Archer Vineyards' best wine yet
I’ve had some great weather here in the Central Coast of California. I come out here around this time each year to pick the wines we enter in the Annual Santa Clarita Valley Wine Classic. This year I picked our 2000 Cabernet, which I think is perfect this year. We don’t produce enough wine at Archer Vineyards to warrant our own bottling equipment, but there are people who specialize in bottling for us smaller vineyards. We have used the same bottler for years, a friend I met years ago when we purchased Archer Vineyards. After he finished, we opened one from last year, broke bread and started talking about his web site.

He was at the point where he knew he needed a new website. Too many times, he cringed when someone asked for his website address. He asked what I thought he should have on his web site, which I turned around and asked him what he wanted out of his web site.

At Archer we classify marketing web sites into two categories: First point of contact or second point of contact. First point of contact websites make sense where your site is your primary marketing tool and most of your customers will first find out about your product or service. These sites need to focus on the ‘sizzle’ and the ‘steak’ and be designed to hit the top of the search engines.

After a few hours of ‘product sampling’ our wine, we concluded that my friend needed a web site focused on the ‘second point of contact’. With these types of sites, potential customers will visit his site after being introduced to the product or service through some other means. The visitor already knows something about the company and is going to the site to confirm perceptions or ‘flesh out’ what the person already knew. Less flashy, and more detailed content to demonstrate the value of the product.

Before you set out to take the ‘cringe’ out of your out of date web site, think about how it fits into your overall marketing plan. Find out how your new customers first found out about you and what they were looking for when they went to your site. Remember, your website is about you, but for your customers.