I've noticed one mistake that is common on most winery websites. That is, they don't make much of an effort to invite people to sign up for their newsletter list.



You may not know it but making it easy for your website visitors to do something can have a 2, 4, or 10 times effect.

Many winery websites feel that if they have a contact page or a dedicated newsletter signup page that may be enough to get people to join the list. The assumption is that if they want to join up badly enough, they'll find a way. If you make it super easy for them to sign up, it stands to reason that more of them will do so. Signing up for a newsletter is more of an impulse and as such is a bit more unpredictable as to when that impulse will strike. One thing is for certain, if you don't sign them up on this visit, you probably won't see them again on your website.

Right now you might be collecting one newsletter signup per day--works out to 365 new subscribers per year--all done automatically by your software.

However if you were to increase that number to 10 per day, (which I have done) you are talking about 3,650 per year. It doesn't take too long before you have a formidable list to send out offers to join your club, buy your wine, or visit your tasting room.

Here are three things you can immediately do to accelerate your subscriber list growth.

1. Put a signup form on your home page. Many wineries don't offer a chance to sign up for the newsletter on the home page. And by sign up, I mean place a form requesting First Name and Email Address right on the page. More people will take you up on your offer because it is convenient for them. Most of your traffic is through your home page anyway isn't it?

2. Put a 'Newsletter Signup' link in your navigation bar. In addition to having a signup form on the home page, put a link in your navigation bar to a signup page. Make sure this link is on every page in your site. Just because your visitor didn't sign up on your home page doesn't mean they won't if they are somewhere else in your site reading about your wine.

3. Add in a hover ad. A hover ad is a box that appears on your screen at some point between 5 and 60 seconds after a visitor arrives on your webpage. Many people don't like to use a hover ad on their site and in fact I have only seen one after reviewing over 1,000 winery websites. The argument is that the hover ad annoys visitors and sends the wrong impression. In actual fact this effect is so small as not to exist. But I have seen hover ads increase signups by a factor of 10 times!

Finally, it doesn't hurt to make more of an effort than to say 'Newsletter'. One of the strongest offers I saw on a winery site stated 'Please Join Our Mailing List and Receive a $25 Coupon!' You can be sure that small incentive encouraged more people to join the list (and generated a few extra orders too!)

So take some time to evaluate your website and ensure you are building your list as aggressively as possible.