subject: Is Your Site A One Hit Wonder? Get People Coming Back [print this page] Is your website's bounce rate really high?
Is your website the "one hit wonder" of the internet where your visitors come check it out for a day, then never come back?
Maybe you didn't mind. You enjoy the "unique visitors," and know that not many of your internet marketing buddies ask how many times your website visitors come back. After all, having 800 visitors come once sounds better than 80 visitors coming ten times, right?
If you want your site to be a cash machine, then you must have repeat visitors. The truth is that most people don't buy their first time viewing a product. They might want to read some reviews, look at some competitors, or talk to a spouse if it's an expensive product.
Over that small period of time, they might forget having gone to your site. Even worse? They might not be able to FIND your site again? Can you imagine that? Your prospect searching through the 2nd or 3rd page of Google rankings thinking "What was that domain name again?"
In fact, most purchases online result from a prospect visiting a website multiple times before making the purchase decision. Some experts say seven contacts with your product description are needed. I would say it's at least three. Either way, you want to make sure your visitors will be checking your site out again.
You can't count on them remembering.
You can't assume SEO will automatically bring them back either.
You can't count on them bookmarking. (I mean seriously, how arrogant is that? They're going to bookmark your sales page? Seriously?)
If all this is true, then what can you count on?
Email marketing.
If you capture a prospect's email address, and get explicit permission to email them with updates, promotions, and informational value, then you have the keys to the castle. You can email them once a week, or once a day, depending on how much value you're bringing to the table.
You might have a 5-day e-course you mail them or a bi-weekly reminder that your 4th of July sale is oh-so close. Either way, they have you in mind whenever you decide to say hello through their Outlook or Gmail.
Now, sending each prospect their own email would be a horrible experience. It's extremely time and energy consuming to send a lot of emails. Even cutting and pasting wouldn't save you a lot of the trouble.
But if you have an autoresponder, this is all taken care of.
Email autoresponders making email marketing a cinch. Once you set up your service to get your visitors' contact info (all opt-in), you pre-load a bunch of email communications into the software, and schedule delivery. If you have enough emails pre-written, you could have literally worth a year's worth of communication in the tank ready to go. Even if you have that year's worth of emails, you can still broadcast a special to your whole list (or just part of it) whenever you want.
In these modern times, an email autoresponder is absolutely necessary. Fortunately the good ones for small businesses are inexpensive, and their features constantly are improving. You can section off part of your list to "test" an advertisement, and then see how it compares to your usual promotional emails. If the test section doesn't perform, then little harm is done. If the test section sells a lot more, than you can try sending it to the entire list. There are endless possibilities.
If you don't have an email autoresponder, it's time to get one. Today
