The Best Winery Websites Have These Three Elements
The newly redesigned website of Sonoma based winery Viansa. Designed and developed by Highway 29 Creative.
What makes a great winery website? There are so many metrics you can use to measure a website, Google Analytics alone provides thousands. I’d argue that conversion rate is the best measure, but overall revenue, average order value, club sign ups, and reservations booked are all valid measures as well. Then you have to value the overall brand awareness your website generates. With an average conversion rate of only 2% for first time users on a website, how do we measure the success of the 98% of users who don’t take action?
As you can see, it’s easy to get lost in these types of conversations and geek out. Ask three digital marketers this question and you will get five answers.
At Highway 29 Creative, a DTC wine marketing agency, we determine a great website not by one mere data point, but by the intersection of three elements. All great websites are the combination of storytelling, a user journey (UX), and ecommerce strategy. One of these elements alone is not enough to have a great website in 2021. You need all three woven together.
All great websites are the combination of storytelling, a user journey (UX), and ecommerce strategy
Storytelling, UX, and ecommerce strategy are each their own discipline and have entire industries devoted to them. For the sake of brevity, I will summarize each below and why we feel they are critical to your winery’s website success.
Storytelling
My biggest complaint about the average winery website is that if you removed the logo from the top, most users would not be able to tell which winery the website was for. So many websites lack personality and a clear narrative. The ease of uploading cheap stock photos of four millennials “cheersing” with unremarkable glasses of red wine has enabled a “good enough” mindset.
Generic looking stock photos (left) add no value to your website. Bespoke photos (right) can be used to tell your brand story.
Folks, there are over 10,000 wineries in the United States and thousands more retailers taking to the web to sell their wine. You need to stand out with a unique story, otherwise you are just another website selling 90+ point wine and are wasting time and money on ineffective marketing.
Look at your homepage and ask yourself, “what story is it telling?”. Most start with a brief history explaining how their grandfather founded the winery decades ago and then lists the scores and awards their winery has won. Sure, this is a story, but is it unique? Too many wineries are making themselves the hero of their own story. Your job as a business is to make your customer the hero of the story. Author Donald Miller perfectly explains this concept in his book Building a StoryBrand.
Wine is a lifestyle product and your job is to tell a story of the lifestyle your customers live or aspire to. Show them what life could look like if they started buying your wine. Does it involve fun parties at your winery? Does your wine become the center of conversation at their next dinner party? Show them what their life would be like if they were drinking your wine!
The goal of storytelling on your website is to hook the customer. The narrative arc is the easiest way to create a memorable message and create opportunities for your customers to identify with your brand. It’s very hard to identify with a sterile photo of a glass bottle on a transparent white background.
Transparent wine bottle shots (left) look sterile and lifeless. Instead, incorporate your wine into a lifestyle shot (right) that shows your customers what life could look like if they buy your wine.
Use bespoke imagery, video, and copywriting to tell a unique story. Don’t worry too much about how it’s laid out quite yet, that is where a DTC wine marketing agency like ours can help you. When implemented properly, effective storytelling keeps users engaged on your website. Many studies show that the longer users spend on a website the higher the conversion rate will become.
User Journey
With a clear brand story on your website, your next goal is to compel your customers to take action. Just like in your tasting room, you need to ask for the sale on your website. When we lay out a website, we work with our clients to define a goal for each page. The question we pose is, “After reading this entire page, what is the action you want your customer to take?”
How many times have you landed on a website and been overwhelmed with the numbers of options you have for next steps? Many websites have competing calls to action. This taxes the user’s brain and leads to indecision. Instead of taking any action at all, users will grow frustrated and simply leave the website.
A great winery website is like a game of shoots and ladders. There is a defined path for the players that leads them to a main goal. Along the way, there can be opportunities to backtrack or quickly advance forward, but these opportunities are clearly defined and marked.
A website’s user journey (right) is just like a game of shoots and ladders (left). It has defined paths focused on the user achieving a goal.
Look over every page of your website and ask yourself, “Is there a clearly defined action I am directing my users towards?” Too many websites have multiple buttons side-by-side or a list of text links it takes 30 seconds to sort through.
If there are multiple goals for a specific page, that is ok. You can have a “transitional call to action” which is not as important as your main call to action. But, you need to make sure the design does not give equal billing to both buttons.
An example of this is a website’s shop page. When a user is on this page, the goal is to make them add a bottle of wine to their cart. 60% of add to carts happen on the shop page according to Commerce7, therefore; your add to cart button should be the main call to action.
Competing calls to action like a buy link and more info link (left) make the user work too hard to decide which action to take. Instead focus on one main call to action with a very clear button (right).
However, 40% of users will want more information about the wine before taking action. Some winery website designs include a “learn more” or “more info” button, but the design of this element should make sure this button does not compete for attention. Your “add to cart” button is your main call to action and your “learn more” button is your transitional call to action.
If thinking through this type of intricate user journey mapping is making your head spin, then you are not alone. This is why hiring a reputable DTC wine marketing agency is important to ensure they understand the importance of a good user journey. Without one, your customers will get lost, become frustrated, and leave your website instead of taking the specific action you want them to.
Ecommerce Strategy
With a unique brand story that calls the user to action, your website is almost ready for primetime. The one remaining piece it needs is a proven commerce strategy.
Just because you list a wine for sale on your website does not mean customers will buy it. The wine industry is oversaturated and competition is at an all time high. It is harder than ever to break out in this industry and be successful. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to slash prices, offer big discounts or act desperate. Neither does it mean that only wines with 100 point scores will sell out. Consumers don’t buy the best wines, they buy the wines they can most easily identify with. This is why without storytelling and a user journey, a commerce strategy alone can't make a winery website great. You need the intersection of all three elements!
The first step to a successful commerce strategy is to select which e-commerce platform you want integrated with your website. At Highway 29 Creative, we are big fans of Commerce7 and WineDirect and are certified partners of both platforms. Just like selecting a marketing agency to hire for your website, you should make sure to select a platform that specializes in the wine industry. While it might be tempting to use one size fits all platforms like Shopify, you will be best supported by a platform that understands the intricacies of selling wine online.
Once you select the platform, work with your wine marketing agency to determine which features of the platform best suit your commerce strategy and discuss how to implement them. For instance, we love Commerce7’s “cart carrot” and “personalizations” features. Commerce7 provides the base for a web coder to implement the features, but it's up to a creative DTC marketing agency to implement them properly.
At our agency, we like to look at our winery client’s overall business plan and see how we can support it through the website. For instance, if a winery offers “free shipping on any 6 bottle order,” then we would design a specific cart carrot which reminds users of this offer at every step of the purchasing process. We continue to provide motivating messages to get consumers to hit the 6 bottle milestone needed for free shipping. It is this type of thoughtful commerce strategy that increases conversion rates and average order value.
A cart carrot as seen here on tastingmerchants.com is a great implementation of ecommerce strategy. Site design by Highway 29 Creative and built on Commerce7 platform.
Most winery’s main commerce goal is to convert users to join their wine club. Commerce7 reports that 27% of customers join a wine club online versus in the tasting room or other channel. That being said, you need to carefully consider how you will present your wine club to website users and encourage them to join.
Thoughtful wine club content sprinkled throughout a winery’s shop page helps drive conversion to your wine club. Don’t just reserve the "wine club” page for this info.
Many winery websites make the mistake of hiding all of the information about their wine club on their club page only. Instead, we prefer to sprinkle this content throughout the shop section of the website as a transitional call to action. Ideas include adding a banner ad to the shop page, highlighting the member price on the product detail pages, and adding a call to action on the cart page. If you don’t ask for the sale, you won’t get it!
How Do I Improve My Winery’s Website?
We understand how intimidating it can be to manage your winery’s website or embark on a redesign project. Your winery’s job is to make and sell amazing wines, not become an expert web designer overnight.
The first step is to identify a DTC wine marketing agency you feel comfortable working with. There are some things that are worth doing yourself, but designing your website is not one of them. The stakes are too high and it requires true expertise.
When interviewing the agency, ask to see their recent projects and look for customer testimonials. Consider who you trust and which agency will have your back throughout the entire process. Do you prefer to work with a solo-practitioner who does it all themselves or would you feel more comfortable with a team of subject matter experts that work together to design and build your website?
Regardless of who you work with, remember that the best winery websites are the ones with a combination of storytelling, a user journey, and an ecommerce strategy. Without those three elements, you will be just another bottle of 90+ point wine.
We Can Help
Our team at Highway 29 Creative is here to guide you as you undertake a website design project. Our proven process carefully considers all three elements of a great website and our team of subject matter experts work together to ensure your website meets all of your business goals.
Reach out to set up a free consultation and learn more about our website design services.
Simon Solis-Cohen is the founder of Highway 29 Creative, a leading digital and creative agency serving the wine industry. He challenges clients to think about the future and constantly innovate. The agency chases data, not fads, and provides one-stop shopping for wineries looking to enter or jolt their direct to consumer sales. Their approach starts by designing and building a website focused on conversion (wine sales, club sign ups & tasting room reservations) and then dives into each digital channel with consistent and effective content and messaging. What to learn more or looking for advice? Shoot Simon a message at simon@hwy29creative.com.