Posted by arlene

After you have the consumers‘ attention, you have to bring them to your site. So, your next challenge is to give shoppers a reason to come to your store in the first place—then give them a reason to return. To attract visitors to your site, you have to promote not only your products or services and your unique selling position, but also give the consumer a reason to visit your Web store right now!

The marketing strategies to attract consumers to your site fall under two groups. These are the ways to attract Web consumers to your site and keep them coming back.

• Promotional Announcements
• Continually announce special seasonal, event and, limited time promotions. Loyalty Programs
• Build loyalty programs to keep shoppers coming back.
• Conduct surveys to find out what your customers want and need.
• Attract visitors to your site by giving away something free.
• Establish a free email newsletter.

Armed with this list of simple but powerful marketing strategies, you can give your Web store the success it deserves.

Promotional Announcements

A great way to get shoppers to your Web store is to offer them a timely product or service. Better yet, have them tell you when they would be willing to shop.

First, design your product or service offering around seasonal promotions. Use the major holidays such as Christmas, Hanukah, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Father’s and Mother’s Day to design special sales and promotions to draw shoppers to your site. Then give the shopper who visits your site a chance to tell you when he or she would like to be contacted with offers from your Web store.

Offer shoppers a reminder service. Allow shoppers to enter the details of any event they want to be reminded off, such as a birthday or anniversary. Send this reminder to them via email along with a link to your Web store with products that are made to order for the event they are reminded of. Another idea is to send shoppers at your site an email when a selected product or service they are interested in changes in your store—such as perhaps a price drop or a special limited time sale.

In all your promotions, try and give away something a shopper might value. It could be something as simple as a free piece of information that a shopper might find useful. With your promotion, inform him that he can find this free information on your site and send him to that page on your Web store. You might even offer a trial size of a product or a small piece of the service you offer.

If you sell software, offer a shopper a free demo to download from your Web site. If you offer a cooking course, give him the first lesson free.

You could tie these free offers to a customer survey asking the shopper a series of questions that lists his interests and helps you market to him in the future. But surveys can be tricky. It’s a well-known fact that the more information you ask people to fill out, the fewer people will complete the form. But there is a way to collect as much information as possible without having the shopper bolt for the mouse button and abandon your survey.

Ask for the information in stages.

First, ask for his email address to receive the free offer. After he enters his email address and hits submit and your server has recorded it, direct the shopper to a second page that has a form that asks for more a little more information. After the shopper hits submit on that page, direct the shopper to another page and another form to gather further information. Thank him for his help and offer another form on another page.

At each step you’ll lose people who won’t complete the additional information, but you’ll get many who will fill out more information than they would have if you had asked for it all at once. And besides, you will at least have their email address to send them promotional material in the future.

And it goes without saying that you will tell the shopper that his or her information will be kept in the strictest confidence—right? Remember your privacy guarantee?

Loyalty Programs

Getting good responses on your promotional activities is great. But a response is not a relationship. And you get that with loyalty programs. Loyalty programs also are known as incentives, membership clubs, frequent buyer programs, and rewards programs.

How important can a loyalty program be to your eBuinsess?

Jupiter Communications wrote that 56% of online consumers would buy more often if awarded loyalty points. The Harvard Business Review stated that companies could boost profits by nearly 100% by retaining just 5% more of their customers and that cutting defections in half can more than double a company’s growth rate.

As you can see, a well-run loyalty program can be of great value to a new eTailer.

A loyalty program can help you identify loyal customers, and a good loyalty program at your Web store can accomplish a number of marketing objectives. First, giving incentives to new shoppers can get them to purchase from your Web store. Second, a loyalty program encourages repeat business. Finally, with a loyalty program, you can track and build customer profiles with every customer transaction associated with your rewards program.

A loyalty program entices shoppers to become customers and then encourages them to purchase more often by offering rewards. Customers are encouraged to buy more by earning points, which they can redeem for special promotions and free products. You can set up a loyalty program yourself—but why bother. There are several good ones already available on the Net that you can join and will perform all the administration tasks necessary to run the program.

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