Digital Strategies

In this section I will be discussing what strategies it think would be the most effective for the Lawton Ridge Winery to create a strong online presence. In today’s day and age it is pretty much essential for any successful business to use the digital medium to attract and retain a customer base.

Website

Currently the Lawton Ridge Website contains some basic information and pictures, but not much more. By designing a website with lots of valuable information and interesting graphics, they could increase traffic there significantly.  For example, if they were to make a page informing consumers about all the different types of grapes they use and the differences between them, it would potentially bring web traffic that would otherwise not even give them a second look. A website needs to look beyond its primary target audience to see what else they can offer.

Banner Advertising

Banner advertising is one of the staples of online advertising. It is where a company designs a graphic ad to be place on other web sites, and clicking on these banners will lead back to the advertiser’s site.

As far as I know, currently the Lawton Ridge Winery does not use any banner advertising. This is unfortunate because it is a relatively inexpensive way of driving consumers to their site. Of course one must be smart in choosing what sites to advertise on.

I think that the Lawton Ridge Winery would benefit greatly from placing banner advertisements on the websites for local tourist websites, local cigar shop sites, local bookstore sites, and sites for other local attractions. Also they could work with Google or other online advertising companies to advertise on some bigger sites about wine and similar products, but only to consumers within southwest Michigan. This would keep costs down and effectively advertise within their geographic location.

Email/E-Newsletter Marketing

Permission marketing though email is a very effective tool. Since the consumer has given permission to receive this information, they are more likely to be interested in and actually read the communication. Especially for a company such as a winery the benefits of this relationship building method could prove to be very valuable.

By sending out a newsletter, perhaps monthly, the Lawton Ridge Winery would be able to inform their customers about all of the different things going on at the winery, inform them about the wines, and just increase their level of relationships. Many wine aficionados are very interested in learning new things about wines, and this would be a great way to inform them and keep them interested.

Search Engine Optimization

As of right now when you Google “Lawton Ridge Winery” the first thing that comes up is the Lawton Ridge Winery home page. This is essential and effective. It reduces the potential confusion among customers.

But, if a customer is to search for something less specific, such as ‘Michigan Wineries,’ Lawton Ridge Winery does not even show up in the first several pages of the results. The short-term fix for this would be to implement a pay-per-click sponsored result. This will at least get the winery on the front page, but in the long term they need to show up near the top of the regular results. Their homepage has a few Meta tags to raise them up in the search results, but it could use more. Also, the traffic to their site is probably just to low at this point to list them near the top, this is where using a sponsored link for a period of time could help.