The comparison shopping stage affords the opportunity for your website to generate minor commitment levels from your visitors. Perhaps you offer volumes of information on “how to do something for some reason,” but to compare method A to method B, the visitor will have to provide a little information first before the tool can be used, and this is the point of entry for our list marketing plan.
This is the exciting part of the buying process for marketing folks. This is where lead classification takes a giant step. If somebody visits your site but cannot be enticed to subscribe to one of your tools, couldn’t we say that that visitor is still in the information gathering stage?
If we measure total traffic, we can soon develop an understanding of the ratio between information gatherers, comparison shoppers, and buyers simply by the activities that they perform and the pages that they visit on the site. Over time, these ratios will guide future product (and service) development.
List Marketing Solidifies “Top Of Mind” Awareness
Imagine you have several different lists for people to join on your site. From newsletters, to information sources, to free give-aways, these inducements are an excellent way to slowly pull your visitors into the fold. As long as the list marketing provides value, a portion of your visitors will be willing to exchange their name and contact information for the value provided with the list.
By way of example, some of the lists that I feature on my real estate web site include:
- Weekly newsletter filled with charts, graphs, and analysis of the real estate market
- Daily updated list of foreclosures and short sales in my local market
- Daily updated list of properties that allow for special financing for credit-damaged buyers
- Home seller advisory list feature progressive marketing techniques for selling a home
As you can see, people with these specific needs or wants will be drawn to these “free” lists. So what type of list marketing could your company use to entice registrations and subscriptions by your visitors?
As we delve deeper into The Internet Squeeze, you will soon find that list marketing will become the very glue that pulls people back to your products and services on a regular basis. List marketing will allow you to gain a deeper connection to your visitors and will provide the permission for you to pitch your product or services on more than one occasion. Since we know that not all traffic is “ready buyers,” then the list marketing plan works to relate to the information seekers before they are lost to another competitor or distraction.