Web Next.0

Can your website hold an intelligent conversation with your subscribers each time they return to visit it? Can it analyze their behavior individually, and respond with appropriate navigation and follow-up emails to best meet their needs and objectives, and in a timeframe short enough to keep their attention?

Meet Web Next.0. While the reporting, analytics, and technology are in place to optimize Web Next.0, in most cases the current level of website/subscriber conversation is not close to optimal, and importantly the conversation—if there is one at all—typically comes to an abrupt halt once visitors leaves your website. This creates a less-than-satisfactory experience both for you and your subscribers each time they come back to your website.

There are two components to building a Web Next.0 conversational website. The first involves optimizing navigation and collecting data at key navigation points. The second involves using the data collected to continue the conversation once the person has left the website.

Do you remember playing a game where the object was to identify a person or item someone was thinking about by asking questions, and the person who got to the answer after asking the fewest possible questions won? It is worth playing that game with your website, and asking others to play the game while you observe their behavior. The importance of this exercise is twofold:

• One is that you are simply improving the customer experience at your website and making it easier for them to find what they are looking for.
• The other equally important objective is to remove noise from the data you collect about your site visitors so that you can continue your conversation based on information that reveals the true purpose for subscriber’s visit to the website.

The next question to ask yourself is: with this data in hand, how well do you currently identify relevant content and offers based on the visitor’s behavior while on your website? Are content and offers likely to meet the visitor’s needs and goals? Content and offers that can be sent via email shortly after the visitor leaves your website? Content and offers that will confirm the relevancy of the conversation and add value to the subscriber experience?

Web Next.0 is all about developing satisfactory, fulfilling conversations with your subscribers each time they visit your website, conversations that over time generate more sales and higher CLTV simply because you have found a better way to provide your subscribers with exactly what they are looking for, and in a format that makes your site an interactive resource and destination they look forward to using over and over again.

And always keep in mind that your subscribers come to your website for a reason(s), and helping them succeed in meeting their needs/goals is never intrusive or interruptive.