Small Business: Eight ways to achieve viral stickiness

Grow your own Web site Once you've mastered the basics of an e-commerce site, you're two Webby words away from a more advanced level: sticky and viral.

If you lather your site with sticky and viral devices, you'll turn visitors into customers and get your customers to tell their friends.

What the words mean
Sticky, in Web parlance, is the ability to get your visitors to stick around your site, and then return to it later. And if you can get your visitors and customers to spread the word about your site, then it's viral.

Sticky is important because Internet consumers buy from favorite places, but they don't shop like consumers at brick-and-mortar establishments -- walking by a store, popping in if it looks interesting. Instead, they look for sites that hold their interest long enough to save as a favorite place or bookmark.

To a large extent, 'Net consumers find out about these sites from friends. That's why it becomes important to make your site viral.

Good "word-of-mouse" advertising is very effective at reaching new visitors. Not only is it inexpensive, it goes out with an implied endorsement. You can add Web devices to make it very easy for your visitors to tell friends, such as a button that says, "Send this article to a friend."

New tactics are emerging for effective e-marketing. Most grew from time-honored principles of direct marketing, yet they are not used widely on the Internet.

This void presents an opportunity for service-savvy sites to snap up a tidy chunk of a 'Net segment. Most of the effective 'Net strategies involve making a site sticky and viral. These eight methods to get your customers to stick around, return and tell their friends will put you ahead of the competition.

1. Interact
Use interactive marketing to cross-sell, up-sell and re-sell products. This is a version of "Want fries with your order?" Anticipate your customers' needs. Structure your interaction to be more helpful than pushy. If a customer is buying a laptop, mention that you have an easy-carry printer on sale. If you sell hot sauce, create a place where visitors can exchange recipes. Sometimes the best niche marketing lies in providing enthusiasts the opportunity to interact with experts or talk among themselves.

2. Target and segment
If a new mom orders a breast pump, guess what? She also needs infant clothes and a room monitor. It isn't difficult to place customers into groups according to products purchased. You can individualize your newsletters to include a chunk of segment content individualized by group. This is as simple as tagging your customer, tagging your editorial content and then matching the two.

3. Get personal
Use personalization to broaden and deepen relationships. At the appropriate time, send personalized messages such as "Thanks for buying again!" "Do you want to use the same card you used last time?" and "By the way, you get a 5 percent discount for coming back." Develop continuous relationship marketing to build customer loyalty. For example, ask the customer who buys a Muddy Waters CD if a free weekly newsletter with blues reviews, concert news and interviews would be of interest.

4. Give out free stuff
There is a reason "free" is a direct marketer's favorite word. It gets attention. Make a list of free stuff -- newsletters, downloads, reports, product comparisons, cool-site lists, screen savers, inexpensive products -- that can be included in a paid order. Rotate your giveaways regularly and post notices high on your home page. Tout your free stuff at the top of your newsletter.

5. Get central
Use affiliations and cross-links to important sites to put your site at the main intersection for your subject. Add product reviews, preferably from third-party sources. Product comparisons are also helpful. All of this indicates your site is on top of its subject.

6. Beautify
Graphics are fluff, but you can use them to communicate credibility and professional aptitude. Make sure your site looks more hip and sleek than your competitors'. Remember that ease of use is also a form of beauty. Keep your click buttons orderly and attractive. Avoid clutter and keep your most popular buttons up at the top of your home page so your visitors don't have to scroll down to paydirt.

7. Be friend-friendly
Get viral in every way you can. Make it easy for visitors to share your content and address with their friends. Add a "send this to a friend" button at the bottom of your content pages. You can also give friend discounts and referral rewards to customers who tip a friend to your site.

8. Keep changing
On the Web, if you don't change your content frequently, visitors will quit dropping by. If possible, add to your home page daily. A Web user will be turned off if your home page contains nothing new after two weeks. It leaves the impression that you are not very interested in your own site.

The concepts behind Internet success are straightforward. To succeed in Web marketing, you have to put its unique powers of communication and connectivity to work. You don't have to be a large corporation to use them, but you have to keep your site interesting and devise ways to interact with your customers.

Rob Spiegel is a freelance writer based in New Mexico
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-- Posted: Jan. 20, 2000