Embarking on a journey into the spirits industry is not just about crafting quality beverages; It’s also ensuring that they reach the glasses of enthusiasts far and wide. In the digital age, that means leveraging Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) sales through an e-commerce optimised website.
Most new distilleries have already adopted this as part and parcel of their offering (some obviously can’t due to local licensing). If you don’t know what to think about DTC and want the lowdown on the do’s & don’ts, check out our article: DTC in the digital age. It’ll be a helpful starter ahead of this more practical guide into optimising sites.
Almost all set milestones and targets aimed at increasing rate of sale through their own channels in their Marketing Plans. But how can you do an e-commerce offering well?
Firstly, it’s understanding that optimising is not just about ensuring it’s geared to sales.
A brand’s digital platform should be viewed not merely as a sales channel, but as an extensive universe where your brand’s story unfolds. It’s where customers become part of your journey, whether they buy from you or somewhere else.
The focus should always be on creating genuine connections and providing invaluable experiences, beyond the bottle, that keep enthusiasts coming back to explore, engage, and purchase.
With this in mind, here are ways you can increase your site’s performance for DTC sales, without simply porting the entire thing into an e-commerce site.
Start by finding the balance. A digital brand home.
Brand storytelling, with e-commerce woven in
Consider how and where you tell your story. Where you can seamlessly integrate shopping options and CTAs into your content without it feeling like a constant hustle?
For instance, a blog post about a particular spirit’s tasting notes can conveniently incorporate purchase links. If you are writing blogs about cocktails, maybe some of those are also offered exclusively on your site providing a unique value proposition (for example Bottled RTD’s of the cocktail in question). You could ensure that product pages combine fact and call to action etc.
Ask yourself how does your site fit in with your brand’s Marketing Funnel and the strategies you are using more holistically? How are you using the same principles here (awareness, consideration, conversion)?
You need to find a way to build your brand story, and have enough confidence that it will, with small e-coms plugs here and there, be compelling enough to move a consumer’s journey on to the next step.
Define what user experience you want
Consider doubling up pages where appropriate or optimising sections differently depending on your intention.
Take a whisky maker, going for a linear user experience for example.
They could chose to have the page about the entire whisky range go into their values as makers and their place in the category. They could use it as a hub to explain the shared methods behind all the whisky products they make and link out to both product specific pages and cocktails.
As a user clicks through onto those individual product pages, there’s less background information and more overt purchase based CTA’s. More of the information about that product is directly geared to encourage sales.
In this example, category (range) pages (like all Gin or all Whisky) wouldn’t compete for product SEO. Better still, they cross link easily to each bottling and create a straight forward User Experience.
From a marketing perspective, this approach follows the same principles of all classic marketing funnels (range page = consideration, product page = conversion).
Let’s take a different whisky maker, going for a direct user journey.
In a more direct approach, this whisky maker assumes users are dropping into the right section to begin with – and that Google, Bing and others have already fast forwarded their journey before they have even clicked through.
The logic has some merit. It’s true that thinking of a user experience as always starting from your home page is naïve. Far more traffic gets dropped along the chain (often to custom landing pages) that it does at the start point.
Direct user journeys optimise for this advanced start point and aim to ensure there’s no clicking away needed.
Because of this, our example whisky maker’s site is far narrower (less pages to click on – more product driven and geared to short paths to product / carts). Their pages tend to carry quite a lot – both about the brand and with e-commerce driven CTA’s to complete a journey.
There’s no right and wrong – just different priorities. The first option favours brand building and more linear marketing journeys, accepting that they will have less sales, but more ample opportunities to show the brand world. The second is the reverse.
In our experience of building e-commerce sites that have repeatedly sold six figures a year worth of product – those who land with the intent to buy almost never go through the hoops of discovery to SKU page, nor start at the beginning. They’ve already made the decision.
It’s all about convenience and speed. Users want to find the info they want, immediately. If it’s maximum amount of sales you want for your brand’s site – it’s not a funnel you should look for, it’s a well considered check out experience.
Start there and build backwards. Make sure that product page is where users drop into and has all the SEO benefits, make sure it’s optimised for sale and make sure it’s fast to load.
Take a moment to ensure your design is cohesive & refined for e-commerce messaging
The aesthetic and functional design elements should be a consistent blend of your brand’s narrative and e-commerce functionality. Imagery, typography, and colour schemes should all be aligned, irrespective of intent or where a page sits.
It sounds obvious, but as many integrate WooCommerce / Shopify / Big Commerce plugins to otherwise differently hosted sites, it’s often not done automatically and involves some patient setting up. Make sure it all looks like one site!
Once you’ve got your ideal shop to brand balance and understand you site’s user journey – look at ways to improve conversion. Systematically check off the following, starting with the necessity for a quick, intuitive, and secure shopping experience.
Good calls to action: Is what you have written evident and compelling? Ensure visitors can effortlessly transition from engaged browsers to confirmed buyers.
Minimised steps: The checkout process should be as succinct as possible, reducing the potential for cart abandonment. Can you take a step out of it (auto fills, single page checkouts etc.)?
Secure and diverse payment options: Offer a variety of secure payment methods to accommodate diverse preferences and assure purchasers of transaction safety.
E-commerce enabled product descriptions
Informative product descriptions:
Just because you may have covered it elsewhere, when it comes to your product page – the page where users will add to cart – don’t assume they have seen anything else on your site. For example – most of the traffic will land directly on product pages when you do campaigns.
Detail enough of the distillation process, ingredients, flavour notes, and suggested serves to build the appeal. Build emotional connections where you can.
Once you think you have got your first draft ask yourself, have you resolutely answered the question. WHY should they care?
Now rewrite the whole thing again. Ensure that each time you said what is involved in making your product, what it tastes of etc. it is followed by why that matters to the drinker.
No botanical word salads, no smooth finishes and quintuple distillation chat. Reasons why each contribute key desirable flavours. If you mention process – Why does that process contribute to the profile. If you mention flavour – Why does it matter to the person buying it (what can they do with it)?
SEO Optimisation:
Use keywords, headers and find ways to strategically boost visibility on search engines without compromising the quality of the writing. There are many plugins for this to tell you how you’ve done.
Leverage tools like Google Analytics to track user behaviour and conversion data. Platforms like Shopify and Big Commerce have ample data analytics too.
These will help you understand if people are adding to cart or not, abandoning etc. Through understanding the journey, you can reduce the journeys that don’t end with a sale.
Trust signals and social proof
Use professional photos: Employ a professional photographer to capture high-resolution images of your products. You should already have plenty from your Media Kit. Why would someone trust that you have a high quality product if all your images are amateurish?
Image optimisation: Ensure that images are compressed without compromising pixel quality to maintain swift site loading times. Speed matters. Don’t be lazy – go through each. Add Alt tags on images, name the image files appropriately. It might seem basic, but it’s amazing how many screangrab1.png’s there are out there…
Security Badges: Ensure SSL certificates and other security badges are where they need to be, and up to date.
Reviews and Testimonials: Highlight customer reviews and testimonials to provide genuine insights into the quality of your products. Don’t forget about the service too – that you can deliver on time, as promised. Consider Trust Pilot or something similar.
Share success stories of your products, like awards won or notable mentions in the media. Individually, these might not be much but collectively, they add to the overall trust. Besides, if you are not going to include awards and media quotes here – then where and why did you enter them?
Compliance & security
Shipping regulations: Clearly understand and communicate any state or country-specific shipping regulations related to alcoholic beverages. Age gates, signed packages and more can be a legal duty, not a best practice consideration.
Third-Party payment processors: Utilise reliable and recognised third-party payment platforms to handle transactions securely. If you are worried about fraud, talk to them about how to set up red flag systems . Most e-commerce platforms have easy solutions to block suspicious orders.
Data protection: Ensure that customer data is stored and processed securely, adhering to all relevant data protection legislations. Make sure that your Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions are clear, easily accessible, and comply with relevant laws (such as GDPR or CCPA).
By systematically considering all of these things, you can dramatically improve your rate of sale and convert website traffic into customers. You are armed with all the talking points to consider and debate as a team – and when ready go through each section again and implement what’s appropriate for you.
Just remember – your website is more than an e-commerce portal. It’s your digital home and it needs to convey that. It ought to be there to educate and enthral first and foremost, not just convert a user into a shopper.
The good thing is that it’s infinitely possible to seamlessly integrate a balance of brand building and hard sales tactics. Over to you to find yours!
