Building a Web Community

Return Visits

To have your target audience visit your site for the first time requires that you promote its existence typically by advertising, search engine placement or word-of-mouth recommendation.

A site that adds value to your business is one that encourages the target audience to spend time at your site and to return on a regular basis. This may be to satisfy an informational need, purchase products, for entertainment or for other rewards (sales promotions).

By building a Web community you actively encourage visitors to return to your site again and again.

Every company like yours has knowledge that they generate or collect. This is valuable to your target customers. Make this information available on your site - people will come to read it, and in the process, will learn about your products and services. But don't be afraid to use this the information on your web site to sell your company.

This section is about using that knowledge to build loyal customers - a Web community.
 

Register Site Visitors

The most vital data you can get about visitors is their e-mail address. To get this you cannot rely on them making a purchase. For those who are "just looking" you should include a registration form on your site (perhaps with some offer to encourage people to fill it in).

The registrations will give you the profile of visitors (depending on what you ask) and permit you to send them a regular e-mail. Ideally you want visitors to return and to be part of your community. You can request that your browsers subscribe to or register on your site (without requiring it).

By acquiring this information you are collecting demographic information about the people who access your site. This will help in maintaining the site in the future. You will be able to keep your audience updated with new site features.

The Internet is unobtrusive but Email is not. If you can gather Email addresses of those that frequent your site then you can contact them when you wish. Be very careful doing this however, browsers do not like "junk mail" appearing in their in-basket.

Get Recommended

People are very responsive to a personal recommendation to visit a website. It is not difficult to encourage recommendations.

One way is to include a link or a form somewhere that asks visitors to "recommend this site to a friend". Internet users are busy and may not fill in the form because they are in a hurry. But some will want to recommend your site. Encourage them to do so, but make it easy and pleasant.

Back to Marketing

Home

Bookmark Your Site

Visitors will return if your site gave them what they wanted. They may remember the address (URL) but, more likely, they will "bookmark" your site by adding it to their list of favorites.

It does no harm to suggest to visitors that they do just that. Every browser (like Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Netscape) has a book-marking facility. Remind visitors to add your site to their list of favorites and you will increase the chance that they will return.

Survey Visitors

An effective site must be designed around the needs and motivations of its target audience. Understanding why a web browser accesses your site will enable you to design the site to fit your target audiences' needs and encourage them to return whenever those needs occur, book-marking your site.

The web site is ideal for doing a research survey of your visitors. You can either run the survey on the site or else e-mail them the questionnaire and offer them something to fill it out (e.g. a price discount voucher or free information). Ask them how you can improve the site for them:

Direct E-Mails

Regular e-mails to existing or prospective customers draws them into your circle. Make sure that your audience really wants to be getting e-mails from you. Give them the option of being taken off the list. Don't "sell" at them. E-mails should provide information and relevant offers and promotions that they want to know about.

Opt-in email is the opposite of "Spam" email. When people voluntarily sign-up to receive your e-mail, they are "opting-in" to your mail list. Because they have actually requested information from you, your messages are not considered to be junk or unsolicited email.

Sending messages and information to people who have given you permission to contact them is a great way to build the kind of relationships that will encourage a steady flow of traffic to your Web site and greatly increase your online sales, whatever your business.

Every e-mail you send should include a hyperlink to your website to allow the recipient to find it easily. Your URL (website address) should be published in your brochure and placed on your letter head and business cards. Put an ad at the bottom of your email (in your signature file). It's free. If you regularly send many emails each day, it soon adds up.