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Get your visitors to voluntarily give you their contact information

Guest post by: Keith Thirgood

Article Overview: How to capture your site visitors' e-mail addresses and what to send them once you do.

Get your visitors to voluntarily give you their contact information

If you listen to a group of website designers and developers you will notice a sound coming from them that sounds suspiciously like a Mantra. "Content is king. Content is king."

If you believe what they pitch, all you need to do to succeed is to find a way to make your website "sticky". The idea is that your visitors will not be able to resist coming back, over and over, until they buy.

It's a great theory. But a little observation combined with a little knowledge of human behaviour puts the lie to their nice little theory. Look at your own behaviour. How many websites have you bookmarked in your browser? I have over 500.

Of these, how many do you remember why you bookmarked them? I know with my own, I'm lucky if I can remember 50% of them. And of the sites I do remember, I only regularly visit 5 or 10 sites. That's 5 or 10 sites out of 500. Those other sites were all "sticky" too. What happened to them?

Real life is what happened. Your target market doesn't have the time to revisit all of the sites that interest them. So what happens to the "sticky" site you've invested so much time making so? It gets forgotten by all those people who should be your clients.

There's a simple way to remedy the situation. Capture your visitors' e-mail address so that you can keep up a regular dialogue with them.

Now you have two questions: How do I capture my visitors' addresses, and what do I send them?

The answer to the first is found via the answer to the second. Offer them something they'll value, on a continual basis. This newsletter you are reading is an example of one of the most common items you can offer. People are on the Web searching for valuable information. If you offer to deliver it to them on a regular basis, many of your visitors will volunteer their contact information.

Newsletters work well for products and services that have depth and dimension to them. I could write on marketing issues for years and not risk running out of things to say. Nor do I put my business at risk by "giving away the store."

The drawback to producing a newsletter is that you must commit time to writing it on a regular basis. This proves to be difficult for many people. Some go to sites that offer free content for newsletters. Others hire professional writers to write or edit their material for them.

The advantage of the content sites is that their product is generally either free or very low cost. The disadvantage is that the content may not fit your market's needs.

The advantage of hiring professionals (Like Capstone: shameless plug) is that their material can be sharply focused on your target's needs. The disadvantage is they cost more.

Newsletters are not the only tool. Some businesses might find contests appropriate. Every month a contest form is e-mailed out to participants with a link back to the server for prospects to register their entry. This sort of contact tool can grow a database rapidly, depending upon the prizes and the target audience.

Periodic "special reports" can be offered. Contact is less frequent than with a newsletter, but the need to keep a regular schedule is diminished.

Another tool may be periodic "industry alert" or "industry news" bulletins. These don't demand the writing skills of newsletter producers, however they do require you to be up-to-date with the latest developments in your industry. (Or your target market's industry.) An e-mail alert can be simply formatted and consist of mostly bullet points, interspersed with comments.

Or for certain industries and businesses, people will sign up simply to receive notice of your latest special. I receive e-mail announcements from about 15 different companies whom I've given permission to send me their sale announcements. (But don't abuse your prospects using this privilege. You'd better send them *real* sales announcements, not just sales material.)

One of the beauties of regular e-mail contact is that it all can be automated! Through the appropriate use of autoresponders and listservers, your effort is reduced to just creating the e-mail that's to be sent. Maintenance is handled by the software.

You can set these systems up yourself, although it's often easier and more successful to have professionals (shameless plug #2) do this. There are some services out there, offering free listservers and autoresponders, but you pay for them by allowing other peoples' advertisements on your e-mail. For a professional business, this is not a very good option.

Some ISPs provide listservers and autoresponders as part of their basic business service. (Our own ISP provides these for free.) Most other ISPs charge extra for these items, or don't carry them at all and expect you to buy your own.

Keeping in regular touch with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of your prospects is good marketing in my books. If you want to make your web presence more effective, there are few things you can do that will return so much on such a small investment.

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Re: Contact Information - [quote="LoveInventions":f9lkza36] If the sites for personal use then I can understand people maybe being a bit cautious about supplying their email address. But when it’s for business I think it’s unforgivable. It’s like saying you’re never going to give your business card out because you don’t want people contacting you. It also seems strange, you put all that work into createing a site, creating content, getting visitors to your site but you then don’t want that to interact with people[/quote:f9lkza36] I agree - if the site is for business - it is necessary to include contact information. At least give an email address - that is checked on a regular basis. A mailing address (physical or PO Box) and a phone number are up to the individual person and their situation. I have to disagree about including a photo on a dating site. For single women who live in a small town - they should make the personal decision how much personal contact information to reveal - including a picture. I have a friend who was on an online dating site and she was talking to someone that happened to live 2 blocks from her and he drove past her house every day. Turns out he had a long criminal record including assault. Imagine what could've happened if he had her picture. That is an unusual situation, but it does happen. Better to keep some details to yourself and then reveal to people you feel you can trust. Chris
Re: No Card - No problem - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":1w4o5uwq][quote="jvprosperity":1w4o5uwq]Kevin, I don't personally look down on someone who doesn't have a business card. I politely ask them to write down their details on the back of my card and followup with them accordingly to find out how I can help.[/quote:1w4o5uwq] Sometimes I even see people handing business cards with crossed off info and hand-written phone numbers on them... or cards that don't even reflect their small business (i.e. a business card from their 9-5 job).[/quote:1w4o5uwq] that's true... I've gotten a few of those. Really, I don't care how i get contact information as long as it's uptodate - I'm willing to offer them to jot thier details down on my palm if necessary :O) Remember when palm pilots came out and there was talk about being able to bean contact information between devices? what ever happened to that? I heard of a conference once where each participant was given a similar device with their contact information preloaded (collected from the website registration) and when they met a contact they just tapped the devices together to exchange contact info and how they can help each other. At the end of the conference they handed these devices back and the information was then emailed to them. What a great tool! Just can't remember who the provider was.
Re: New site promotion - how to begin? - Very interesting one way yet - in Russia now very popular to attract to own site free publishiers which load own content to your site with own load links. Here earn site becouse have alwayes renew information and site have a lot visitors about few thothands on day and earn publisher from loading his content. I just started this method and his have succes When publish new unic information - increase a quantity of visitors I one week had increase in 4-5 time and than need new wave of information But I am alone and not have publishers yet
4 Ideas for Viral Marketing - 1. Purchase the branding rights to a viral E-book. Allow people to give away your free E-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet. 2. If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people don't have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board. 3. Write an E-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book if, in exchange, they give away the E-book to their web visitors or E-zine subscribers. 4. Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, magazine or E-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.
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