Web Site Elements That Keep ’Em Coming Back 51

Web Site Elements That Keep ’Em Coming Back 51
new site is listed. Remember that this must be updated on schedule;
displaying a week-old Site of the Day reflects poorly on your site and
your company. For more information, see Chapter 18 about hosting
your own award site.
Keep Them Happy with Cartoons
Displaying relevant cartoons keeps your site dynamic and fun. You do
not necessarily have to create all of the content and features yourself. If
you update this weekly, ask if visitors would like to be notified via e-mail
when you update your Web site. A good example of a site that uses
cartoons is the Myke Ashley-Cooper Cartoons4Fun site (http:// www.
cartoons4fun.com/c4f.shtml), which continuously provides humor to
its viewers (see Figure 3.15). Cartoons provide a great viral marketing
opportunity.
Figure 3.15. The Comics4fun site offers amusing cartoons to its viewers and
has an e-mail list that informs visitors when a new cartoon is put on its site.
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52 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Benefiting from Humor with Jokes and Trivia
“Laughter is the best medicine” and could prove to be a popular feature
of your Web page (see Figure 3.16). People enjoy trivia, or a Thought of
the Day (see Figure 3.17), and there are many sources for you to draw
from. Be sure to update regularly. Again, this gives you the opportunity
to ask if your visitors would like to be notified when you update this
section of your Web site and offers a viral marketing opportunity as
well. Always make sure that whatever you include as content on your
Web site is appropriate given your objectives and target market.
Who Doesn’t Love Games?
More and more sites are featuring fun activities and games. Again, your
content must be appropriate given your objectives and target markets.
(A sample game site is shown in Figure 3.18.) Just about anything goes
here. You can host anything from a Star Wars trivia contest to having
guests play an interactive game with other visitors. Allow visitors an
easy way to “Tell a friend” about your game.
Figure 3.16. Women.com has a joke of the day that you can view on-line.
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Web Site Elements That Keep ’Em Coming Back 53
Figure 3.17. The Daily Motivator allows you to sign up to receive your daily
motivation via e-mail and also encourages others to put the Daily Motivator on
their sites.
Figure 3.18. Sony Online has many games for its users to enjoy.
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54 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Keep Customers in Touch with Update Reminders
Ask visitors to your site if they would like to be notified when there are
updates or content changes to your pages. This is similar to a mailing
list except that you write to the “list” only when changes have been
made. This is effective when you have a newsletter or a frequently visited
calendar of events on your site.
Special Events Reminder Services
People can sign up to be reminded of something via e-mail on specified
dates (see Figure 3.19). This feature was originally thought of by a florist
to remind people about important dates. You can remind people
about any number of things relating to your business. If you own a site
that sells fishing and hunting gear, you could get visitors to sign up to be
reminded when certain fishing or hunting seasons start. You should try
to develop a reminder service that relates to something that you sell
Figure 3.19. FindGift.com has a reminder service where you can register to
receive e-mail reminders for those special dates.
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Web Site Elements That Keep ’Em Coming Back 55
from your site. In your reminder you can include suggestions about
what fishing fly works best at this time of the year.
Reminder services are becoming very popular with e-commerce sites.
Their services are very much appreciated by busy people who are not
good with remembering dates. This has saved me on more than one
occasion and made it very easy to purchase from the site that provided
the reminder. I have five nieces and nephews across the country. I have
registered their birthdays with a site that also asked for some details
about the reminder—things like what the date is, the relationship that I
have with the person, their ages, things they enjoy, and how far ahead
of time I want to be notified. Like clockwork, ten days prior to Ryan’s
birthday, I got this e-mail: “Susan, your nephew Ryan’s birthday is in
10 days. He will be 12 years old. Ryan likes PlayStation video games.
We happen to have several that might be appropriate as a gift for Ryan.
Click here for more details.”
I am then able to choose the gift that I want to purchase, the paper
I want it wrapped with, and the text that I want on the card that will be
attached to the gift. Then I simply provide the address I want it sent to
and give them my credit card number, and they send it off. Everyone is
happy, especially me.
Establish Yourself as an Expert with Advice Columns
Some Web sites are incorporating advice columns, as in Figure 3.20.
People will return again and again to read the e-mails asking for advice
and to see the responses that are given. This also helps perpetuate an
image of your company as an expert in your given field.
Internet Resources for Chapter 3
I have included a few resources for you to check out regarding repeattraffic
generators. For additional resources on a variety of topics, visit
the Resources section of my Web site at http://www.susansweeney.com/
resources.html. There you can find additional tips, tools, techniques,
and resources.
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56 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Bring ’em Back for More
http://www.lunareclipse.net/bringemback.htm
You shouldn’t just work to get visitors to your site; you should work to
keep them coming back time and time again. This site gives you some
tips on how to do just that.
Driving Traffic Back
http://ezine-tips.com/articles/strategy/20001031.shtml
An article on how you can use e-zines to create repeat traffic.
Six Things You Can Do to Increase Your Repeat Traffic Today
http://www.wizardzone.com/content/reptraf.htm
Some great ideas for encouraging repeat visitors.
Stimulate Repeat Traffic with Bookmarks
http://wilsonweb.com/wmta/bookmark.htm
An article about using bookmarks to increase the likelihood of repeat
traffic.
Does Your Site Extend Its Welcome?
http://www.liontwins.com/ezine/articles/000503.shtml
This article provides good tips about how to generate repeat traffic.
Figure 3.20. A column that gives consumer credit advice.
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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 57
57
4
Spreading the Word
with Viral Marketing
Have you ever visited a Web site and found an article, a coupon, a
special, or something else that impressed you so much that you immediately
sent an e-mail to your friends about it? If you have, you’ve already
been bitten by the viral marketing bug! Viral marketing, which is often
referred to as “word-of-mouse” marketing, is a low-cost, highly effective
way to market your product or service using the Internet. Just like a
flu virus in humans, viral marketing replicates and propagates itself online.
Viral marketing enables you to capitalize on referrals from an unbiased
third party—the consumer! The power that peers and reference
groups have over the purchasing decision is phenomenal. Similar to how
a positive testimonial from a reliable source can add credibility to a
product or service, the opinions of friends, business associates, and family
can also help influence a consumer’s purchasing decision. By implementing
various viral marketing techniques on your Web site, you are provided
with a dynamite opportunity to leverage the opinions of the
consumers’ reference groups. In this chapter, we will cover:
• How you can use viral marketing to increase traffic
– Word-of-mouth viral marketing
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58 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
– Pass-it-on viral marketing
– Tell a Friend scripts
• Various ways to leverage your viral marketing campaigns
• Incentives to encourage viral marketing.
Capitalizing on Viral Marketing Opportunities
Viral marketing can be one of your most powerful online marketing techniques,
using the power of associations to spread the word. Viral marketing
is still evolving, but today we see three common forms being used:
1. Word of mouth, such as “Tell a friend,” “Send this coupon to a
friend,” or “Recommend this to a friend”
2. Pass it on, when we receive an e-book, cool tool, or funny video,
and then forward it to friends
3. Product or service based, when a free tool is used online and
that tool includes an embedded marketing message, such as
Hotmail.
Word of Mouth
You can use viral marketing techniques in a number of different ways
throughout your Web site. By placing a “Tell a friend about this product”
or “Share this page with a friend” button on your site, you enable users
to quickly and easily spread the word about your site and your products.
Visitors can click on the button, provide appropriate information in the
“To” and “From” fields (including name and e-mail address of both the
recipient and the sender), and a brief message. Although the message is
personalized, your business can include additional information about the
product, including features, benefits, the price, and a link directly to the
page where the recipient can purchase the item. Because the message is
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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 59
personalized from a friend, the recipient is more apt to visit the site to
find out more about the product than he or she would be if the e-mail
came from a traditional corporate e-mail campaign.
Amazon.com (see Figure 4.1) is a prime example of a company that
has implemented viral marketing features throughout its site. When visitors
browse through Amazon.com’s 3 million plus product listings, they
are always presented with the opportunity to “Tell a friend about this
product.” Providing this feature leverages the effectiveness of the
Amazon.com Web site and ultimately results in increased sales for the
company.
In addition to the aforementioned techniques, there are many different
ways that you can implement viral marketing techniques on your
Web site. If you have a newsletter on your site, you can add a “Tell a
friend about this newsletter” button on the site. You can also incorporate
a message in the body of your e-mail newsletter encouraging readers
to forward a copy to friends they think would benefit from the
information included in the newsletter. You should also include information
in the message on how to subscribe to the newsletter. The recipi-
Figure 4.1. Amazon.com leverages the opinions of its customers by incorporating
an “E-mail a friend about this item!” option for all of the products on its
Web site.
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60 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
ents will then be able to send a copy of the newsletter to their friends,
who will in turn be presented with the opportunity to subscribe and
regularly receive the newsletter (see Figure 4.2). The opportunities for
viral marketing are endless.
A good word-of-mouth viral marketing strategy enables a visitor to
your site or a recipient of your e-mail to share your site or e-mail content
with others with just one click of a button or link. The design and placement
of that link or button is critical to the success of the campaign.
First of all, you should look to every repeat-traffic generator you
have on your site for viral marketing opportunities. Repeat-traffic generators
like coupons, newsletters, e-specials, and contests all provide
ideal opportunities for “Tell a friend” or “Send a copy to a friend” links
and buttons. Once you have determined the viral marketing techniques
you are going to use, you want to make it easy for the site visitor or
e-mail recipient to spread the word.
To be effective, you have to make it obvious what you want your
visitors to do. Use a call to action to get them to do it. A button with
“Send this coupon to a friend” or “Tell a friend about this e-special”
works well. Don’t assume that people will take the time to open
their e-mail program and send an e-mail to a friend about your
Figure 4.2. Including a “Tell a friend” button on your newsletter can encourage
readers to forward a copy to their friends.