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Larger Than Life - Attracting Return Customers to Your Website
Your Web site is a powerful marketing tool and a great way to add value to your products and services. Getting online is a great first step. To fully leverage your Internet investment, though, your goal should be to get users to come back to your Web site again and again--or to increase stickiness. How do you get your audience to return to your Web site?
- Publish a Newsletter
Develop a newsletter that your visitors can really use, whether it covers current sales promotions or news related to your industry. Your newsletter can be printed or e-mailed, depending upon what your customers prefer. Since e-mail is faster and less expensive, build an e-mail address database of your customers (ask them!)
- Update Content Frequently
Fresh content will keep users coming back to your site, and will help to brand your company. Rotate a series of original articles, Q&As on a particular product, or company news.
- Fill Your Site with Useful Tools
Enable customers to track their orders, e-mail customer service, or view account status. Also, think of interactive tools--related to your company's product or line--that will help users, regardless of whether or not they're customers. For example, an investment company might offer a quiz on retirement savings or an interactive calculator on net worth.
- Add an Internet Resources Page to Your Site
Your site is rarely going to be a one-stop resource for users in itself. Think of other categories that would interest your audience and find quality sites that offer information on that topic. When customers are looking for a set of links on a particular topic, they might check out your site instead of a huge search engine. Also, consider adding a bulletin board or chat area to your site to help build a community for your users to keep coming back and communicating with each other.
- Sponsor Contests
Web-based contests usually generate a lot of response--especially if you have continuous (e.g. monthly) contests. There are lots of low-cost ideas, and all will bring traffic to your site.
Your Web site is an integral part of your marketing campaign. Maintaining interest in your Web site requires a commitment of both your time and resources, but creating a sticky Web site will help you to more effectively brand--and market--your company even when you're offline. So, it's well worth your continuing attention.
Next Topic: Content That Your Audience Will Love to Read
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