How to Segment Your Website Visitors for Maximum Profits
by Leeia Ladipoh on March 26th, 2008
If you think that having your website up and running and updating it regularly is enough for your online business to be successful, you are missing the boat. For your online business to really do well, you have to make sure that you are targeting the right customers and selling them the right products and services.
The process is called website visitor segmentation, or segmenting. The idea behind this process is to split those who visit your website into groups, watch what they do on your site, and learn from the information gathered.
Website Metrics
There are a number of metric programs on the market that will allow you to monitor various aspects of your website visitors. You can see how visitors came to your site. You can also see what got their interest on your site, and which pages they completely ignored.
Additionally, you can see how long each page kept their attention, or if they just quickly clicked through. The information that you get from these metrics is priceless.
Marketing
You can see which of your marketing tactics have worked by finding out where your visitors are coming from.
By setting up a metric to monitor referrals to your site, you will be able to see a list of exactly where your visitors are coming from. Create metrics to give a number or percentage of hits that came from each referral site. You’ll find out if your blog is working and referring customers.
You’ll also find out if visitors are coming from your AdWords subscription or from a completely different source. Once you know where your visitors are coming from, you can do more to market in that area - and possibly increase the flow of visitors to your site.
Sales
Once you have them on your website, it’s time to take a closer look at what your visitors are doing. If they are buying, that’s great. Is there a way to get them to buy more, or more consistently? If they are not buying, what’s stopping them? This is something visitor segmenting will tell you.
You essentially have four types of people who are visiting your website - first time visitors, repeat visitors, first time buyers and repeat buyers. Here’s a look at what you can learn by dividing and comparing each of these groups.
* First Time Visitor - This person has never seen your site before. This person will either just look around or become a first time buyer. If you notice that new visitors are not buying, you may want to take a look at what items they are looking at on your site, and decide if a better deal can be had elsewhere.
There may be a way that you can change your marketing strategy to make these visitors become buyers.
* Repeat Visitors - These people pop in regularly to see what you have, but are not buying. Deal with them in much the same way as the first time visitor.
If you notice they are searching for items that you don’t have or keep looking at similar items, you may consider adding to your product line or changing your marketing tactics to make a sale.
* First-Time Buyers - Once you get a prospect over the hump and convince them to buy, you should take a closer look at everything that they looked at on your site, and what they decided to purchase. You may notice there are similarities between the items they are looking at, and ultimately buying.
By coming up with a marketing plan that will convince them to buy more than one of those items, you have the potential to double your profit on each sale.
* Repeat Buyers - Once you have a set of repeat buyers, take a closer look at what they are buying. You know that they are loyal customers, so if you can offer them something else they want, they probably won’t think twice about giving your their money.
Look at the most popular items among your repeat customers and try to find complementary items to add to your inventory.
Your website can be much more than a place to make sales. It can also be a place to study your business and learn how to make even more profits in the months and years to come.