Winery Websites that drive Online Sales!
If you truly want to achieve online success, you need to think of your website as a business NOT an online brochure. If results are what really matters, can prospects visiting your website take an action that starts a conversion process?
Your website should be the hub of all your marketing activity
Your website should be the hub of all your marketing activity. Meaning that this is where you want the revenue-producing engagement to happen. Do you have an online brochure or a web business?
A web business is a strategic online engine that guides users, separates prospects from suspects and invites action to be taken through a great offer ending in possible sales.
Does your website entice people to join your inner circle and incites them to take action– subscribe to your newsletter, join your Wine Club and Buy Wine online?
Email marketing remains the #1 way to increase sales. Building an email list should be a top priority for wineries.
To increase your conversion rates, you should be focused on driving targeted consumers to your site, which happens mostly through email marketing.
s it easy to subscribe to your newsletter? Is it obvious and do you spell out the benefits of joining?
Winery Website Best Practices
We’d like to share some winery website best practices. By incorporating website best practices your website will nudge visitors down the funnel, migrating them from a casual website visitor to a loyal customer.
Your Home Page is your Primary Point of Engagement
A combination of the great photos and ease of use makes an ideal website for your customer.
Your homepage is your primary point of engagement, and should include at least a few paragraphs about the region, wines you make, vineyards you source from, and the winery experience. Is your email sign up right on your home page?
Above the fold: the first thing visitors see.
When you visit most winery websites, you’ll notice a few common traits. Most calls-to-action appear below the fold, often at the very bottom of the website. The fold means the portion of your site which can be shown when first entering the site without scrolling down.
Winery websites should include calls to action above the fold like “Join Our Newsletter,” “Shop our Tasting Room Exclusive Wines,” and “Join our Wine Club.” So simple, yet can be so effective in increasing sales.
We also recommend some simple but effective features to go along with the modernization of your website design:
- The creation of a contact form that lets users submit their inquiries online
- The creation of a mobile site with “touch to call” features to let mobile users get in touch quickly and get directions to your winery
- Ratings and reviews are a great way to increase visitor’s activity on your site.
If you provide a clear call to action – and if you’ve written your copy persuasively, you’ll have a much better chance of getting the results you want! Make the call-to-action plainly visible by creating a graphic, adding it above the fold, and ensure it appears on every page of the site. And don’t forget to describe the benefits of subscribing!
MailChimp’s home page does a great job placing the calls to action, Sign Up Free above the fold.
The key takeaway here: ALL business websites are designed to drive conversions.
Clos du Soleil’s New Ecommerce Website
We recently designed a new WordPress website for Clos du Soleil (www.closdusoleil.ca). We wanted the website to reflect Clos du Soleil’s uncompromising commitment and dedication to growing and crafting wines, in a Bordeaux style. The beauty and hospitality of the Similkameen Valley winery and their award-winning wines were showcased throughout the website with gorgeous photographs and videos. We also wanted to make sure Clos du Soleil’s customers could easily sign up for Les Amis newsletter, buy wine online 24/7 and join the Wine Club.
To drive direct to consumer sales, we created calls to action to drive visitors to Clos du Soleil’s Wine Club, Soleil 160, where members receive first access to our ultra-premium wines, discounted rates off online purchases and admission to exclusive events including VIP tours and tastings.
For those users who are looking for special benefits and insider information, we added calls to action to make it easy for people to subscribe to Les Amis newsletter.
We also provide behind-the-scenes access to Clos du Soleil’s winery team. Designed to provide an interactive and unique visitor experience, the new website offers tasting notes and pairings that come from winemakers, chefs and culinary leaders. Information is seasonal and refreshed continually so fans can look to the site as a resource for consistently relevant, interesting information and winery tastings and events.
Direct to Consumer Marketing Advice Available Now
Our Direct to Consumer marketing solutions will change the way you do business. Whether you are a small winery looking to build an online presence, or a larger winery looking to drive DTC sales by building your wine club and online sales, we can help you create a revenue-producing website and take your brand’s success to the next level.
We are trusted marketing advisors to wineries seeking to build direct-to-consumer sales and ecommerce capabilities. Our expertise in marketing best practices – ranging from online brand development, ecommerce implementation, website desgin and SEO to conversion optimization, email marketing and social media marketing – helps regional wineries build profits and loyal fans.
Our philosophy is to learn about your online business goals and to ensure you have a plan to get conversions. Take a moment and really think about the goals you have for your website. What conversions matter most to you? Is the design of your website helping or hindering those goals?
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