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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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Summer Wine Excursion

January 12, 2006

My summer break over the New Year involved an impromptu decision to tour around some of the wineries in the north-east Victorian region of Australia. One of the digressions that my un-educated palate led me to was a visit to the Annapurna Estate Winery, a small vineyard situated at the top end of Victoria's Kiewa Valley. After sampling a few of their pinots, I got to talking with our host about how I could buy more at a later time, because after navigating more than 350 km, it was unlikely I'd make it back in a while.

Our host astutely pointed me in the direction of the Annapurna website for wine sales; a fairly sensible option because Glen Waverly seemed another epic drive away from Fitzroy (I've since learnt they have a stockist much closer to me). I then wondered how much website traffic this small vineyard attracted and was disappointed but unsurprised to find on Hitwise that the site measured below the radar.

The point is I discovered Annapurna through a bit of luck (it was the first one after a bendy stretch of road) - not because I'd found it online beforehand. Small wineries have the opportunity to improve their chances of being 'discovered' online (despite whatever need for mystique) by simple devices such as effective SEO, email marketing, listing on top-ranking travel and food lifestyle websites, or distributing through popular grocery retail channels that specialise in wine.

Hitwise data enforces that it's a worthwhile enterprise as searches on the term 'wine' grew by 40% between July 2 and December 17 2005, spiking dramatically prior to Christmas. The Hitwise Search Breadth tool shows that variations on the term, 'winery' grew by 17% for the same time period, with 4-word variations increasing from 12.74% to 16.28%, indicating that users are conducting more detailed research into wineries.

While there's marketing value in being described as 'a hidden treasure', the many small players in the wine industry scattered across regional Australia have a chance of competing by being visible online to their chief export market: city dwellers like me that only get out of the smog annually…

(nb. sensible, sober driving was engaged at all times; I had this blog to get back to!)

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