Is Your Site A One Hit Wonder? Get People Coming Back

Is your website’s bounce rate really high?

Is your site a “one hit wonder” where someone goes, hangs around a little bit, then never returns again?

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 assume the customer will do this on his or her own.

You can’t count on your SEO bringing you to the top of their next related search.

You can’t assume they’ll add your site to their bookmarks. (C’mon, are they really going to make your ‘sales page’ on of their Favorite Places? Seriously!)

If all this is true, then what can you count on?

You can 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.

Of course, if you tried to email your prospects one by one, it would take forever. You don’t have the endless time or energy required. Even cutting and pasting the same email for set of email blasts would take too long.

But with an email autoresponder, your problems are solved.

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 the internet age, an email autoresponder is mandatory. Fortunately, there are very good options that aren’t that expensive, and their features keep getting better. One cool thing you can do is segment part of your email list to “test” a controversial message, and then see what happens. Maybe your test segment buys a lot more, in which you send a similar message to the rest of your list. If your test segment doesn’t buy more, then you’ll try a different test for next time, or just forget about it.

If you don’t have an email autoresponder, it’s time to get one. Today

If you’re ready to get started with email marketing, you’re probably wondering “Which email marketing service should I use??” Dan Serenen has posted a special review of GetResponse against Aweber at his site. Visit today.