There is a simple but accurate adage that states, "You can't manage what you don't measure." Whilst this is most commonly applied to business planning, it's no less relevant for your cellar door. Knowing what motivates visitors generally is one thing, knowing about who visits you specifically - and why - is vital.

What can you Research?
Given time and resources, you can research just about anything you need to! However, for the purposes of gathering relevant information about your visitors and customers, there are several methods that can deliver important planning information.

The tasting process is ideal for gathering information about your visitors. By integrating specific questions into normal conversation, you can actually gather important data. Most cellar door operators do this as a matter of course, which is why they can "generalise" about the types of people who visit them. Actively pursuing the data and recording it will give you an extremely valuable planning tool that can assist in many different areas.

For example, if you know that most of your visitors come from the northern area of your capital city, you can concentrate some specific marketing activities in that area. Locally, if you find that most people come to you as a result of the brochure and offer you've placed in the Visitor Information Centre, then you can quantify the cost of this activity.

The Numbers Game
Conversion rate and yield per person are other important measures. Most cellar door operators know their total sales, but not the true cost of achieving that sale. Each person who walks in the door represents an acquisition cost. Without measuring the actual number of visitors converted to sales, you can't really know how successful your selling methods are, or the actual cost of attracting them in the first place.

Yield is about how much each visitor spends with you. Repeat visitors tend to spend much more than first time visitors, so knowing this can assist you in targeting these visitors more effectively with incentives, and working harder on first time visitors to establish loyalty.

How many of your total visitors sign up for your mailing list? Do they purchase on the day of visit or wait for offers to be sent out? It doesn't take long to see trends PROVIDED you actually make the effort to gather the data in the first place. Anecdotal data doesn't count for much because it's subjective - just like wine appreciation. Your observations on a busy weekend may be very different to those of staff working during the week.

Collecting Visitor Data
You can create simple forms to survey visitors about their perceptions of your property. This could include things like evaluating the signage, parking, grounds, quality of service and facilities and much more.

And of course, there's the all important consumption data. Collecting this kind of information requires the visitor to fill in a (usually) extensive survey form in order to gather the relevant psychographic, demographic and wine specific data you might need. If you're not skilled on the analysis side of collecting the data, you will probably need to enlist the help of a qualified researcher.

Remember that visitors are doing you a favour by filling in forms, so offer them something in return. It might be a bottle of wine (if the survey is particularly cumbersome and important to you) or simply the opportunity to go in the draw to win a case of wine. Just make sure you offer more than simply thanks!

Using Templates and Surveys
Visitors won't be too impressed if you shove a survey form under their nose and demand that they fill it in every time they visit. The current trend to survey consumers means they may have been surveyed somewhere else recently, and many view it as an unwelcome intrusion on their time. The key is to collect information sensitively and unobtrusively. If you've got the time and resources, you can collect reams of data that can help you profile your visitors and create your promotional plans without ever showing the visitor a pen.

However, this kind of data collection won't work effectively in very busy cellar doors or if you want to collect qualitative data on an occasional basis. In this case, you will need to ask your customers to fill in a form - however brief or complicated - to ascertain the results. Bear in mind, that the quantitative information you collect will represent a snapshot in time (since you probably won't be getting visitors to do it every day) and therefore might not be as useful in determining trends.

This Research Kit contains both kinds of data collection tools, and instructions on how to utilise them.

However, before you start, take the time to learn more about the methodology, benefits and analysis of research. In the document titled 'Your Guide to Conducting Cellar Door Market Research', check out:

• Overview of Australian Wine Industry Marketing Research
• The Importance of Researching the Cellar Door
• What is Marketing Research?
• Why is Marketing Research Important?
• Benefits of Conducting Research vs No Research
• Types of Research - Quantitative and Qualitative
• Sampling and Data Collection
• Data Analysis and Interpretation
• The "Life" of Conducting Marketing Research
• How to Write a Cellar Door Research Brief

Then begin collecting and analysing your visitor data to use in your future business and marketing planning.