Web sites are necessary, but is there an ROI?
Web sites are necessary, but is there an ROI?
During the seven-day period beginning Aug. 13, 16,496 visitors came to The Nunes Co. web site and spent an average of one minute and 46 seconds leafing through the pages on www.foxy.com. Two sections in particular, "What's New" and "Great Recipes," garnered the most attention.
By almost any gauge, those numbers are impressive. Matt Seeley, director of marketing for The Nunes Co., said that over the past few months, both the number and length of visits has increased. Very early in the game, The Nunes Co. saw the value of the Internet and locked up some very good domain names. Besides its signature foxy.com, web users who type in "fruitsandvegetables.com" or "freshpro-duce.com" are also directed to the Nunes site.
"The key is to keep them coming back. Why are they going to come back once they have seen your site?" he asked. "You have to keep it fresh and update it all the time."
Of course, keeping it fresh and updated means allocating resources to the project. And there's the rub. Mr. Seeley said it is a foregone conclusion that having a web site in today's environment "is a necessary part of our business, but is there an ROI (return on investment)?"
He said that very few companies in the produce industry are using their sites for business-to-business activities. For most companies, it is an information tool -- "one book in the Internet library," he said.
But what about all the visitors to The Nunes Co. web site? Aren't they potential consumers of product, producing that elusive ROI? Might they not be predisposed to picking up "Foxy" lettuce or "Foxy" strawberries, the items currently featured in the company's "What's New" section.
Mr. Seeley said that undoubtedly many of those visitors are loyal customers, but a drilling down of the numbers reveals that many are not. He said the 16,496 visitors during the week of Aug. 13 launched their visits from 113 different countries, many of which do not carry "Foxy" fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact, less than 40 percent -- 6,222 visitors -- came from the United States. And Mr. Seeley is certain that at least some of those visitors typed in foxy.com expecting to see something other than lettuce. It is probably a testament to the company's web site, and its designers, that those visitors still spent an average of almost two minutes perusing the site even though it didn't meet their initial expectations.
Tom Tjerandsen, who is involved in a number of web sites in his position as a commodity manager for such items as California pomegranates and apricots and Chilean fresh fruit, does not believe the vast majority of current produce industry web sites can be justified on an ROI basis. "At the risk of being labeled a dinosaur, I think the web is a building wave, but the majority of commodity groups are well out ahead of that breaking wave and are spending money that will not show a return on investment for quite some time," he said.
He is constantly being barraged by recipe makers trying to tout their products and promising lots of visitors if the site has good recipes. There is plenty of information out there saying that recipes are one of the bigger draws on the Internet. But Mr. Tjerandsen still has to be convinced that a recipe visit on the Internet equates to a sale at the supermarket.
Although Mr. Tjerandsen's groups have the requisite web sites, he admittedly has not done much research to analyze who is coming to the sites and for what purpose. "We haven't analyzed our sites for a couple of reasons," he said. "In the first place, it is fairly expensive to find out who, where and why. And secondly, I don't believe in doing research unless it is actionable. And right now, we are not prepared to act upon it."
Jan DeLyser of the California Avocado Commission is involved with a couple of web sites for her commodity. CAC has a consumer-based site (www.avocado.org), and avocado growers also have an intranet site for the industry. Ms. DeLyser said it is difficult to quantify the value of the consumer web site. By its nature, the California Avocado Commission is in business to provide information, and its web site is another way in which to do that. "We think it is an important link to the consumer and we do lots of different things to drive traffic to our site."
She believes this direct marketing to consumers through the Internet has increased consumption and demand for avocados. She said the recipe section is the most visited part of the web site, and the commission does have circumstantial evidence showing that those recipes are used. During the November 2006 to January 2007 quarter, the CAC site had 1.2 million pages viewed, and 18,146 recipes were printed. Presumably those recipes were printed to be used.
While the value of the consumer site might be difficult to quantify, the Hass Avocado Board's intranet site, which links avocado growers throughout the world, has proved its worth through its use. The board promotes avocados from around the world in the United States. The intranet allows growers and shippers as well as buyers and retailers to get an ongoing snapshot of both supply and U.S. marketing conditions. The avocado industry has registered tremendous growth in the past few years, and this transparency is considered a key component of that growth.
Ms. DeLyser agreed that it is very important to constantly update a web site and keep it fresh. She said the commission redesigned its consumer site in 2005 incorporating the latest technology.
Kori Tuggle of Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville, CA, said that incorporating the latest technology into a web site is an all-important aspect of the concept. In fact, she said, if a web site is more than several years old, new technology has probably rendered it obsolete. She said that Ocean Mist had a very good web site with good content, but it was designed almost a decade ago and so it was not showing up often enough on the search engines -- or at least the most important one, Google.
The Ocean Mist marketing manager explained how Google ranks its pages, noting that when one is developing the web site, how one "build[s] the backend" is the most important aspect. Key words and phrases must be encoded to "optimize the pages correctly." So when users search for artichokes, for example, they are led to the Ocean Mist Farms web site. As the world's leading artichoke producer, it makes sense that artichoke searches would go to that site - but only if the site is built correctly.
Ocean Mist had just launched its new site a few weeks before this interview, and Ms. Tuggle said it takes at least one month for the proper coding to kick in, so to speak. She said the company has already improved the number of sessions on its site and expects the new design to pay dividends. But what does that mean?
"We put a lot of value into our web site, as we see it being a direct link to our consumers," she said. "Whether it is to learn how to cook an artichoke, learn where to buy them or get a recipe, the web is now a primary consumer resource. If we ignored this outlet of communication, we'd be ignoring our current artichoke users or potential users."
Ms. Tuggle said that Ocean Mist is in a unique position because it is a private company that serves as the primary information source for artichokes. So in that way, it also serves the role of a commodity group. While the company sells many items, and artichokes account for only about one-quarter of its business, Ms. Tuggle said artichokes represent 75 percent of the information on its web site. Artichokes, in fact, are the company's point of differentiation and distinction, and it makes sense that they garner the majority of its web site space.
One interesting sidelight is the company's experience with fava beans. Ocean Mist sells fava beans, and its original web site had information devoted to this product. In fact, it was one of the few sources on fava beans in the world. Consequently when someone typed fava beans, he or she was directed to the Ocean Mist site. Even today, six of the top 10 searches that result in a trip to www.oceanmist.com include the word "fava" in them. So when Ocean Mist redid its site, Ms. Tuggle said, it increased its fava bean content. Research shows that those coming to the site to read about fava beans also read about artichokes and download artichoke recipes.
"We are using that connection as a traffic driver. You have to take advantage of whatever traffic drivers you have," she said.
Melissa's/World Variety Produce Inc. in Los Angeles is one produce company that does try to conduct at least some business on the Internet. Director of Public Relations Robert Schueller said that the company store on the site offers numerous products to buy, with gift baskets being the top seller. "We sell a handful of gift baskets daily," he said, which are handled by the company's mail order department.
Mr. Schueller said that the majority of these are business-to-business sales to major gift basket companies, which are reselling the product to consumers. As one would expect, he said, on-line business increases tremendously around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
Like Ocean Mist Farms with artichokes, Melissa's sees itself as a conduit to the consumer with regard to specialty items. Mr. Schueller said that the primary function of the web site is to provide information on the scores of items the company sells. He said the goal is to be an education resource on the world of produce with regard to supply, handling and recipes.
The company's web site is filled with lots of information, much of it directed at the home or professional chef looking for recipe ideas.
Mr. Schueller said that it is impossible to gauge the value by looking for an ROI. He said that www.melissas.com averages about 5,000 hits per week, with the recipe pages being the most popular destination.
While Mr. Seeley of The Nunes Co. is not sure of the current ROI value of web sites, he does see their potential. "As an industry, we haven't done the greatest job in supplying information to the consumer. Now that we have them coming to our web sites, what are we going to do with this opportunity?"
By almost any gauge, those numbers are impressive. Matt Seeley, director of marketing for The Nunes Co., said that over the past few months, both the number and length of visits has increased. Very early in the game, The Nunes Co. saw the value of the Internet and locked up some very good domain names. Besides its signature foxy.com, web users who type in "fruitsandvegetables.com" or "freshpro-duce.com" are also directed to the Nunes site.
"The key is to keep them coming back. Why are they going to come back once they have seen your site?" he asked. "You have to keep it fresh and update it all the time."
Of course, keeping it fresh and updated means allocating resources to the project. And there's the rub. Mr. Seeley said it is a foregone conclusion that having a web site in today's environment "is a necessary part of our business, but is there an ROI (return on investment)?"
He said that very few companies in the produce industry are using their sites for business-to-business activities. For most companies, it is an information tool -- "one book in the Internet library," he said.
But what about all the visitors to The Nunes Co. web site? Aren't they potential consumers of product, producing that elusive ROI? Might they not be predisposed to picking up "Foxy" lettuce or "Foxy" strawberries, the items currently featured in the company's "What's New" section.
Mr. Seeley said that undoubtedly many of those visitors are loyal customers, but a drilling down of the numbers reveals that many are not. He said the 16,496 visitors during the week of Aug. 13 launched their visits from 113 different countries, many of which do not carry "Foxy" fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact, less than 40 percent -- 6,222 visitors -- came from the United States. And Mr. Seeley is certain that at least some of those visitors typed in foxy.com expecting to see something other than lettuce. It is probably a testament to the company's web site, and its designers, that those visitors still spent an average of almost two minutes perusing the site even though it didn't meet their initial expectations.
Tom Tjerandsen, who is involved in a number of web sites in his position as a commodity manager for such items as California pomegranates and apricots and Chilean fresh fruit, does not believe the vast majority of current produce industry web sites can be justified on an ROI basis. "At the risk of being labeled a dinosaur, I think the web is a building wave, but the majority of commodity groups are well out ahead of that breaking wave and are spending money that will not show a return on investment for quite some time," he said.
He is constantly being barraged by recipe makers trying to tout their products and promising lots of visitors if the site has good recipes. There is plenty of information out there saying that recipes are one of the bigger draws on the Internet. But Mr. Tjerandsen still has to be convinced that a recipe visit on the Internet equates to a sale at the supermarket.
Although Mr. Tjerandsen's groups have the requisite web sites, he admittedly has not done much research to analyze who is coming to the sites and for what purpose. "We haven't analyzed our sites for a couple of reasons," he said. "In the first place, it is fairly expensive to find out who, where and why. And secondly, I don't believe in doing research unless it is actionable. And right now, we are not prepared to act upon it."
Jan DeLyser of the California Avocado Commission is involved with a couple of web sites for her commodity. CAC has a consumer-based site (www.avocado.org), and avocado growers also have an intranet site for the industry. Ms. DeLyser said it is difficult to quantify the value of the consumer web site. By its nature, the California Avocado Commission is in business to provide information, and its web site is another way in which to do that. "We think it is an important link to the consumer and we do lots of different things to drive traffic to our site."
She believes this direct marketing to consumers through the Internet has increased consumption and demand for avocados. She said the recipe section is the most visited part of the web site, and the commission does have circumstantial evidence showing that those recipes are used. During the November 2006 to January 2007 quarter, the CAC site had 1.2 million pages viewed, and 18,146 recipes were printed. Presumably those recipes were printed to be used.
While the value of the consumer site might be difficult to quantify, the Hass Avocado Board's intranet site, which links avocado growers throughout the world, has proved its worth through its use. The board promotes avocados from around the world in the United States. The intranet allows growers and shippers as well as buyers and retailers to get an ongoing snapshot of both supply and U.S. marketing conditions. The avocado industry has registered tremendous growth in the past few years, and this transparency is considered a key component of that growth.
Ms. DeLyser agreed that it is very important to constantly update a web site and keep it fresh. She said the commission redesigned its consumer site in 2005 incorporating the latest technology.
Kori Tuggle of Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville, CA, said that incorporating the latest technology into a web site is an all-important aspect of the concept. In fact, she said, if a web site is more than several years old, new technology has probably rendered it obsolete. She said that Ocean Mist had a very good web site with good content, but it was designed almost a decade ago and so it was not showing up often enough on the search engines -- or at least the most important one, Google.
The Ocean Mist marketing manager explained how Google ranks its pages, noting that when one is developing the web site, how one "build[s] the backend" is the most important aspect. Key words and phrases must be encoded to "optimize the pages correctly." So when users search for artichokes, for example, they are led to the Ocean Mist Farms web site. As the world's leading artichoke producer, it makes sense that artichoke searches would go to that site - but only if the site is built correctly.
Ocean Mist had just launched its new site a few weeks before this interview, and Ms. Tuggle said it takes at least one month for the proper coding to kick in, so to speak. She said the company has already improved the number of sessions on its site and expects the new design to pay dividends. But what does that mean?
"We put a lot of value into our web site, as we see it being a direct link to our consumers," she said. "Whether it is to learn how to cook an artichoke, learn where to buy them or get a recipe, the web is now a primary consumer resource. If we ignored this outlet of communication, we'd be ignoring our current artichoke users or potential users."
Ms. Tuggle said that Ocean Mist is in a unique position because it is a private company that serves as the primary information source for artichokes. So in that way, it also serves the role of a commodity group. While the company sells many items, and artichokes account for only about one-quarter of its business, Ms. Tuggle said artichokes represent 75 percent of the information on its web site. Artichokes, in fact, are the company's point of differentiation and distinction, and it makes sense that they garner the majority of its web site space.
One interesting sidelight is the company's experience with fava beans. Ocean Mist sells fava beans, and its original web site had information devoted to this product. In fact, it was one of the few sources on fava beans in the world. Consequently when someone typed fava beans, he or she was directed to the Ocean Mist site. Even today, six of the top 10 searches that result in a trip to www.oceanmist.com include the word "fava" in them. So when Ocean Mist redid its site, Ms. Tuggle said, it increased its fava bean content. Research shows that those coming to the site to read about fava beans also read about artichokes and download artichoke recipes.
"We are using that connection as a traffic driver. You have to take advantage of whatever traffic drivers you have," she said.
Melissa's/World Variety Produce Inc. in Los Angeles is one produce company that does try to conduct at least some business on the Internet. Director of Public Relations Robert Schueller said that the company store on the site offers numerous products to buy, with gift baskets being the top seller. "We sell a handful of gift baskets daily," he said, which are handled by the company's mail order department.
Mr. Schueller said that the majority of these are business-to-business sales to major gift basket companies, which are reselling the product to consumers. As one would expect, he said, on-line business increases tremendously around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
Like Ocean Mist Farms with artichokes, Melissa's sees itself as a conduit to the consumer with regard to specialty items. Mr. Schueller said that the primary function of the web site is to provide information on the scores of items the company sells. He said the goal is to be an education resource on the world of produce with regard to supply, handling and recipes.
The company's web site is filled with lots of information, much of it directed at the home or professional chef looking for recipe ideas.
Mr. Schueller said that it is impossible to gauge the value by looking for an ROI. He said that www.melissas.com averages about 5,000 hits per week, with the recipe pages being the most popular destination.
While Mr. Seeley of The Nunes Co. is not sure of the current ROI value of web sites, he does see their potential. "As an industry, we haven't done the greatest job in supplying information to the consumer. Now that we have them coming to our web sites, what are we going to do with this opportunity?"
