REthink Wine Blog

It’s only July 1, so you’re thinking you have plenty of time to get your site ready for the holidays – think again. Now is the time to plan and implement the changes to your site so that it is optimized for the traffic that is soon to come your way.

Do it now

Within the next month or so, rethink your keywords and keyword phrases with holiday shoppers in mind. Put holiday keywords in place months ahead – they can take time to propagate with search engines. “Christmas” is, undoubtedly, the most commonly used search term, along with “holiday gift”, “Christmas gift”, and “gift for dad”. Also try “wine-lover’s gifts”, “gifts for red-wine drinkers”, and “wines to go with Christmas dinner”. Be creative and use keyword phrases which are often better for SEO that just stand alone words.

To do in October:

Add seasonal categories to your store— they can be turned on as soon as you need them. Use categories that describe the recipient: “Gifts for Geeks”, “Gifts for Chardonnay Lovers”, “Gifts for the Connoisseur”. Do the heavy lifting for your customers. Many shoppers already have some parameters in mind when they get to your site: “I need to get a gift for my aunt and I don’t want to spend more than $50.” Help online shoppers find gifts for different budgets: “Gifts under $50”, “Gifts over $75”. Avoid generic categories: “Gift baskets”, “Wine and Food Gifts” etc.

To do on November 1:

If appropriate, Dress up your site for the holidays. This could be as simple as changing pictures but may also include a new home page banner. This tells holiday shoppers that you’re ready for them. Follow suit with an email template that echos the same look and feel.

Update your content with holiday shoppers in mind. As the holidays approach, your home page text can be updated with more specific material for shoppers. Use relevant titles and keyword-rich copy that search engine crawlers like. Make sure that changes on your site get transferred to tasting room and other marketing materials.Give shoppers what they want right away.

Most holiday shopping is done for someone else. So, use kickers to help shoppers locate gifts from your home page; don’t make them have to search for gift ideas. Give them shipping information, such as costs and delivery times, right away (on the home page, at the top of the shop page and in every email). Let them know what your return/refund policy is. Answer their questions before they have to ask … or before they decide to leave for the next site. If need be, update the information as it gets closer to your critical dates.

Getting a jump on the holidays necessitates that you start planning now. If you need design or content help you’ll want to get that on the calendar. Planning ahead can be the difference between a very profitable holiday season and one that falls flat.

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!

Before joining Inertia, I was roaming wine country roads; I would hit tasting rooms and meet wonderful people, hug the vines and taste wines on all ends of the spectrum. Being on the road brings you closer to the actual consumer experience and reminds you of what selling direct is all about. As I’ve been diving deeper into the virtual world of wine2.0 and the challenges of creating a wine experience online, I’d almost forgotten the joys of being in wine country and tasting and connecting.

Sure, you can taste and connect at trade tastings and such events also really make the process efficient – 300 brands in one afternoon! OK, we can all admit that with the exception of the most prolific wine writers – or avid swillers – it’s not easy to see, hear and taste all at trade tastings. They are great, much like Costco, but you might miss a little something. So is there a middle ground? Can you find a single place where you can get the wine country feel, while at the same time go through the serious work of tasting dozen of wines?

The answer of course is, Yes - it’s in the multi-brand tasting rooms. As I was on a little tour of the Napa Valley with my crew to taste some of our client’s wines, we decided to go for efficiency. We hit the following tasting spots:

Folio Winemaker’s Studio: is home to many great brands, several being Folio brands of course. The studio artfully blends different experiences and is a great wine country concept from Michael Mondavi.

Silenus Vintners: also a custom crush facility for artisan winemakers, this beautiful tasting room is home to 13 boutique wineries that you may not have heard of before, but that you will surely remember.

Cult Wine Central: as the name says, this is where you go for the big guns. As all the wines go for a certain status – the odd effect in having them altogether is one of democratization – no single wine has a pedestal here so the wines are much more approachable.

In all 3, the staff was extremely knowledgeable on all the brands presented and very friendly – everything was perfect for an afternoon of serious tasting. Thanks again!

While technically we were in multiple tasting rooms of 18 inches in width, these felt a bit like a cozy farmer’s market. They were all extremely comfortable, while each had its own distinct personality, which, consciously or unconsciously, infused the wines. As a wine guy, I believe such wine venues are great for the industry and the consumer. They allow small brands to coalesce and reach economies of scale in order to create a space for a precious and crucial moment to happen: the direct connection between a wine lover, your brand, your message and your wine.

For wineries without a tasting room or for those dreaming of getting their own – finding a spot on that multi-brand bar is a great go-between. The most effective way to create a direct relationship with customers is to meet them while they are meeting your wine in a glass. From that initial contact, a relationship must be nurtured so it may flourish into lasting sales. As we focus a lot on managing your existing customers here at Inertia – it’s great to go out and be reminded how such relationships are created in the first place.

Successful marketing programs take copious amounts of time and energy to put into place. Once you’ve found an idea that works, stick with it! Your customers are telling you they like what you’ve got going on, so keep it going.

Rather than jumping from idea to idea exhausting both your resources and your budget, try developing an existing campaign further. You can recycle a concept - a contest, event, pairing, etc. and reinvent it over and over again. A new spin keeps the initiative fresh while the same goals are still underlying.

If a particular campaign really strikes a cord, why not make it a repeat occurrence? Recycling good ideas create annual, quarterly and monthly happenings for your customers to look forward to. So trust yourself, your ideas are good. Recycling and reusing your concepts in fresh new ways are a great way to maximize your return. This summer when you’re stretched in the tasting room, don’t forget to recycle.

PS - It wouldn’t hurt to put your cans and bottles in the blue bin either.

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!

People are drinking more wine. Wine is reaching a larger audience and a wider age groups. There is a larger selection that not only meets peoples’ tastes, but their wallet size as well. Affordable wines, such as the popular “2 buck chuck” allow the masses the opportunity to enjoy wine without damaging their pocketbook. With that said, the supply and demand of is high. People buy more wine when wine is cheap, but consuming more also means more waste.

Tetra Pak (http://www.tetrapakusa.com/) is a packaging company who makes resource efficient packaging. Their packaging products can be used for almost any type of food product, such as dairy products, soups, oil, vegetables, and yes, wine!

I think it’s time for us to change our perception about boxed wine. Aw yeah~ boxed wine is finally sexy.

Here are a few wineries who integrate this new, eco-friendly packaging:
http://www.frenchrabbit.com/
http://www.threethieves.com/

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.

The thought struck me, as I watch a client of ours, Twisted Oak Winery, execute a brilliant promotional campaign called “Take your Chicken to Work Week” (going on now through February 10th with the overview here and details here), that our social calendars are completely and utterly governed by marketing around holidays.

This is, of course, no revelation to anybody that has purchased a bag of Hershey Kisses in the last 10 years. This is no different for winery marketers either as I have been inundated with wine-related Valentine’s Day wine specials. I would have to drink multiple cases of wine in one day to satisfy even a fraction of the promotions that I have seen from wineries and online retailers.

You know the promotional drill: Christmas gives way to New Year’s that gives way to Valentine’s Day that gives way to President’s Day that gives way to St. Patrick’s Day that gives way to Easter that gives way to Memorial Day that gives way to the 4th of July that gives way to “Back to School” that gives way to Labor Day that gives way to football that gives way to Halloween that gives way to Thanksgiving that gives way to, well, we start the cycle all over again.

And, while, these calendar-ized marketing routines that begat social engagement are all well and good and help drive marketing promotions when people have their so-called buying aperture open, there is something to be said for being that salmon that is swimming upstream, or to paraphrase Led Zeppelin, the winery that is going ‘in through the out door.’

What I mean by this is, if you are a winery continuing to muscle your way onto an ever-bigger stage measured by wine club members, direct sales, mindshare online, etc. than different is good.

If you are going to be different, a “Take your Rubber Chicken to Work Week” in lieu of Valentine’s Day promotion is a dandy idea.

And, while we can all pat Twisted Oak winery owner Jeff Stai on the back for continuing a wild streak of creativity that sets his winery apart from the crowd, the reality is that every single winery reading this can do the same. The rules are simple:

1) Tap into the vein that carries your winery DNA and determine what is unique and different about you

2) Maximize that determined differentiation by marketing yourself uniquely and in accordance with your ethos.

That is it, really. Who are you and how do you communicate your unique difference to people?

This sounds great on paper, but it much harder to achieve in real life, just ask Jeff at Twisted Oak, and I am sure he would echo the same, “easier said than done.”

However, here is a place to start: go to Amazon.com and buy a book and CD-Rom combo called “Chase’s Calendar of Events.” This book is called, for good reason, “The bible of special occasions” by the Los Angeles Times. Chase’s Calendar is a global view (representing 194 countries) and a single reference for special events, holiday’s, federal and state observances, this-day-in history notations, and anniversaries. There are 12,500 entries and all are searchable via the CD-Rom.

Today, February 8, 2008, for example, is “Laugh and Get Rich Day,” in addition to being the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America.

The point is, any day that resonates with your winery DNA is a perfectly suitable occasion for promotions, and likely a better clutter-breaking option than the same holidays that others will be marketing around, increasing competition.

So, as your Valentine’s Day promotions die down, and you lament the number of other wineries vying for the same share of wallet from your customer, you may want to celebrate “Laugh and Get Rich Day,” swim upstream and plan your next promotion off the beaten path. A little bit of planning, ingenuity and the Chase’s book can help you break free from the clutter of “major holiday” promotions and truly stand out.

*NOTE* A quick Public Service Announcement: Tina Caputo, formerly the Managing Editor at Wines & Vines and now a freelance writer and wine critic, is accepting samples for her monthly column at Wine Review Online (WRO). WRO is under the radar to many folks online, but their line-up of writers is truly impressive. Likewise, Tina’s an evenhanded pro and if you’d like to submit samples to her, please contact her at: tinacaputo@yahoo.com

I always appreciate someone willing to take on a familiar item in an unusual way. These glasses are just that… a common everyday object, redefined.

Following their presentation to the Macef in Milan, these two very unique glasses (Shadow and Swing) announced themselves to the world on Jan. 20, 2008. They were designed by Gumdesign for SerafinoZani! and exibited throughout Italy with rave reviews during the ladder part of 2007.

While I’m not entirely sure how one could go about purchasing one of these unique vessels, sending an email to info@gumdesign.it might be a good place to start. What a great conversation piece these glasses would be among your tasting room guests! They would never forget you or your glasses.

In the direct marketing world there are three variables that you, the marketer, can affect; number of customers receiving the message, conversion rate of readers to buyers, and an increased average order price on orders.

Here are a few suggestions from our team on how to increase your average order price:

1. Incentivize your customers to purchase more (volume). Set a minimum of bottles that need to be purchased in order to qualify for special deals. For example, a volume discount (off shipping) for purchases of 6 bottles or more. *Please note that it is always better to incentivize by discounting shipping or tax instead of discounting the product itself. Discounting your wine conditions your clients to purchase only when you discount. This devalues your product.

2. Guide your customers to spend more. Don’t underestimate your customers’ need or desire to spend money. Use call outs on your website to direct your consumers to your higher end wines. Don’t forget, up-sell is the best sale.

3. Make purchasing easy. Make it easy for your customers to purchase (three clicks or less), provide lots of attractive options (bundles and gift packs), and suggest additional products (specials and new releases), the more they will spend.

We encourage you to take the time to evaluate what your average purchase price is and set goals to increase your average. Remember that small increases to your average will greatly increase your bottom line.