The weather is shifting, trip-planning season is underway, and tasting room traffic is about to pick up. This is the good news. The bad news? If you're reading this and thinking "we'll get to our spring marketing when spring gets here," you're behind. The tasting rooms that stay full from April through June aren't the ones with the best wine or the prettiest views. They're the ones that showed up in someone's planning process three weeks before the trip happened. People don't stumble into wine country on a whim and wander from door to door the way they did fifteen years ago. They research. They scroll. They book. And if your winery isn't visible and compelling during that research window, you're invisible when it counts. The hotel industry figured this out years ago. Marriott doesn't wait until summer to market beach properties. They start running "book your getaway" campaigns in late winter, because they know the booking win

DEC 14, 2023 TALKING TO THE QUEEN OF WINE INDUSTRY DIGITAL ENDEAVORS ABOUT HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR SMALL WINERY WEBSITE IN 2024… To round out 2023 on a high note, this week we have an interview with the incredible Susan DeMatei of WineGlass Marketing, talking about how small wineries can maximize their websites in 2024. Susan is the absolute guru when it comes to the unique challenges and opportunities that wineries have in the digital space, and I’m beyond thrilled that she has agreed to talk us. WHAT ARE SOME MISTAKES THAT YOU SEE SMALL WINERIES MAKING ON THEIR WEBSITES? Underestimating the impact of the internet. I get it. As a small winery you’re forced to deal with the fires right in front of you: The machinery that needs fixing, the staff that needs your attention, the utilities that need to get paid and the customers coming to your door. But while you’re doing those very important things, hundreds, if not thousands, of people will see your website this mon

The Revolutionary and Affordable Way to Redesign Your Website Having a well performing website that looks great and is organized properly has never been more important than it is today. Many are thinking about redesigning their website, or some have wanted to redesign theirs for a long time, but the costs have often been prohibitive. And it’s no surprise, where a simple custom website design can range from $15,000 - $30,000, with more complex sites costing upwards of $50,000, it’s just not feasible for many small or medium sized businesses. Not only that but custom websites can take several months to conceptualize, proof, design and launch. Who has time for that? That’s why we came up with new revolutionary way to redesign your website that costs a fraction of a custom site, with either no or very little outside help and can usually be completed in less than a month. Our Universal Templates give you a selection of deluxe, elegant, and easily customizable website templ

E-commerce soared from less than one percent of retail sales at the turn of the century to 16 percent two decades later. COVID-19 lockdowns alone drove online purchasing up six points, from 10 percent in 2019. Wine sales in the healthy $284 billion retail e-commerce market doubled from pre-COVID levels to $3.5 billion, and forecasts show wine revenue increasing by almost 25 percent by 2027. With direct-to-consumer wine sales accounting for nearly 70 percent of an average winery’s sales, taking advantage of this growing channel is critical. Premium wineries have already increased their online sales from two percent in 2019 to nine percent in 2022. However, the online sales opportunity is significant to small to medium-sized wineries feeling pinched between falling consumption and rising costs ― especially given declining sales in other channels. That means having a modern, up-to-date website with a smooth transition from general winery pages to online retail stores without the dig

Having a professional-looking website can make a significant impact on your business’s reputation. Luckily, you don’t have to pay five or six figures for a beautiful website that reflects the quality and elegance of your wine. We have artfully designed a variety of themes just for the wine industry with design features like wine clubs, recipes, and tasting room tools that generic templates just don’t have.

Having a professional-looking website can make a significant impact on your business’s reputation. Luckily, you don’t have to pay five or six figures for a beautiful website that reflects the quality and elegance of your wine. We have artfully designed a variety of themes just for the wine industry with design features like wine clubs, recipes, and tasting room tools that generic templates just don’t have.

WHAT IS A WEBSITE TEMPLATE AND TEN REASONS YOU WANT ONE In today’s fast-changing landscape, web experts agree that we should redesign our websites every three years. Don’t get us wrong, that doesn’t mean touch your website every three years. You should constantly update and keep your website current, but we’re talking about a complete reboot every three years. This refresh is necessary because our content and feature needs change and our consumer eCommerce and browsing habits are constantly changing. Look at the wine business in the past four years and how much has changed since pre-COVID. In addition to the obvious design revitalization, we should also be re-evaluating our website goals and needs on this three-year frequency. When facing a redesign, the first question that crosses the minds of most is, “Should I use a template or have this custom-built?” If you have done a big website from scratch before, you hired a designer and then a developer,