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Stickyness, Without the Honey
How much time are you spending trying to secure new visitors to your website? Are you totally focused on marketing SEO to provide new hits?
Now ask yourself this question: How much time are you spending keeping your existing customers coming back to your site?
Stickyness is the key to recurring customer visits.
The first element of stickyness is relevant information. Keep your customers coming back with updates to your information and products. Express your values with clear language, and don't hide behind flash videos and distracting marketing tactics. Don't try to sugar coat your message with the latest web trends.
One of the easiest ways you can keep your customers coming back is create a community. Develop a website that reinforces a sense of community and sharing. Express your goals and values with your visitors, and ensure that you have made a special place for them to share their ideas.
You can do this in four ways:
The easiest way to encourage customers to revisit your site and participate in shaping your message, is to create a comment form. Comment forms can be private, where a customer sends their comments directly to you through a predefined form. Or they can be public and static at the bottom your service or product pages. Public comment forms encourage discussion. Customers will leave comments, and then return to read comments that other visitors have left.
Another easy way to create stickyness with your customers is to provide them with an informative newsletter. There are many different types of newsletters. Some companies provide updates on products and services, others provide useful tips, while even others provide event listings and general industry news. Make sure that your newsletter has a "Share With A Friend" button or form, so that they can easily pass your message on to others.
Create a Blog. Give your company a voice, and a face. Create a place where you can express your own ideas; about your brand, or about general topics. Either way, create an open discussion with your customers. Create comment areas, and share websites and other Blogs of interest. People are always interested in connecting with someone who shares their interests or has similar stories. Give them insight into your own experience.
A more in-depth method of keeping customers returning to your site, is to build a forum where members can sign up and share their thoughts about your brand. Create a space where visitors can connect with each other. Though a more involved strategy, it can be extremely rewarding for both your company and your customers. Customers feel like you have nothing to hide from them. Often a customer's decision to buy your product is based on the online resources that you offer them.
A forum can create an endless knowledge base provided by users of your products. Their feedback and discussions build a community around your brand and provide them with a voice. The more a customer feels they have invested in your brand, the more loyal they will be.
In they end, your own goals will determine the best method to create stickyness. Ask your visitors to fill out surveys or polls about their own preferences. Use this as a base for your marketing plan.
Don’t try to impress them with flash movies and cute widgets. Make their visits worthwhile. Engage them, and make their opinions count.
Pamela Weir
Copyright (c) 2008 Market to the Moment (March 2008)
