|
Collecting Web Site Visitor Information
Part Two: Requesting Visitor Input
Q:
I’d love to know who visits my Web site because I could contact them afterwards to try to make a sale. How can I tell who has visited my site?
. . . . .
. . . . . . .
A. Last month we learned about tracking software and the kinds of information we can collect from site visitors. Because tracking software does not pinpoint exactly who a visitor is, its usefulness to us is limited.
If we want to market most effectively to our site visitors, then we need to know specifically who they are. There’s only one good way to gain that information. How? By asking them.
Requesting Information
When a Web site visitor arrives at your site, he is seeking specific information that will help him fulfill a need or answer a question. If your site has been built to accommodate him, he will recognize that learning even more from you can further help him. He may want to contact you directly, or, if he’s not quite ready to do that, then he will look for a way to gain more information from you.
At that point, he might be willing to identify himself to you, or at least trade some basic information for a promise from you. But here is a key point: he will only be willing to trade his personal information to the extent he feels he will benefit from the promise you make.
Making Promises
Depending on the products and services your business offers, you may want to offer the promise of a free sample, a free subscription to a newsletter, coupons, or anything in between. Your offer – or promise -- needs to be worth more to your site visitor than the information you ask him to share with you.
How do you know what personal information a visitor will be willing to trade?
The easiest way to determine that answer is to think about how you use the web yourself. If you need a piece of information, or would like a discount, or to try a free sample of something, what information are you willing to share?
Examples: A restaurant offers a coupon each month to anyone willing to provide an email address. Would you sign up? Yes – if you like to eat dinner at that restaurant. An accounting firm offers a newsletter for business owners in trade for their postal addresses. You would be willing to provide it if you believed the advice would help you save tax dollars. An online book store promises you a discount if you’re willing to provide your social security number. Would you sign up? Probably not – because providing your social security number online rarely makes sense.
You can use the same parameters to help you decide what promise you might make and what information to ask for in return. If you are unclear, create a few scenarios and ask some of your current customers or potential customers which of those scenarios would be acceptable to them. Build your scenarios according to the information you think you need to most effectively market to your visitors. The generosity of the promise will determine your visitor information gathering success.
From a technical point of view, forms, databases, and/or email deliveries to you will be needed to collect the information. Check with your web developer to determine how extensive a project it would be to set up such offers to your site visitors.
Next month we will discuss privacy statements, and giving your visitors control over how they receive information from you.
(Link to Part III: Requesting Visitor Input)
Trisha Torrey, owner of IntegriMark Communications and author of http://411, has been helping businesses score on the Web since the mid-1990s. From large corporations, to non-profit organizations, to individual entrepreneurs, her advice, planning and development services have helped raise the Web marketing bar while keeping a keen eye on the bottom line.
Email questions to her at: questions@http-411.com .
|
