How to encite interactions on a website?

[jv43]

We've just launched a beverage company that aims to be fully managed by an online community i.e. they make all the decisions a CEO would normally make.

We've have a lot of positive feedback but it seems difficult to get people to interact on the platform. We even receive many emails with feedback and suggestions but people don't seem comfortable doing that on the website.

We are about to add a little bit of gamification so that people can get points from interacting but not sure if that's gonna good enough. I was wondering if anyone had a few ideas on how to increase frequency and encourage quality of interactions.

Cheers.

 

[InTheCloud]

Hey,

I had a look at your site and I must say the concept is great and really quite innovative.

Onto your concerns though; The website looks and feels great although I did feel there was a lack of 'process' when I signed up. Although you did provide joining info as an introduction, I do feel you would get better success if you took the new joiners through a tutorial, taking them through different pages and explaining each page to them, whilst encouraging input to the different aspects of communicating their points. As always I think you'll need a solid group of people to share their input on the site before others follow suit.

Maybe stating things like "we need your input" and making users vote for a couple of things as soon as they join.

I do think that it may be a very different concept to grasp for most people as you rightly said, this is the first of its type and as with all things, it takes people a while to really get used to it and not be too scared to voice their opinions on a business site that is potentially filled with people who could be a lot more business savy than they are. It does require a level of confidence (if not ignorance lol) to voice opinions that can directly be critiqued.

Forgive if I'm wrong as I'm no expert on these things, just found your business structure quite interesting and as I see it, the way to go for a young, ambitious company who want to sell something that's quite acquired in the 21st century

More than one way to skin a cat though

 

[Tim Coulter]

You probably need to start by measuring some key aspects of visitor behavior:

• New vs. returning visitors. I'll guess most people visit once and don't come back because there doesn't appear to be much to do on the site apart from watch the video (although the video is slick and quite intriguing).
• What percentage of visitors actually watch the video?
• What percentage of those create an account?
• Of the ones who create an account, what percentage go on to interact in the way that you expect?

Once you have these numbers, you'll see more clearly whether the problem is reluctance to sign up or lack of motivation to use their account once they sign up.

If sign-up is the problem, you might try:

• Replacing the welcome message with something that better conveys your value proposition. (I have to admit that, even after watching your video and understanding your pitch, I can't imagine why anyone would care, but maybe you have a more convincing way to get that message across).
• Moving the sign-up form above the fold.
• Eliminating the false page bottom (which may prevent some people from knowing that the page scrolls).
• Offering a more compelling reason for signing up (and be very specific).
• Changing the button wording to something more motivating (with specific benefits).
• Adding some reassuring wording about privacy.

If the problem is lack of interaction inside the private area of the site, you'll need to figure out why users have created an account (try using a survey tool like Qualaroo) and adjusting your interaction to meet that need.

Above all, you need to develop some reason for them to keep coming back, which may entail adding site content or devising a social media strategy that more closely ties into the goals of the site.

Good luck.

 

[jv43]

@In the cloud, Thanks a lot for your help. It's great to have this kind of feedback. I like the idea of getting new members to vote from the moment they got on the website. I think it could be called "on boarding" which guides the user through a few steps as he start them of. However, we are a little bit tight in terms of budget for the website, but I'll look if I can find some affordable on-boarding options.

@Tim Coulter, Thanks a lot for your feedback. We'll look into all this in more details. Would you happen to know however what kind of ratio is normal in terms of numbers of people who visit your website, to the number of people who sign up, or to number of people who actually interact ?

 

[Tim Coulter]

Would you happen to know however what kind of ratio is normal in terms of numbers of people who visit your website, to the number of people who sign up, or to number of people who actually interact ?

The conversion rate depends on many factors, including how targeted your traffic is and whether there are other distractions on the page that might be sharing visitor attention. Also, the end-to-end conversion rate will vary depending on what you're asking visitors to do.

I am currently running a campaign with very targeted traffic and a very focused landing page (just a sign-up form and nowhere else to go) and achieving opt-in rates as high as 47%, but I don't expect a high percentage of these leads to translate into follow-up actions because I understand that most of my visitors are just curious.

If you achieve a 20% opt-rate, with perhaps 10% or 20% of those interacting on your site, I would say it's a good starting point.

However, conversion rates are very context sensitive and visitor motivation (i.e. traffic targeting) is critical. When optimizing conversion, you should always try to improve upon your own best and not concern yourself too much with what other sites say they are achieving.

One last thought: you might consider using a different way of hosting/embedding your video, as it ends with the standard YouTube tactic that tempts viewers away to watch other videos instead of taking the action that you want them to take.