Fostering Return Visits

[Kelly Mack]

Sure, an entertaining video or other glitzy web trick can lure people to a website once, but how do you get people to return once the novelty wears off? I think this is one of the greatest challenges websites face in this day of media-blitzed Internet users.

Designing for the Social Web argues that organizations need to understand the audience’s motivations for visiting the website and support these motivations with appropriate content and design. The book reviews some top reasons for using a website and suggests how a company can meet those expectations.

In my job at a trade association a lot of my time goes into communicating with members (small business owners who remodel) about the offerings of the association and listening to learn their needs and how our group may be able to help. We prioritize dialogue with the members and providing services to support their business.

Remodelers, as you may imagine, don’t spend a lot of time sitting at their desks surfing the web (unless business is slow). So it’s a great challenge getting our members to spare the time for logging into the website and taking advantage of our online resources. I’m constantly updating member pages with new information to supply them compelling reasons to log in and use our site.

By reviewing Joshua Porter’s list of motivations (on page 97-98) for return website visits, I can do a mini-assessment of our member website and propose some ideas for enhancing our content:
• Identity. Our member website requires signing up for an account and logging in to access member-only resources and information. While the profile options are sparse, it allows for some individuality in creating preferred settings and receiving information from the association.
• Uniqueness. Not a lot of the content allows for individuality except for setting preferences on the login home page. The website dialogue is fairly one-way and it would be great to offer some interactivity among members, perhaps a forum for posting questions and receiving feedback from fellow members. I would enjoy having a rating system for content so we can know what they find valuable and what we should not waste our time on.
• Reciprocity. Our members are highly motivated to share their experience and advice with others. A lot of informal mentoring and networking happens but it is not captured online because we have little website interactivity. Our current method is to publish member-written articles on relevant topics through the website and include personal contact information. A better social media solution could involve live chats, blogs with commenting, or even just adding a commenting option on content.
• Reputation. Adding more interactive features to the member website could greatly enhance reputation building. We address this motivation through the website by touting the members involved in committees, members who win awards, and members achieving other distinctions in the association (such as writing articles, teaching courses, speaking at conferences etc.). If we captured this information online we could create our own “Elite Squad” of experts with high reputations.
• Sense of efficacy. We build in efficacy on the website by offering exclusive information and news on the industry, publicizing member events and networking opportunities, and promoting professional education enhancements (such as course listings and audio seminars). Being able to offer more “live” events through the website could attract members more frequently with easier to access and less expensive learning opportunities.
• Control. Our website allows for some customization to individual members for prioritizing content and receiving messages.
• Ownership. Since most of the content is created by association staff I think ownership by the members is low. Incorporating more member interactive options could increase this motivation to participate in the site.
• Attachment to a group. The content consistently talks about remodelers and the exclusive sharing of knowledge and resources amongst our members. We hear offline that members value our network of remodelers and have a sense of shared identity. Attachment to the website is less because members don’t interact with others online, but instead can gather information from the association.
• Fun. While our members enjoy having fun during meetings and events, I don’t think the website belongs in this category. Again, offering more interactivity could help create member-generated dialogue and fun.

From doing this assessment, I have a list of ideas to propose for enhancing the member website with more social media, such as:
• Content rating
• Commenting on content
• Periodic live chats with authors or experts
• Leadership blog (with commenting option) on remodeling issues
• Improved log-in personalization with reputation ratings
• Online forum for posting questions and having discussions about remodeling issues

While we can’t do it all at once, this is a start for creating a website that is more interactive and attractive to my association's members.

[Allegra Giorgia]

You raise an interesting point about your members not really spending too much time on their computers - and needing to offer them fresh content and compelling reasons to log in. Social media really takes up a lot of time so it's really important that we think about which tools will increase efficiency for members, customers etc. But I think you're list is spot on. If you create a web site that is well done with some light engagement features - and make it worth their time to log on at the beginning or end of the day - you will be doing them a great service!