Does Your Website Engage?

Web hits, click throughs, and page views are all ways to measure Website engagement, but they don’t tell the entire story about whether a Website is engaging its audience.

Not all metrics are created equal nor are they useful for every audience. Take the various news portals, like Yahoo, Drudge, etc. They get tens of millions of hits from surfers who may stay there only long enough to scan the headlines. Is there stickiness? No. Will news hounds be back later in the day? You bet. Since the news portals have heavy ad traffic, one must figure that this mode of marketing is working well for them.

Some Websites are going to be limited in their audiences through no fault of their own. They may have “maxed out” at a number that is actually quite good for their genre. We wouldn’t expect millions of people to hit a city magazine Website, because it is limited by the universe of viewers who would be interested in that city.

E-mail Strategies

What the Website will do in this instance is to try and draw from the competition, rather than enlarge the audience for city magazines, which would be harder.

Most every member type Website will send its flock an e-mail update. Do the members respond to the e-mail, or to put a point on it, did the Website do anything in the email that would draw a response? An offer, a reason to correspond? If not, there’s a good chance that recipients will automatically delete the email upon arrival. Or unsubscribe altogether.

One of my favorite e-tailers drops a bunch of candy in the box. Their packages are eagerly awaited at our house. The candy costs them pennies.

Another way to engage members is the customer appreciation letter. Naturally, this is an opportunity to sell the customer something else, but if couched properly the customer will appreciate the courtesy and take the website up on their latest offer.

The Website itself is but a part of an overall strategy marketers need to reach out and connect with their audience, whether it be by Internet, by phone, or even snail mail. The Website is just the beginning.