do you receive? Does it sit in a unique micro climate that lends itself well to your particular varietal?

To break it down even further, when marketing Direct-to-Trade, there are essentially two groups to focus on; on-premise and off-premise which denotes the location of which the wine is consumed namely restaurants or retailers. What information is pertinent to off premise accounts?

*Scores. Shelf talkers are an effective selling tools in wine shops and highlighting scores on shelf talkers help sell wine. If you doubt the validity of this, take a look at the holes on any shelf in any wine shop and 9 times out of 10 you’ll find a shelf talker.

*Quantity discounts. More applicable with off premise accounts as they are more apt to purchase quantity.

*Currently unavailable in your market!

And for on-premise accounts?

*The availability to purchase in quantities of six. Cellar space is precious in any restaurant.

*The cuisine at your target restaurant; a big, bold Napa Cab won’t fare well on a menu featuring summer salads.

*Currently unavailable in your market!

Thoughts?

It’s that time again - time for our Annual Consumer Direct Symposium which will be held on Friday, JULY 11th at COPIA. The symposium will be held in the theater at COPIA during the day; we’ll adjourn to the gardens in the evening for our Client Appreciation Party and enjoy some music, food, wine, and fun – all in the name of appreciation!

Our Annual Golf Scramble will be held at Chardonnay Golf Course on Saturday, July 12th. Even if you don’t golf, it’s sure to be a fun time. So, save the date for two days of learning and fun. More details to come. Hope to see you there!

Found an interesting chart today on marketingcharts.com defining the top online retailers by conversion rate.  This chart shows the total percentage of visitors to a website who completed a transaction during their visit in the critical December timeperiod. All I can say is “Wow”.

Check this out:

To refresh any memories, a website conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who took a desired action – in this case, placed an order. So, from this info, it appears that nearly 30% of all visitors to thepopcornfactory.com placed an order in December! It should also be noted that retailers only qualified for evaluation in this list if they had a minimum of 500k page views in a month. That’s a lot of popcorn transacting across the web. 

Again, wow.

I’ve been in the direct, online business for many years now. I have certainly spent my share of time obsessing over my own conversion rates, and how to increase them. I’ve hired agencies to help. I’ve tested different variables to help encourage purchase. I’ve implemented multiple promotional strategies (Free Shipping! 50% off! Buy this NOW!). All paid off in different ways, and I’ve felt relatively successful with my efforts, but never to the tune of 30%!

I have a new personal goal.

So how do you improve your conversion rate?  And what is it that’s driving such high numbers for these sites? I think it’s a number of factors – all of which must play together truly move the needle. Here are my 5 suggestions to start you along the path of improving your conversion rate:

1) Know where you come from.
Do you know your own conversion rate? You better, if you want to improve it. Use Google Analytics or other analysis tools to define your conversion rate.

2) Grab a friend
Grab a friend who may be unfamiliar with the nuances of your website and ask them to help you ‘experience’ your website. I suggest you ask them to do two exercises. And don’t forget to watch the entire process. Literally, stand over them – and DO NOT coach them along!

Exercise A) Ask them to visit your homepage and experience your site. Don’t tell them to shop. Don’t tell them to read. Just see what they do. We’ve talked a lot with our clients about the importance of having an easy and intuitive navigational path for our clients (see an earlier post by Ben Chinn, our Director of Web Design & Development: http://blog.inertiabev.com/index.php/2006/10/09/site-structure-and-navigation/), as well as the importance of asking for what you want with headlines and ‘Calls-to-Action’ on the part of the visitor. Both of these efforts can have the desired effect of leading your visitor through your website – ideally to YOUR desired end. Did your friend follow your desired path throughout your website? Did they ‘see’ and act on the things you intend your visitors to? Or did they miss key messages entirely?

Exercise B) Ask your friend to visit your website now with the goal of purchasing a specific product. Start them at your homepage, and watch the path to purchase. Did they get lost? Struggle to find the right page that the product would be on? Did they find the product and the ‘buy now’ button with the minimal number of clicks? Ask them what information they would want to see in order to make that purchase (price, label, tasting notes, reviews). Did they find what they needed? Did it take a few minutes or many minutes, and a lot of ‘back button’ usage?

3) Resolve to Test and Measure
It’s ok to fail. Seriously. That’s what testing and optimizing is all about. Set a plan for what you want to achieve (in this case, higher conversion rates), list all of the potential tactics for reaching that goal, and get started. There are a number of things you can test: headlines, promotions, graphics/images, positioning of information on a webpage, the order of your navigational links, etc. For each tactic tested, watch “before and after” results. Did things improve or get worse? If they got worse, great! You learned what doesn’t resonate with your visitor. Another item off your list…

4) Take Baby Steps
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Just because your conversion rates may be lower than you like, and the shopping experience of your ‘friend’ was clunky, doesn’t mean your entire site needs to be overhauled. Commit to taking baby steps to learning about improvements in your conversion rates. Implement small changes at a time, and measure their impact. Learn what helps your visitor along to purchase and what doesn’t. And give yourself some time to learn. Commit to testing something over at least a week, if your visitor traffic is significant enough to give you ‘usable’ data. If it takes a month to get a real read on results, then give it a month.

5) Be Relevant and Meaningful
Your visitor is going to engage with you, and continue to engage with you if you provide something relevant and meaningful to their needs. Think about your own online shopping experience. When you need something and a site has it, that’s relevance. But when you make that relevant product or information entirely MEANINGFUL to them, you’ve now started a relationship. How do you make things meaningful?

•  Watch how visitors move through your site. Which pages do they spend the most time on? This can give you an idea of the type of content your visitors are most interested in. Finding a lot of activity on your Recipe’s page? Put it up front! Make it easier to find your Recipe pages, add a link to this page from relevant product pages.
•  Watch what visitors are purchasing. Likely the bulk of your sales are on products you’re well known for, have greatest distribution on, and/or highlight the most on your website. But if a sleepy Zin that’s getting no play on your homepage is actually selling fairly well, it’s telling you to give it some presence. Try it out. Suggest to visitors that this is a “Customer Favorite”, and post any reviews that you can get from your customers on that product.
•  Don’t forget about your follow up marketing, as well: Email. Once you know what people are purchasing, and where they are going on your website, send emails that demonstrate this. I buy a lot of products on Amazon.com. And, at least once a month I receive an email suggesting other relevant products. This makes my experience with Amazon more meaningful to me. I buy. They suggest. I like that. 

What are you doing to stimulate conversion rates? Have you ‘experienced’ your website? Are you bringing something meaningful and relevant to your customers? Think of it this way: if your website was achieving a 15% conversion rate, what kind of sales would that translate to?

Again. Wow.

Recently my wife and I went to dinner with another couple.  I had purchased a wine on line that I wanted my friend to try.  I called the restaurant and asked if they had a corkage policy.  They did.  They charged $10 per bottle.  Of course this is a great deal because we usually spend $70 - $80 on a bottle at a restaurant.  The wine I brought cost me $30, but it was much better than what we most often get at the restaurant.

When I told my sister about our experience at the restaurant, including the fact that we had brought our own wine, she said that she thought it was bad taste to bring wine.  She used to work in a restaurant, and felt that the restaurant owner spends much time in selecting wines for their list that compliment their food, and that choosing to bring another wine is an insult to the owner/manager.  She also pointed out that restaurants depend on the revenue they get from their wine sales to remain profitable.

I disagree with her.  The restaurant made $10 on the wine, with no investment.  Yes, they usually make $30 or more on the $50 bottle we purchase, but maybe that is part of the problem.  Most wine lists are pretty pedestrian, offering the same assortment of wines that are popular in the retail stores, or offering wines that they can buy for a great price, and markup three to four times over their cost.  Additionally, if they did not want us to bring a bottle with us, they could simply have a policy against doing so.

The best way to try a new wine is when it is served with an excellent meal.  I go to a restaurant for the food, and of course, I choose a wine from the list that matches that meal.  If I can enhance my dining experience by bringing a new wine with me, why shouldn’t I?  I’m not talking about going to the local retailer and buying a bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay to try.  I’m talking about bringing wines that I haven’t had before, and that most likely are not available in the local market.

One provisio however.  When determining the tip for the waitstaff, assume that you had purchased a bottle of wine from the list, and then tip accordingly.  Your wait person shouldn’t be penalized because you chose to bring in your own wine.