Taking Names And Kicking Ass or, What's Important?

The most important thing that can happen when someone visits your site is that they end up buying something, right?  Seems obvious enough, except...

What if that site visitor was looking for directions to your winery, and they bring three friends, and all of them end up buying some wine when they visit?

As I've said many times, every visitor to your site comes with a goal already in mind, and a Back button.  If you help them reach their goal, then they walk away with a positive impression of your site.  If you make it hard to reach their goal, you lose them to the Back button, and possibly forever.

So what's the best thing that can happen during a visit to your winery Web site, assuming that the visitor didn't come to buy wine?

The answer?   The visitor gives you permission to contact them later  (probably via e-mail).

So, you should make it easy and beneficial for them to give you that permission.  Obviously, if they make a purchase or sign up for your newsletter or mailing list, you've met this goal.

But what if they don't do any of those things?  Then you should offer them something in return for permission to contact them (perhaps free shipping on their next online order, or a nice piece of schwag if they visit).  You should also be clear and up front about how and when you will use their contact information.  Ask for as little information as possible (a valid e-mail), and then *do* follow up with a contact in relatively short order (e.g. a reminder of how to get free shipping or their schwag).

And it goes without saying that the first time you contact them, they should find it sincere, personal, and most of all worthwhile (you'll know whether you succeeded in this regard, based on how many people revoke permission after being contacted, an option which you should make obvious).

Permission to interact with a visitor after they leave your site is the most valuable result short of a sale (which includes that permission implicitly).  This is the basic unit of conversion for every winery Web site.

This also implies that you should treat first-time visitors different from returning visitors, and you should treat returning visitors differently depending on whether you have received their permission to contact them.

And those people who made a purchase or signed up for your newsletter?  Give them the same benefit as those who needed persuading.  They will sing your praise to others ("Do you know what they did for me?").

Agree?  Disagree?  Post a comment!

Comments

[Andrew]

Mike,

I absolutely agree with your comments here. Great post.

It's pretty easy to use 'sales' as the only measurement of success from your website. We need to learn to have other measurements. In Google Analytics it's pretty easy to setup multiple goals and multiple funnels and watch that over time.

So how would you treat returning visitors different from first time visitor? Are you always handling out rewards?