4 ways online publishers can stop failing at retention

Today, arguably the most important metric to be tracking when it comes to success as an online publisher is retention. Increasing traffic is a critical first step, but if your bounce rate is high the largest volume of traffic in the world isn’t going to help you generate the revenue necessary to survive and succeed as a digital publisher.

While there are plenty of tools available that will help publishers increase their traffic, technologies that will help them create a space to own the interaction and engagement with their community of readers are few and far between. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have been incredible tools in helping publishers reach new readers, but running your community solely through Facebook leaves publishers subject to the company controlling their reach and exposure to that community.

Ultimately, publishers need to find ways to improve the on-site experience of their visitors to turn their website into a place which doesn’t only provide content, but an experience around it. Below are four ways you can improve the retention of your website visitors.

Content discovery

Once a visitor has arrived to your site, you have a unique opportunity to develop a relationship with someone who shares similar interests. Offering valuable content is critical– whether it’s authored by you or someone else. Sharing content that wasn’t authored on your site, and that could even link away from your page, helps you develop credibility with your users and will lead to increased visits and more time spent on site. It also shows them you care more about giving them a valuable, enjoyable reading experience, thus building customer loyalty.

Email subscription

Email is a great tried and tested way of driving customer retention. A reader’s email gives you a way to target them in a personal way beyond when they are physically present on your website. But instead of treating email solely as part of a sales and marketing funnel, turn it into a way of giving your readers more value. Beyond sending a tailored daily digest, which can sometimes be annoying for readers, you can also use email to start an interactive process with your readers that loops back to your site.

Invite them to get involved in an online discussion which trends surrounding an article they read, or ask them who would be a ‘dream writer’ to invite on for a guest post, or what kind of content they would like to see more of. Not only does this drive engagement, and give you a sense of what your readers want, but more importantly, it builds your relationship with them. Readers will feel they have a stake and a say in what happens on site, creating a stronger sense of brand loyalty.

Live events online

Turning your static website into a dynamic location for live ‘content events’ is a very effective way of engaging with existing readers and even pulling in new ones. Reddit’s celebrity AMA’s are a great example of leveraging the live, online presence of a celebrity or famous personality as a way of engaging readers and offering a content experience that goes beyond just reading an article or watching a video. While you may not be able to book Johnny Depp for a couple of hours online, it’s definitely worthwhile finding someone who will appeal to your specific community and partnering up to run a live event. At Spot.IM, we’ve seen several of our communities do just that, and it’s had a great effect.

Brazilian indie music site, www.SuaMusica.br ran a live Q&A with a Brazilian comedian, which brought more members into the community by targeting his fans. Leading rock magazine Kerrang! Did something similar with “My Chemical Romance” guitarist Frank Iero, who ended up staying for double the time to answer more questions because he was enjoying himself so much. That Q&A was then used as the basis to create a piece on “26 things we learned from the Q&A with Frank Iero,” further maximising the impact of the ‘content event’.

Give each visitor a ‘face’

Too often we consider a share on Facebook or Twitter as the ultimate social content goal, but publishers have to start promoting social interaction on-site as well as off if they want to maximise the value of their traffic. Equally important as the conversation you enable between your site visitors, is the conversation you have with them yourselves. In an age increasingly characterized by personalization, it’s important to be able to put a face and a name to your website visitors, and then find a way to interact with them personally. Personalization in this case should be about making yourself more approachable and visible as a publisher or website owner, and it can have a huge impact to interact with your readers as such.

Ultimately, all these tips rest on building a relationship with as many individual readers as possible, and with your community of website visitors as a whole. By making the effort to listen to what people like, and by offering them real value at every turn, you will be able to build the kind of customer loyalty that will increase retention and drive business goals.