Question

Topic: E-Marketing

5 Tactics That Would Keep Visitors Coming Back

Posted by Anonymous on 8/29/2009 at 10:18 PM ET 125 Points
What are 5 tactics that will keep visitors coming back to your site? (e-commerce site) Things that I have already thought of are: a contest, voting poll (to see who/what wins), a cool video... It is a new e-commerce site, selling a type of furniture. The typical customer for this will most likely be male, all ages. Product price range from $150-$350.


thanks.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 8/29/2009 at 10:51 PM Accepted
    Dear night_butterflz,

    The points you mention (a contest, voting poll (to see who/what wins), a cool video) all have one fatal flaw: they're all about you.

    Your site is NOT about you. It's about the needs of your customers and the benefits, values, and solutions they can find on your site.

    What keeps people coming back?

    Content. Navigability. Simplicity. Offers. Deadlines. Scarcity. Value. Benefits. Solutions. Trust. Confidence. Significance. Relevance. Social proof. Guarantees. Risk reversal. Salience.

    I hope this helps. Good luck.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA
  • Posted on 8/30/2009 at 5:56 AM Member
    Any chance of a link to your website?

    There are many reasons for a low return rate and without seeing what you have it is difficult to evaluate what the problem may be.

    As Gary has mentioned above there may be issues with the site to start with. Are you using Google analytics? These may give an insite such as a high bounce rate. People coming to your website and leaving from the same page - not looking at other pages in the site.

    Best of luck

    Nigel T Packer
  • Posted by Markitek on 8/30/2009 at 3:04 PM Accepted
    Why would someone come back to a furniture store? Because they want more furniture. You're not in the business of entertaining them or creating some kind of web loyalty. Ask yourself the simplest of questions. If you wanted to buy a piece of furniture--regardless of what it is--would you care about videos or contests or any of that? I wouldn't. I would go there to price, compare, validate the offering and then make a purchase. I would come back if I wanted more. Think not of website loyalty, which is not meaningful to you, and more of product loyalty.

    What about the people that come to the site looking but won't buy until later? You have to figure out a meaningful way to gather contact info. Here you're talking about some kind of content, deilvered via email (so you get their address) that provides value to them: interior design tips, care/repair techniques and so on. Once you've got contact info you can intelligently reach out to them on a regular basis to keep your name in front of them, send out specials, that sort of thing.

    You might actually be one of those (not so numerous) companies for whom social media efforts could help: "great deals on new line of end tables at yoursite.com" might be a tweet worth tweeting.

    Leave the entertaining to the entertainers.
  • Posted by matthewmnex on 9/1/2009 at 8:55 PM Member
    Remember that you are NOT in the furniture business.

    I will repeat that :-)

    Remember that you ARE NOT IN THE FURNITURE BUSINESS.

    Yo are in the happiness business, people want to make their lives better, they want nice things to make their homes beautiful and comfortable and enjoyable.

    people want to buy the best possible quality and beauty that they can afford (with a smattering of functionality of course depending upon the purpose of the furniture item).

    So, it means that you site has to be about 'beauty, comfort, enjoyment, relaxation, security, and all the other things that a home represents to people.

    before buying any furniture, my wife runs out to the magazine store and buys a bunch of 'Beautiful living / architectural and home design magazines and spends hours looking at beautiful furnitures in fabulous (staged) settings and then decides on a style that she likes. Of course we can't afford any of it but then we go to the furniture stores with a strong sense of direction about what we would like to have and we search it out.

    What you need in your site is a Quiz or series of quizzes that can help people to 'design' / 'focus' in on the kinds of styles and sizes and colours that they need.
    A kind of 'Furniture Diagnostic Quiz'.

    Of course, you will have access to all the lovely data hat you are capturing about their preferences and price ranges and this will also help you to build / buy more appropriate furniture to fulfill the desires of your buyers.

    Offer 'free interior design tips and advice and money saving ideas. This 'Content' portion of the site will keep visitors coming back and position you as an expert in the field.

    You can have a monthly tips and designs news letter to keep in touch with your loyal buyers and prospects.

    Please do give us a link to your site so we can check it out and order some furniture ourselves :)

    Good luck.

    Matthew
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