Online Marketing, Social Media, & SEO Tools for Improving eCommerce Sales

Wine Label Selection

I am in the process of making my own wine and could some assistance on which label design I should use for my 2010 Merlot:

A.
B.

Please leave me your opinion and why. Thanks

Salesforce.com eCommerce CRM Integration Demo by Nexternal

Nexternal has built a free turn-key application, available in the Salesforce AppExchange, called the Nexternal eCommerce Connector. Companies that use Salesforce and Nexternal are able to use the Nexternal eCommerce Connector to automatically pull shipped orders with associated line items from Nexternal into Salesforce.com as closed / won opportunities. This connection between Salesforce.com CRM and Nexternal's eCommerce & Wine Club Management system can provide winery's or wine industry merchants with great customer management efficiencies.



Nexternal's eCommerce system also has a handful of CRM tools if Salesforce is not the right fit. To learn more about these tools visit: www.nexternal.com

Pictures From Jonathan Edwards Winery Harvest Festival

Pictures From My Napa & Sonoma Valley Trip

12 Must-Haves for Your Online Wine Store

1. Story: The Story behind the wine is the most important story you can tell. It's the brand. No Story, No Brand. No Brand, No Interest or Sales. No Sales, No Money. Here are some slides from A Good Grape blog posting that can help you make sure your "story" is on target :




2. Wine Reviews: Reviews allow customers to provide you with valuable feedback -- feedback that companies in other industries need to pay market researchers and focus groups to obtain. Reviews allow for transparency and honesty- in turn, building credibility. If you're not displaying wine reviews or allowing customers to submit their own reviews then you're missing the boat to success and greater sales.
3. Age Verification: A must. Before I get intothe shopping process, or while I'm going through checkout, my age must be verified. Hear's a great resource for Age Verification: Ideology
4. Google Tools: Make sure Google knows you are out there with Google Webmaster Tools. Then, figure out how people are searching for and finding your wines with Google Analytics .
5. Sitemaps: Have an XML sitemap and Robots.txt file. These enable website owners to list all pages that should be indexed in a given domain. First, XML sitemap : when the search engines find the sitemap, they essentially have a list of URLs they now know need to be crawled. The second file created is a robot.txt file. When a search engine spider finds a homepage it will check to see if a robots.txt file exists. This file points to the XML Sitemap file, essentially enabling the sitemap to be found automatically--once the spider finds the domain itself. If your store does not allow for this or is not search engine friendly, checkout Nexternal's Search Engine Friendly eCommerce System.
6. Marketplace Feeds: Having numerous channels to drive traffic from is crucial to any online business. Here are some marketplaces anyone in the wine industry should be using- Snooth, Wine Searcher, Google Product Search
7. Social Media Links/Pages: With the recent craze and adoption of social media, it is now recommended for wine industry merchants to have a Facebook and Twitter page, along with other wine specific social networks pages: Wine 2.0, Open Wine Consortium, Cork'd. Here are some tips for updating Facebook: Ways of Updating Facebook - http://bit.ly/9nApNi
8. Shipping Map: The added convenience of seeing where a winery or wine shop ships to is huge. I recommend spending a couple minutes putting together a US Map highlighting the states you ship to. It should look like this:

9. Mailing List Sign Up: Direct communication with new and existing customers is still very effective for generating future sales. Sending out coupons, event reminders and important updates or releases are great ways to continue communicating with customer's once they've left the store. Make sure you have a way for them to join your mailing list.
10. Wine Club: It amazes me that some wineries and wine stores still don't have or offer Wine Clubs. Everyone enjoys being a member of some exclusive especially when it gives them a way to save money. Whether it be a Case Club which helps raise the amount of wine customer's purchase or a Recurring Wine Club which ensures future revenue, give your customer's a reason to come back and have more of the wine you sell or produce. If you need a wine club management system check out Nexternal's.
11. Winery/Store Events: For some vineyards/wineries/stores events can be influential in generating sales. Tastings, Concerts, Dinners, and Meet the X events can be great ways to create new revenue streams or get customers in the door. Tell me if I need to: make a tasting appointment, schedule a tour, attend an exclusive dinner/concert/barrel tasting. Tip: Create demand and higher prices by keeping spots available or attendance limited.
12. Awards: An award telling a customer this wine is "best of" or "great" gives them a reason to try it out or pay a higher price for it. If your winery/wine/store has won an award show it to the customer. If you haven't won any awards submit your wines for review or make better wine.

These 12 don't say it all but they're a great starting point. TAKE YOUR TIME while implementing these. The time and effort you put in prove invaluable in the development of your unique and memorable BRAND and pay dividends toward the success of your online winery.

React Below :

1. Are there other factors or tools which you consider crucial to your online store?

2. On a scale of 1 to 5 rank the importance that a wine's Brand has to its online sales.

If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, or additions please let me know.

Branding Part 1 - What's it all about

Branding is all about:

-Personifying an organization, product, or service
-Creating an association that enhances or detracts the customer's experience.
-A person's gut feeling: Confidence
-The source of emotional connections
-The Promise to Customers
-The embedded idea or concept
-Perception

To understand how a brand is being associated and perceived by your customers ask the following questions:

1. What is the vision, mission, goals, and objectives of my company, product, or service?

2. Who are my customers? What are their defining characteristics: ages, demographics, creative and visual triggers, associations, and habits?

3. What is the best way to differentiate your experience from your competitors, and make this differentiation visible to my customers and prospects?

A company's, product's, or service's "story" is key to personifying and associating a brand with a customer's need or want.

What is your story and how will it connect with your customers?

Sources of Online Wine Sales

Helpful information about marketplaces and channels that drive online wine sales in reference to: Wine Comparison Shopping Engines: traffic and conversion combined | MyLocalWineStore (view on Google Sidewiki)

A winery or wine merchant selling online would be wise to read and consider the information Bruce is presenting here.

My comments:

Hi Bruce,

I think it depends on two things: the marketplace and what is considered a conversion.

Google Product Search is clearly an effective channel for almost any merchant because Google is a credible source for any information/solution. Marketplaces like Shopping.com, Shopzilla, etc do not have the same reputation among wine consumers. A marketplace like Snooth or Wine Searcher.com tend to cater to a specific niche or industry and may be more effective.

For most people conversion = revenue or a sale. What happens if that sale/conversion takes 2+ impressions or visits to the merchant's website/store? Does the time from when a consumer visits or sees a merchant's brand in social media or a search engine until they make they purchase get factored into conversion? If not, maybe it should because their brand may have influenced the purchase decision. In this case additional channels may have an impact on the end result.

Your data displays the importance of allocating more time, effort, and funding to marketplaces. Given that eCommerce merchants select the right marketplaces they should see the returns and benefits quickly. Keep in mind the influence other channels have.

What is your opinion?

Nexternal Solutions & Salesforce.com eCommerce Integration

Contact me to learn more about how this integration can help your business: (800) 914-6161 x206 or bcintolo@nexternal.com

Authorize.net Account Setup for Nexternal's eCommerce System

Within Authorize.net grab your API Login ID and Transaction Key from the Account section.

Directions: To obtain the API Login ID and Transaction Key:

1. Log into your Merchant Interface at https://account.authorize.net.

2. Click Settings in the main left side menu.

3. Click API Login ID and Transaction Key.

4. Under Create New Transaction Key, enter your Secret Answer.

5. Click Submit.

Be sure to store the Transaction Key in a very safe place. You will also need to take your account out of Test-mode.

To turn Test-Mode off:

1. Log into the Merchant Interface at https://secure.authorize.net

2. Select Settings under Account in the main menu on the left

3. Click Test Mode in the Security Settings section

4. Click Turn Test OFF to take your account out of Test Mode.

Once finished log into your Nexternal Order Management System and enter your account information:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click "Edit" for Compatible Software
3. Enter your API Login ID and Transaction Key
4. Check the "Authorize credit card before accepting order" box and click Finish at the bottom.

Lastly, I recommend placing a "test order" with a real credit card to make sure everything works. If it does not or you run into difficulties please contact me directly: (800) 914-6161 x 206 or bcintolo@nexternal.com

Great Resource - On-Page SEO Cheatsheet

Any online merchant seeking information about how to optimize their website and store should give this page a read.

in reference to: The On-Page SEO Cheatsheet | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing (view on Google Sidewiki)

Google Product Search Setup - Steps to Verifying and Claiming your URL

Uploading products to Google Product Search through Nexternal's Automated Marketplace feed is very simple.

First, Click here to create a Google Product Search account.

After entering your company/business information (website = store.YOURURL.com) click on the Account & Settings link on the left navigation bar. Click FTP in the sub menu to create a Google Product Search FTP Username and Password.

When finished, enter this Username and Password into the Google Product Search FTP Username and Password box found in the Product section - Export Traffic Tools blue button - Marketplace Exports Preferences link in your Order Management System.

Once the Google Product Search FTP Username and Password is entered into your Order Management System the next step is to Verify and Claim your URL (store.YOURDOMAIN.com).

According to Google Merchant Blog this requires a couple steps:

1. Create an Account with Google Webmaster Tools

2. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click "Verify this site" next to the site you want.

3. In the Verification method list, select Meta tag.

4. Copy and Paste the META tag into your Nexternal Order Management System in the Layout section - Advanced Layout - Head Addendum.

5. Once you've added the tag to your Layout section, click Verify.

You’ll have to go through this process once, but it’s important to make sure you’re store is authorized to upload product listings.

Seek assistance from Google Webmaster Tools Help or contact your Nexternal Account Rep: (800) 914-6161 x 206.

Key Questions from the 2010 SVB State of The Wine Industry Report

Here is a recap of the key components of the Silicon Valley Bank 2010 State of the Wine Industry Report:

The Report provides the following questions which I believe anyone selling wine must be able to answer:

1. What do your wine consumers want?

2. Who are your consumers?
-Are they Baby Boomers/Millennials/other?
-Are they part of your club?

3. If your customers attitudes are changing what will you do to stay relevant with them?

4. What strategic decisions will you make this year to position your wines for future success?

5. How will you get these answers?

Other keys facts:

-The average highest price SKU (for wines with at least 1000 cases produced) was $56 dollars before the "crash". This number went down 4% after the "crash".

-The market for any given producer's top brand is still doing well.

-The pain point for wineries is most often in their higher volume mid priced SKU's - readily available to consumers.

-Value is not based on price but "something else".

This last notion (Value is not based on price but "something else") is the most intriguing to me. What is this "something else"? Is it branding? Connection? Word of Mouth?

What is the "it" factor for your wine business?

What gets measured gets improved - Building Self Discipline

Track and keep yourself accountable for the following:

1. Self Knowledge
2. Conscious Awareness
3. Commitment to Self-Discipline
4. Courage
5. Internal Coaching

in reference to: Self-Discipline - PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement (view on Google Sidewiki)

Article Review: Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box - Harvard Business Review

Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box - Harvard Business Review

This article provides a great mindset of framing ideas through specific questions. These questions can be applied to marketing, new product development, business evaluations, and more:

21 Great Questions for Developing New Products

Which customers use or purchase our product in the most unusual way?

Do any customers need vastly more or less sales and service attention than most?

For which customers are the support costs (order entry, tracking, customer-specific design) either unusually high or unusually low?

Could we still meet the needs of a significant subset of customers if we stripped 25% of the hard or soft costs out of our product?

Who spends at least 50% of what our product costs to adapt it to their specific needs?

Who uses our product in ways we never expected or intended?

Who uses our product in surprisingly large quantities?

Look beyond the boundaries of our business

Who else is dealing with the same generic problem as we are but for an entirely different reason? How have they addressed it?

What major breakthroughs in efficiency or effectiveness have we made in our business that could be applied in another industry?

What information about customers and product use is created as a by-product of our business that could be the key to radically improving the economics of another business?

Examine binding constraints

What is the biggest hassle of purchasing or using our product?

What are some examples of ad hoc modifications that customers have made to our product?

For which current customers is our product least suited?

For what particular usage occasions is our product least suited?

Which customers does the industry prefer not to serve, and why?

Which customers could be major users, if only we could remove one specific barrier we’ve never previously considered?

Imagine perfection
How would we do things differently if we had perfect information about our buyers, usage, distribution channels, and so on?

How would our product change if it were tailored for every customer?

Revisit the premises underlying our processes and products

Which technologies embedded in our product have changed the most since the product was last redesigned?

Which technologies underlying our production processes have changed the most since we last rebuilt our manufacturing and distribution systems?

Which customers’ needs are shifting most rapidly? What will they be in five years?

How can these questions help your business?

Improving the Content on your Website

5 key questions any website or product page should answer:

Why me? (Why should they lis ten to you?)
Why you? (Who is per fect for this offer?)
Why this? (Why is this prod uct per fect for them?)
Why this price? (Why is this offer so valuable?)
Why now? (Why must they not wait?)

These are crucial! If your website is getting traffic but lacking conversion make sure your content/product pages address these 5 questions.

in reference to: http://www.michelfortin.com/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-website-copy/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Diamonds in the Data Mine - HBR

This great article reinforces the importance of real customer service - the experience they have with your business, product, or service.

For my clients: Understanding present customer value and lifetime customer value could lead to lower marketing costs and higher conversion and customer loyalty. This is achieved by running reports and mining customer activity data in their systems. Then use the knowledge gained from this data to correctly communicate, market, and initiate action in their customers. If done correctly it should surely lead to positive results.

For me: This article reminds one that a working relationship that functions over the phone and internet is similar to one that functions face to face. Attention, genuine interest, clarity, and consistency are vital to truly providing great customer service. One must find a way to create a unique working relationship with their clients that eludes the highest level of respect and confidence in them and their business. This should ensure the customer loyalty and trust that they are working with the right person and business.

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2003/05/diamonds-in-the-data-mine/ar/pr (view on Google Sidewiki)

Storytelling That Moves People

Good article about the impact storytelling has in business and personal life. A couple good quotes: "A story expresses how and why life changes. It begins with a situation in which life is relatively in balance."
"A good storyteller describes what it’s like to deal with these opposing forces, calling on the protagonist to dig deeper, work with scarce resources, make difficult decisions, take action despite risks, and ultimately discover the truth."
"All great storytellers since the dawn of time—from the ancient Greeks through Shakespeare and up to the present day—have dealt with this fundamental conflict between subjective expectation and cruel reality."

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2003/06/storytelling-that-moves-people/ar/pr (view on Google Sidewiki)

Teaching Smart People How To Learn

Great advice for adjusting the way we learn and think. Helpful for improving emotional intelligence and addressing problems.

Remember to focus on being in the "double loop" when taking feedback or addressing critical questions.

in reference to: http://hbr.org/1991/05/teaching-smart-people-how-to-learn/ar/pr (view on Google Sidewiki)

Major Sales: Who Really Does the Buying?

Some key questions and notes from this article -

Who makes up the buying group?

How will the parties interact?

Who will dominate and who submit?

What priorities do the individuals have?

Who’s in the Buying Center?

"The key to improved selling effectiveness is in observation and investigation to understand prospects’ corporate power culture."

"Sales-call planning is not only a matter of minimizing miles traveled or courtesy calls on unimportant prospects but of determining what intelligence is needed about key buyers and what questions or requests are likely to produce that information."

Make sure you take the time to give this a thorough read. The reminders given here are very important.

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2006/07/major-sales/ar/pr (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Story About Motivation

This article addresses the inner meanings of what motivates people, great read

in reference to: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/02/a-story-about-motivation.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

How To Become A Great Storyteller

These four truths provide insight into great storytelling.

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2007/12/the-four-truths-of-the-storyteller/ar/pr (view on Google Sidewiki)

Comprehensive Millennial Case Study

Very detailed demographic data on Generation Y/Millennials

in reference to: http://www.dmwdirect.com/pdfs/millennials.pdf (view on Google Sidewiki)

Seven Transformations of Leadership

Which one of seven developmental action logics leaders are you—Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, or Alchemist

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2005/04/seven-transformations-of-leadership/ar/pr (view on Google Sidewiki)

Behave Yourself

Before you get into any conflict, take a deep breath and ask yourself, ‘Is it worth it? What do I have to gain by winning? What do I have to lose?

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2002/10/behave-yourself/ar/1 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Execution-as-Learning: Four Steps

Helpful information about improving Organization knowledge and processes.

in reference to: http://hbr.org/2008/07/the-competitive-imperative-of-learning/ar/4 (view on Google Sidewiki)