Email Newsletters Build Relationships and Communities
Website success depends largely on providing incentives that encourage visitor email registration. Email registration, in turn, permits the site owner to follow up with those individuals at a later date through alerts, blogs or email newsletters—i.e., building a relationship. If a website does not attempt to capture the visitor’s email address, the user may never revisit, and the relationship is lost. Some website archetypes are more oriented toward relationship building than others.
For example, a simple brand-building website, where the purpose of the site is to deliver a message about the company or product, could have some level of success without doing a great job at relationship building. On the other hand, relationship building, along with attracting traffic, is a primary mission of an Internet hub. An Internet hub that doesn’t do a good job of relationship building would be considered a failure.
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Customization is Key
EverdayHealth.com is an Internet hub that does a good job of relationship building in two ways. First, they clearly invite visitors to personalize the website by customizing their homepage. Above the search box in the top right corner there is a link to “Register / Sign in”. In exchange for your email address, you can personalize the homepage.
With the personalized homepage, you will see the latest news and tips on the subjects that interest you most. You can share photos, write blog entries, connect with friends and family – even write on their “wall”. This builds your relationship as it builds their community.
Second, you can customize your correspondence by selecting free email newsletters. They offer over 50 separate categories that you can individually select to ‘subscribe’ or ‘unsubscribe’. And they tell you exactly how often each email newsletter is published – daily, 2x week, weekly or monthly.
Bringing traffic to your website from any of source, free or paid, enables you to build a relationship with those individuals by offering free content—an email newsletter, for example—and to capture the names in your marketing database. Incidentally, we know of no better way to begin a relationship in the current marketplace than through a free email newsletter.
