WTN Blog

Search engine optimization or the words that people tend to search on are highly discussed and tracked by the most sophisticated winery and ecommerce companies. Wineries are getting better at creating and tracking via SEO when partnering with professional web hosting companies such as Inertia Beverage and others.  When people get to your winery website another set of words become important these words are the words that create a customer feeling or action words some call them “customer motivators.”
Choosing the right “customer motivator or action” words will bring them through your website – lead to an emotional connection and complete the wine sale.
A winery or wine retailer wants to attract more people to their wine-club, the winery knows that people search for phrases such as “cabernet,” but what are the customer motivators once they arrive at the website? Marketing Professionals have found that phrases such as “Vintage of the Century,” “Prestigious” or “Limited Release” really connects with people and forces a deeper look into the product offering.  Understanding how wine drinkers search is not enough. To truly make your website excel, you must understand what triggers positive click thru’s and purchases of wines once they arrive at your website.  

Ask your web provider for reporting of what action words or motivators they have found drive sales based upon their experience then experiment to grow your holiday sales.

We encourages our valued clients and partners to participate in the The Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS). The Symposium is a wine industry learning opportunity that demo’s the best technology practices. Register using the link below. If you are a WTN Services client note that on the form and take 10% off the registration fee.

http://www.wineindustrytechnologysymposium.com/registration/registrationForm.aspx

See you at the Symposium July 17th at the Meritage in Napa…

One of the key benefits of working with WTN Services is our ability to leverage relationships and meet with those that will impact our industry and provide operational excellence for the long run. Today I was fortunate to be asked to a private breakfast with Rodger Marticke-Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Fed Ex Ground Corporation. Together with a few of his team members during his visit to Northern California we were able to meet, break bread and engage in thoughtful dialog.

The purpose of the meeting was to build a closer personal relationship and for him to have an opportunity to meet with a very high volume wine shipper and better understand our perception of wine industry wants and needs. WTN Services represents a large cross section of the wine industry with our services offering, variety of clients and bi-coastal fulfillment offerings out of our California and New York Distribution Centers. Our breakfast lasted for about an hour and a half and was lively and thoughtful.

I found Mr. Marticke to be very passionate about quality, expressing in detail steps that his company is taking to ensure continued market leadership and how they may better service the wine industry. I was thrilled to hear the similiarities in his business philosophy as compared to ours at WTN Services. His team has committed millions of dollars to upgrades that improve quality, faciliate less manual handling and ensure continued performance improvements in deliveries and effeciencies in services all the while maintaining an eye on profit. The commonality between Fed Ex and WTN Services is both see the value in investment, both as public companies operate with an eye on profitabiliy and performance while both understand the commitment to the customer is key. That investment is not unlike that of WTN Services with the upgrades in technology and infrastructure we are engaged in presently. Fed Ex Logistics Services uses many of the same technologies we are implementing thus positioning us to enhance services offerings through partnerships with vendors such as Fed Ex in the near future.

Mr. Marticke stressed the improvements in service supported by measuring and perfomance (QSI) Quality Service Index not unlike the SLA’s we have in place and measure perfomance against.

The common theme during our discussion was a mutual respect for one another, a mutual respect for our respective customers needs for continued quality improvement and metrics to support those improvements. I very much appreciated the opportunity to meet with Mr. Marticke today & appreciated the opportunity to speak on behalf of our clients and partners. Most important I look forward to future conversations and innovations from both WTN Services & Fed Ex that will drive quality and deliver even more operational excellence to our clients.

If you have further feedback that you would like communicated to the Fed Ex team please fuel that feedback to your WTN Services Account Management team, we will incorporate that feedback into future conversations.

To excellence!

Chris

As the wine industry matures a tremendous amount of confidential and sensitive information is collected during the normal course of business. From tasting rooms- to call centers to e-commerce transactions, the flow of winery sales data and customer information is staggering. This information encompasses client account information, date of birth information, client phone numbers, email addresses, wine buying preferences and other personal information that is usually captured in client records. The needs for protections of that data, both in-house and with fulfillment vendors, is of paramount and often understated importance. Understanding the standards of data integrity WTN Services has created a white paper entitled  “Winery Privacy, Security & Data Integrity: What’s the Risk to Your Winery?” for you to review and consideration.

winery-privacy-data-integrity-pdf.pdf

WTN Services/1800Flowers believes your winery business and winery customer information is too valuable to not be properly protected.  We strongly encourage you to evaluate the risks in the decisions of your fulfillment options. Warning: steer clear of private, Johnny-come-lately or Venture Capital backed winery fulfillment options that may not have the safeguards or the capital to maintain the safeguards to protect your data and consumer information.  As a financially solid publicly traded company, WTN Services/1800Flowers clearly understands your risks and the need for data protection. The risk of lost reputation and trust, as well as the steep fines and loss of shareholder value are too great to jeopardize neither your business integrity nor ours.  For further questions feel free to visit www.wtnservices.com or contact your WTN Services Account Manager or call 707.265.2933

The Pew Internet & American Life Project found in 2006 that 57% of American teenagers create content for the Internet—from text via websites or blogs, to pictures, music and video. This new generation of young web users is driving innovation and forcing adults to adapt to a changing web environment. In the not so distant future, adults will not be content with flat passive websites for wine sales. In this emerging new-media culture; people will no longer passively read or watch web media, but want to actively participate in it. Rather the person is visiting your website as a surfer or to make a purchase; they will want be engaged, enriched and potentially entertained in order to garner a wine sale.

What that means is more people will actively participate in creating content and want to be engaged in a dialog with the winery or wine retail website. Marketers of wines, wine club managers and anyone involved with wine sales on the web need to adapt to these changes. The requirement of interactive marketing that engages the consumer to participate will drive traffic, sales and profits to those that engage the consumer. Blogs, video, streaming, audio commentary and other forms of engagement are the tools of today that will dramatically shift behaviors in the very near future. Merriam-Webster, a publisher of dictionaries, had “blog” as its word of the year in 2004, and the New Oxford American Dictionary picked “podcast” in 2005. The Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2006 was “Crackberry” n. A BlackBerry handheld computer, particularly one used obsessively.”
Three years in a row, a new media word wins “word of the year” reflecting our changing behaviors toward information, purchasing and a shift through the power of innovation. Will those shifts translate to additional direct to consumer wine sales opportunities?
Point to ponder… Only if you act now. Has any of your club inserts, tasting room-marketing materials or web messaging directed club members to your winery blog or to view a podcast? Are you missing a sales opportunity via these new technologies? Is the word “blog” or “podcast” in your marketing vocabulary for 2007 or 2008? Brand building, sales and profit increases in 07 and 08 will come to those wineries that commit a plan to the new media opportunities.

• Begin a dialog with your web, marketing and brand team.
• Engage WTN Services as your fulfillment partner in the dialog and the plan.
• Seek guidance from your ecommerce platform provider as to how they may help.

To learn more about innovations in technology applications within the Wine Industry visit our blog often and join us for a discussion of technology at the Wine Industry Technology Symposium July 17th.