The Winery Web Site Report

Lazy Sunday

The title of this post is taken from a Saturday Night Live video (warning: offbeat humor, rap music).  Here, it represents the fact that on Sundays I usually post material in which people might find odd (given the focus of this blog on winery Web sites).

Still, Bringing Your 'A' Game is worth a read (warning: slightly profane), because it points out that the Internet (and related technologies, like mobile phones) are a massive, powerful venue for near-instantaneous word-of-mouth about your product (both good and bad).

In the case of wine, think of it as The Wine Advocate/Spectator vs. hundreds (perhaps thousands) of wine blogs (i.e. customer reviews).  There is an opportunity here that most wineries are unaware of: making sure your wines are known to (and talked about by) wine bloggers.

Coturri Video

Here's a 75-second "videoblog" of winemaker Tony Coturri (Flash player required - you'll need to press the Play icon -- it doesn't start automatically).

The quality is abysmal (lots of background noise, grainy/small video, unreadable titles).  On the other hand, it's short and reasonably interesting.  If you were promoting a event, doing this sort of video before the event (and linked to your e-mail/print promotion efforts) could signficantly increase interest and attendance (if done with somewhat higher production values).

Here's a higher-quality video of Tony Coturri from Wine Library TV: Episode 35 - Tony Coturri (QuickTime required).

What's interesting about this second example is that people who own Video iPods can subscribe to Wine Library TV episodes (free) and have them automatically downloaded and synched with their iPods.

Forward thinking wine marketers should be experimenting with video.  It needn't be expensive, and if it tells an interesting story, your fans are very likely to pass it along to others.

Why Tony?  I don't know.  This whole post started because of a press release from Counter Vegetarian Restaurant which mentioned "videoblogs of organic wines."

The Winery Web Site Report Blog turns 1

Our first post appeared a year ago today.

My thanks to everyone who has been supportive of this blog and The Winery Web Site Report.

Caution: Blogging can be good for your winery

I asked Amy Lillard at la gramiere about how to get a hold of some of her wine (reading her blog has whetted my interest), and she mentioned that

...We're hoping to get our wine imported into the States. I've had a couple of people contact me about it, just waiting until it's ready to get samples out.

Being curious, I asked her about the source of those contacts, to which Amy replied:

The contacts were, in fact, a direct result of blogging. One was a serious inquiry, wanting to come and taste, the other was an email of encouragement from an importer. Funny how blogging can open doors huh?

Indeed.

Here's a question for any winery bloggers reading this post:  How has blogging helped (or hurt) your winery?  Enquiring minds want to know!  Please add your experiences to the comments.

Winery Blogs Reviewed

This week Pajama Market is featuring 5 different winery blogs as their "Small Business Blog of the Day".

Vineyards are the perfect company for blogs. They are a niche business that delivers to a worldwide market. They rely on their individual charm which blogs do a great job communicating. They have an interesting process to create their product which can be written about for hundreds of pages. And they are situated in some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world making them ideal for photographs.

Each review describes the blog ("What is it?"), what sets it apart ("Features"), and selects a Favorite Post.  So far, they have featured the blogs of Anomaly Vineyards, Stormhoek,  and Cima Collina (which, by the way, has an excellent insider's view of "artisan" wine today).

Great to see winery blogs getting the credit they deserve.

Update (05/01/2006) - they've added the blogs from Sainte Genevieve (A Day in the Life of a Missouri Winery) and Anne Amie, as well as interviews with winery bloggers Annette Hoff (Cima Collina), Craig Camp (Anne Amie), Linda Goldfarb (Anomaly) and Jason Korman (Stormhoek).

We Make Average Wines for Average People

Crazy slogan, right?  Now go read "No" to average. Then think about Bonny Doon and Don Sebastiani & Sons  and their approach to marketing.

When you come right down to it, what makes your wine special?  Hint: it's partly the story that goes along with it.  After all, there are lots of small producers who take great care with their wines.  There is plenty of good tasting wine out there.  But not a lot of interesting stories being told (some of the best stories are being told on winery blogs).

Disclosure:  I had a bottle of Sebastiani's Plungerhead 2004 Dry Creek Zinfandel [with the fabulous Zork closure from Australia] tonight with  dinner.  When you are a negociant, how do you distinguish your wine?  One way is with distinctive, whimsical marketing.  Of course, what's inside the bottle has to be palatable (which in this case, it was).

Customer Reviews?

It's hard to get Robert Parker or The Wall St. Journal to review your wine, but what about your customers?

Of course, that can be a little scary - someone might not like your wine!  And, good heavens, it might be reviewed by people with little or no idea of how to review a wine (other than, "I like the way it tasted").  But wouldn't you also like to know what people actually say about their experience, and have a chance to engage them in conversation (and, if they're not satisfied customers, at least make an attempt to remedy the situation)?

Do you invite online/offline feedback from your customers?  For example, including a little printed piece with every shipment of wine inviting them to taste the wine and add their comments to a page on your Web site (ideally the same page that describes the wine itself)?  Now that would be truly out of the ordinary. 

Yes, it demands an exceptional product and exceptional service, but isn't that what it's all about for smaller producers?  You *want* the total experience of your wine to stand out from the crowd.  Does it?  Are you willing to hear that it might not?

(Where do I get wacky ideas like this?  This article in 1-to-1 Marketing mentioned a new study which shows that customer reviews influence the online sale of books.  Full disclosure: customers are more likely to be influenced by a negative review.)

PS -   Make sure if you do accept customer reviews that (a) you get notified whenever someone adds a review, and (b) you acknowledge [even if only automatically] each contributor.

PPS - actually, this technique works for the Constellations and Diageos of the world, too, since the distribution chain removes them from direct contact with the customer.

PPPS - A handsome Winery Web Site Report coffee mug to the first person who points me to a winery that actually includes customer-submitted reviews on their product pages, a la Amazon.com book reviews.

Seth Godin links to us

In case you missed it, Seth Godin linked to us last Thursday (Very straightforward thinking about landing pages), increasing traffic to this blog by more than a factor of 10.

Seth has written seven books, including Permission Marketing and Purple Cow.  It was a real compliment to have Google AdWords for Wineries linked from his blog.

Coffee, anyone?

Thinking about starting a winery blog?  Check out this coffee blog from Aldo Coffee Company.  Even though coffee is a stimulant, and alcohol a depressant, blogging is still about an authentic voice that involves people in your product or service.

Thanks to Hugh McLeod at GapingVoid.com for the pointer.

Google AdWords for Wineries: How NOT to do it

If you Google the phrase pinot noir, you'll find there are over 8 million results (see image below).  That makes it hard for an individual winery that makes Pinot Noir to stand out simply on the basis of "organic search placement" (i.e. the ranking of a page based on Google's opinion of the relevance of that page's content to someone searching for "pinot noir").

Google has an answer for businesses who want to place their products and services in front of people making specific searches.  It's called AdWords.  When someone searches for "pinot noir", your ad may be displayed alongside the "organic" search results.  If someone clicks on the ad, you pay Google for the click-through.  Whether your ad is actually displayed or not depends on (a) how much you are willing to pay for a click, relative to other businesses bidding on the same words, and (b) whether people actually click through on your ad.

If you did the search for pinot noir on Google, you should see an ad something like this one:

If you click through, you are taken to this page: Arista Winery | Sonoma County, California (the Arista Winery home page).  Pardon my saying so, but Arista just wasted the dollar or so that they will pay for that click.

Why?  Because the "landing page" (where you end up when you click on the ad) doesn't specifically address the fact that the searcher/visitor was (a) searching for "pinot noir", and (b) responded to an ad which talks specifically about "hand-crafted Pinot".  In fact, if you look at this page, the only mention of "Pinot Noir" is on the (very nice) picture of the bottle.

It gets worse.  If you click on "Wine Portfolio" (a fancy way of saying "Our Wines," which is clearer), there is *still* no mention of Pinot Noir (only three white wines from the 2004 vintage, two of which are sold out).

If you are going to spend money on Google AdWords, you need to preserve the "scent" of what your visitor is searching for.  The page they land on needs to preserve continuity and minimize distraction.  This is exactly what you would do in a face-to-face situation with a customer.

When Google sends you the click-through, you can see exactly what the searcher was looking for.  Your site should use that information to either (a) generate a landing page specific to their search, or (b) take the user directly to the most-relevant page on your site.  For Arista, that's probably this page: http://www.aristawinery.com/2003-portfolio.html, since it contains the most recent Pinot vintage still available for purchase.  Of course, if they're advertising "hand-crafted Pinot", a page describing their Pinot program might be even better.

Yes, it takes a little extra work to create an offer-specific landing page, but if you want Google AdWords to do a good job for your winery (as opposed to just making money for Google when visitors click through on your ad and then hit the Back button), you need to be willing to make that effort.

(By the way, if you're using Google AdWords, and the person taking care of your Web site doesn't know how to set up a search-specific landing page, you need to find someone who does.)

More on landing pages from Seth Godin.

Blog of Interest: Wine Direct Shipping Compliance

ShipCompliant has a blog full of the latest activities about direct shipment:

Wine Direct Shipping Compliance

Thanks to Tom Wark at FERMENTATION for the link (if you're not subscribed to FERMENTATION, you should be).

New Winery Blog: Chateau Rives-Blanques

Now that I've opened up our list of winery blogs, I'm trying to catch up with blogs from wineries outside the US.  My latest addition is this blog (Diary of a Vineyard) from Chateau Rives-Blanques (in Languedoc, France).

According to Caryl (in her comment to this post), Rvies-Blanques has been blogging since May of 2003 (currently, the distinction of "oldest winery blog" belongs to Winemaker's Diary by David Coffaro, with entries dating back to September, 1998).

My primary complaint with the Rives-Blanques blog is that it doesn't have an RSS feed , which is one of the essential features of a modern blog.  I will willingly subscribe (using Bloglines) to every winery blog I know of and read it faithfully, but I am unwilling to visit a site without an RSS feed just to see if something new has been posted.

I would strongly recommend that wineries with "old school" online diaries convert to a modern blogging tool (TypePad, WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type), and make their first post a link to entries from their old system.  Most of the bloggins wineries on our list are using TypePad (which I recommend) or Blogger (free).  Only two lack RSS feeds.

If you want people to read your blog, you should make it as convenient as possible for them to do so.  Does that sound like a lot of work?  Then don't blog - your time will be better spent elsewhere.

New Winery Blog: Sainte Genevieve Winery

I forgot to mention that I added A Day in the Life of a Missouri Winery from Sainte Genevieve Winery (in Missouri, of course) to our list of winery blogs.  Elaine Mooney (the UC-Fresno educated winemaker) started blogging on March 1st:

I grew up here on my dad's farm that we turned into a winery over 20 years ago. I'm the educated enologist and he's the experienced farmer/business man. We try to treat the land and the wine with kindness, like a member of our family (sometimes we treat them nicer than family ;)). This is our little place on earth, and I thought you might enjoy seeing it from my perspective.

In keeping with her final statement, Elaine provides pictures with most of her posts, and give us an interesting look at winemaking outside of states with lots of wineries.

Can you answer these questions?

1. How many people visited your Web site in March?
2. How many different (unique) people visited your Web site in March?
3. How many of them were new visitors?
4. How many of them were repeat visitors?
5. How many of them took some action (phone call, order, signed up for e-mail) based on their visit?
6. E-Commerce sites only: Total value of orders placed on your site.
7. How does this compare with a month ago?  For the past three months?

Extra Credit:

1. What is the most-frequent entry page on your Web site (i.e. where do people usually start their visit)?
2. What is the most-viewed page on your Web site?
3. What is the most popular search term for visitors referred to your site by search engines?

These are very basic questions which you must be able to answer about your site.  Why?  Because the answers to these questions show how well your site is functioning, and the biggest opportunities to improve it.

(Not) Our Next Book

Even though it's true we've got some new projects in the pipeline at The Winery Web Site Report, this is not one of them.

(make your own FOR DUMMIES® book cover)

Thanks to Dave Goodman for the link.

Things to Write and Blog About

Here's a useful article: What to Put in your B-to-B Newsletter

Every month, I put together the Effective Winery Web Sites e-newsletter for my small-but-growing list of subscribers (it's free), and this list is sure to come in handy.  You may find it useful inspiration when writing your winery's monthly e-newsletter or weekly blog posts (you should have both).

Of course, what ever you write to your customers should be (1) interesting, (2) informative, and (3) useful.  Tell a story!

Vino 100 or Vin Ordinaire?

I've blogged about the Vino 100 concept before.  Now it appears they have 34 stores open (they franchise their operations) with another 19 "Coming Soon" (list).

After looking at the franchise terms and concluding that opening a Vino 100 store looks pretty expensive (particularly those that lease retail space in a mall), why not simply take the basic idea ("100 great wines for $25 or less") and run with it on a local basis?  I'm still waiting for Safeway or Costco or even Wal-Mart to do exactly that.

I like the name Vin Ordinaire...

(Since this blog ostensibly focuses on effective Web sites, let me note that most of the franchise Web sites [linked from the list of stores] look the same.  They are basically Yellow Pages ads, based on the same template.  Although they all provide a sign-up for e-mail notification of events and special (presumably local), there's really no compelling reason for a visitor to do so.  Remember, the ability to communicate regularly with past, present and future customers is essential to any direct-marketing success.)

Questions To Ponder

1. Why would someone visit your Web site?
2. Why would someone visit your Web site a second time?
3. Why would someone who visited your Web site recommend it to someone else?

There are no right or wrong answers, only interesting ones...

New Winery Blog: Perrin

Tim Elliott of Winecast.net pointed me to this winery blog (written in English and French), which has been around since September of 2004, making it one of the oldest winery blogs I've encountered: The Perrin Family Weblog

The Perrin family produces wines under both the Beaucastel and Perrin labels, and has a joint venture with the Haas family in California (Tablas Creek, which also has a blog, written by Jason Haas).

Perrin Family blog posts generally include a picture or map, which is nice, and updates are relatively frequent.  The blog seems to be a compendium of news, work in the vineyards and winery, and other things related to their wine.

As always, we've added it to our list of winery blogs.

New Winery Blog: Stormhoek

Actually, it's not so new.  I've blogged about South African winery Stormhoek before, as they are reported to have doubled their sales as a result of their blog (which is also their Web site).

The reason they weren't previously in our comprehensive list of winery blogs is that (originally) the list consisted of blogs for wineries in The Winery Web Site Report database (limited, for a variety of reasons, to US-based wineries).

Of course, then I added the blog for Domaine de la Gramiere (a French winery run by Americans expats), and that sort of opened things up.  Tim Elliott of Winecast.net pointed out that I was missing Stormhoek's blog, and cautious of Emerson's entreaty ("A foolish consistency..."), I added them to our list of winery blogs.  To be fair, I've had Stormhoek on my personal list of wine-related blogs since I discovered it via Hugh McLeod's blog, Gaping Void.  McLeod is the man responsible for getting Stormhoek to blog as a way of what he calls disruptive marketing (as well as the artist of the cartoon above).

Anyway, if you're interested in reading about New Zealand wine-making techniques being applied to South African grapes and sold in the UK (and soon, the US), check out the Stormhoek blog.

(As always, I recommend Bloglines as a painless way of getting started reading blogs.)

Give Your Fans Special Treatment

Recently, Sokol Blosser offered a chocolate bar to anyone who answered their "How do you read our blog?" survey, which asked:

1. When and how did you first come across the Sokol Blosser Wine Blog?
2. How long have you been reading the Sokol Blosser Wine Blog?
3. Do you subscribe to the SB Blog using an RSS feeder?
4. How often do you check the Sokol Blosser Wine Blog for updates?5
5. What would you like to see more of? (i.e., more pictures? More vineyard updates? More quirky Tasting Room stories?)

This is a great idea - asking people who are interested in your blog how they found it, how they read it, and what they would like.  People who read your blog are your fans, and this survey gives Sokol Blosser information about how to best appeal to their fans.

Since I'm easily bribed with chocolate, I immediately e-mailed my responses to their questions, and got a nice e-mail right back acknowledging they had received it (a good sign).  Today, The Noir Bar, a bar of "rustic grown organic dark chocolate...made for Sokol Blosser by Dagoba Organic Chocolate," arrived at my office, along with a nice handwritten note from Kitri Culbertson ("Marketing Assistant"):

Hi, Mike,
Thanks again for your response to our blog poll.  Your insights are extremely valuable, and we're looking forward to implementing them on our site.  We'll try to get more posts on there so you have something to check everyday at work. :) Thanks again.
Cheers,
Kitri Culbertson

What a pleasant surprise, and a great example of how a mix of blogs, e-mail, and the physical world (a handwritten note and of course, chocolate) can really strengthen a bond with someone you've never met.  And now, here I am, spreading my positive impression of Sokol Blosser, and wondering where I can get a bottle of their wine to taste (and reciprocate by spending some of my money on their wine).

Sokol Blosser correctly realizes that people who read their blog are fans of Sokol Blosser (for whatever reason).  People *choose* to read your blog - they are a self-selected audience who want to hear what you have to say, and interact with you.

(Another example?  Crush Wine & Spirits Company, the Best New Wine Shop in America according to Food & Wine magazine, casually offers a 15% discount to readers of its blog on certain wines.  They make it worthwhile for people to pay attention to their blog, which in turn, allows them to tell stories to those readers, some of whom will end up being customers.)

New Winery Blog: Tablas Creek

Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles has an interesting history, being a partnership between a French winemaking family (Perrin) and Robert Haas (Vineyard Brands) which dates from 1987.  They produced their first vintage in 1997, and have been blogging since November of last year, using TypePad as their tool:  Tablas Creek Vineyard Blog

Lots of interesting pictures - in fact, nearly every post has a picture to go along with it, a practice we endorse (if you take interesting pictures, of course).  Now they all they need a link to their blog from their Web site navigation menu --  right now, the only way to find their blog is if you happen to notice the link on the News & Events page, or visit their Site Map (both of which are also good places to have a link).

As always, we've added them to our comprehensive list of winery blogs, bringing the number to 21.  If you know of winery blogs that we're missing, please drop me a line or add a comment to this post.

(More new-to-our-list winery blogs to come in the next few days...)

Video!

I know folks on both sides of the cork vs. screwcap debate, but you gotta love Vive Le Screwcap from Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon Vineyard. If there's something equally over-the-top from the natual closure side of the world, let me know so I can give equal time.

I'm planning to write more about the Internet video phenomenon (exemplified by Google Video and You Tube), but it's not top of my list (we've got two new project in the works over at The Winery Web Site Report).

Think video-on-the-Internet doesn't apply to wineries?  Search for "wine" on Google Video and think again.

Update: not 10 days after I made this post, Sunrise at Chateau Julien appears on the Chateau Julien blog.

La Gramiere moves their blog

Domaine de la Gramiere has moved their blog from Blogger (old blog here) to Typepad (new blog here).  We've updated our comprehensive list of winery blogs to reflect this change of address.

For whatever technical reasons, I hadn't seen any updates on the Blogger-based version of their blog, and I got to catch up on a really personal and authentic account of the past few months in their French vineyard.  There are lots of interesting pictures, and best of all, they moved all the content from Blogger to Typepad, so you can read from the beginning.

I have to say that Amy Lillard is a great winery blogger (Amy and her husband, Matt Kling, bought a vineyard in France, which adds to the usual challenges of getting a new winery off the ground).  Joe Bob says, "Check it out!"

(You can also read my original post about the La Gramiere blog.)

Apropos of nothing: CWO

I've been a CTO (Chief Technical Officer) working for a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and occasionally bumping heads with the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), but this is a new one: Dean & DeLuca is looking for a CWO (Chief Wine Officer).

Just FYI.

A Question For You

It's a good one, too.  And simple.  The question is this:

What is the coolest thing about your winery?

It is the answer to this question that drives your customers (and Web site visitors) to talk about your winery.  Are you doing a good job of communicating it?  If you are, you will hear it from other people (as in, "I think that X about your winery is really cool/neat/interesting/...").

Your Web site and/or blog is a great place to show and tell about all the cool things that set you apart from all the other people out there fermenting grape juice.  And please don't obsess on the word "cool" - I might just have well as said "distinctive."

Obviously, great-tasting wine is one thing that sets you apart.  But there are still lots of great-tasting wines out there.  What is the story that people will tell other people?

(After writing this, I noticed Fresh Fish Here from Seth Godin, which makes the same point in a different way.  Strangely enough, this page is what got me thinking about all this.)

Brian Carter Cellars

Having posted about their press-release-without-a-Web-site earlier this year, it's only fair to point out that Brian Carter Cellars now have a basic Web site up and running at  www.BrianCarterCellars.com.

It's not a bad basic site: the home page tells you much of what you need to know, including how to order, and essential Web-as-Yellow-Pages information (Google hasn't found it yet, though).  It will be interesting to see if/how their site evolves over the next few months.