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A heretical look at Web pages
Web page marketing that breaks the rules HOW MANY WEB PAGES have you been to over the past month? Quite a few, probably. How many have
you been to twice? Not many, we'll bet. Now look at the pages you revisit and ask yourself why you go back. Is it for all that marketing material? Not likely. According to SurveySite of Willowdale, Ont., 74 per cent
of repeat visitors are lured by content, enjoyable visits brought back 71 per cent, good organization brought back 68 per cent and uniqueness lured in 66 per cent. And according to Market Facts of Chicago, of those
who use the Internet, 82 per cent go online for information, 81 per cent for e-mail and 69 per cent for research. Only 15 per cent shop online. In other words, we have to stop thinking of Web pages as mass marketing
tools. Don't be distracted by wild hype about selling to 20 million Internet users. There are 20 million people in New York City, too, but you're not going to get their attention by putting up a poster in Times Square.
Your Web site should be as targeted as the rest of your communications is. Hits don't matter. "Eyeballs" don't matter. If Joe Client only visited you once, because he needed your mailing address, does it
matter if he never visits again? No. The site has done its job. What matters is not the number of visits, but the quality of each visit. Use your Web site to build relationships with those clients who want more from
you than another hard sell. Your visitors should feel like they are part of a small circle of treasured friends, invited to your electronic office for a chance to rummage through your filing cabinet and spend time
getting to know you. They should be able to find more information then you would ever mail, as well as free information about your specialty, written as if one friend were talking to another. You might even challenge
them to a game. And just as you wouldn't bore visitors with holiday slides, don't make them sit there watching your graphics load. SurveySite found that graphics don't bring today's impatient browsers back. Good Web
strategy shouldn't be about generating meaningless hits, but about giving customers valuable information in a way that is entertaining, easy to use and relatively appealing visually. Your Web site isn't a magazine.
It's a private party that anyone can attend. And if that party gives your top 10 customers what they want, then it has built loyalty that will lead to more business.
Cornerstone is a writing and editing firm that uses marketing and PR principles to create "words you can build your business on."
Call us from anywhere in the world for rush work.
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