Collecting Web Site Visitor Information
 Part Two: Requesting Visitor Input
Q: I’d love to know who visits my Web site because
I could contact them afterwards to try to make a sale. How can I tell who
has visited my site?
A. We learned about tracking software and
the kinds of information we can collect from site visitors. Because tracking
software does not pinpoint exactly who a visitor is, its usefulness to
us is limited.
If we want to market most effectively to our site visitors,
then we need to know specifically who they are. There’s only one good way to gain that information. How? By asking them.
Requesting Information
When a Web site visitor arrives at your site,
he is seeking specific information that will help him fulfill a need
or answer a question. If your site has been built to accommodate
him, he will recognize that learning even more from you can further
help him. He may want to contact you directly, or, if he’s not quite
ready to do that, then he will look for a way to gain more information
from you.
At that point, he might be willing to identify himself to you, or at least trade some basic information for a promise from you. But here is a key point: he will only be willing to trade his personal information to the extent he feels he will benefit from the promise you make.
Making Promises
Depending on the products and services your business
offers, you may want to offer the promise of a free sample, a free subscription
to a newsletter, coupons, or anything in between. Your offer – or promise -- needs to be worth more to your site visitor than the information you ask him to share with you.
How do you know what personal information a visitor will be willing to trade?
The easiest way to determine that answer is to think about how you use the web yourself. If you need a piece of information, or would like a discount, or to try a free sample of something, what information are you willing to share?
Examples: A restaurant offers a coupon each month to anyone willing to provide an email address. Would you sign up? Yes – if you like to eat dinner at that restaurant. An accounting firm offers a newsletter for business owners in trade for their postal addresses. You would be willing to provide it if you believed the advice would help you save tax dollars. An online book store promises you a discount if you’re willing to provide your social security number. Would you sign up? Probably not – because
providing your social security number online rarely
makes sense.
You can use the same parameters to help you decide
what promise you might make and what information to
ask for in return. If you are unclear, create a few scenarios and ask
some of your current customers or potential customers which of those
scenarios would be acceptable to them. Build your scenarios according
to the information you think you need to most effectively market to your
visitors. The generosity of the promise will determine your visitor information
gathering success.
From a technical point of view, forms, databases, and/or
email deliveries to you will be needed to collect the
information. Check with your web developer to determine how extensive
a project it would be to set up such offers to your site visitors.
Next we will discuss privacy statements, and
giving your visitors control over how they receive
information from you.
(Link to Part Three: Security, Privacy
and Spam)
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