Are you breaking up with your website?

Have you lost the passion? Do you feel like you have lost touch with your website, and somehow it just isn’t living up to its potential. Could it be selling more wine, signing up more wine club members? Are you disappointed that things just haven’t worked out the way you thought they would. Everyone said your website would be a huge contributor, but what happened?

Typically the web sites we work on have a pretty familiar live cycle, and it goes something like this:

1. Winery builds momentum to launch site or redesign current site.
2. New site launches with contemporary design and fan fare.
3. For a while the site is seen as an “integrated team player”, some wine club members sign up and some bottles are sold
4. Over time as staff move on and key personnel switch positions the web site gets taken for granted and is seen as a liability to the winery.
5. Winery recognizes that something is wrong and starts to plan and build momentum to launch a new site or redesign current site.

I think there are alot things that happen to cause a winery to lose touch with their website, and granted sometimes a site does need a visual refresh. If you have a web site only to find that it isn’t all it is cracked up to be...here are some tips to making the relationship last for the long term.

1. Clearly define what measurable tasks your web site is going to do like sell wine or sign up members
2. Understand how much those completed tasks are worth to your winery. Does the web site save your staff time and money, is there real money being made on your site. Give the web site credit where it is due and include that in the reporting.
3. Calculate your return on investment. If you spent $5000 on your web site you should be able to measure how much your web site has returned on that investment based on the measurable tasks. If your web site only makes $100 a month then how much should you spend? If it makes $50,000 then how much should you spend?
4. Measure and tweak - the part hardly anyone does. If your web site is making a monetary contribution to the bottom line of your winery you will want to increase that over time. You want your potential customers to be successful when they come to your site to buy wine or sign up to the wine club. The only way you are going to get more successful at converting your website visitors is to continually refine your site. Understanding how visitors navigate your site and where they leave and why they do what they do isn’t magic, it is just hard work and continuously measuring. Equipped with that knowledge your website will make your winery more money.

Like all successful relationships, the one with your web site will only be realized if you put in the work and make it a priority. A web site is different from a brochure or mailer in that it is a dynamic media piece that can be changed and refined continually to do its job better.