Increasing Repeat Visits: Let Readers Take Charge and Optimize the Experience

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Modern, digital consumers are used to being in charge. They get what they want, when and where they want it. When engaging with and reading digital content, consumers have the same expectations and meeting those expectations can help to drive repeat visits.

Consider the following scenario: A reader gets the day’s headlines at 5 p.m. but doesn’t open it while she’s still at work and won’t have time to read them. If she has the option to indicate she wants her daily news at 7 p.m., she’ll be much more likely to click on the email headlines to read more.

Allow Readers to Create Their Own Experience

For readers that know what they want, providing options on for optimizing their experience is an obvious tactic for increasing their repeat visits. For those readers that don’t actually say what they want, predictive tools enable publishers to watch behavior and adjust cadence to reflect user preferences.

The following tactics for adjusting cadence to reader preferences are described in greater detail in our guide Increasing Repeat Visits:

  • Allow readers to manage the variety and timing of incoming emails.
  • Use predictive tools to assess readers’ potential pageviews and email opens and then adjust frequency of messages up or down to reflect reader behavior.

Allowing readers to adjust their experience so it maps to their preferences and behavior increases loyalty. When readers will get their content when they want, they’re primed for higher engagement and repeat visits.

Mashable’s Preference Center Puts Readers in Charge

The online entertainment and media company Mashable offers readers an email preference center that allows them to determine timing of top stories and alerts. Any reader who clicks “unsubscribe” goes right to this preference center, giving them options that address their reasons for churning, such as too many emails at the wrong time.

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More Ways to Stem the Churn

In addition to cadence, our guide also provides insights into using content and creativity to connect with reader preferences. These tactics include the following:

  • Creative: Connect with readers leaving a page or site with pop-up messages that offer optional actions (e.g. save article, subscribe to newsletter).
  • Content: Optimize page viewing experience based on content, e.g. break up long reads into multiple pages or create an infinite scroll of personalized articles.
  • Channel: Suppress emails to readers unlikely to open them and instead engage via other channels, such as Facebook or mobile.
  • Channel: Target readers through the channel, i.e. social, mobile or email, that generates the most repeat visits from them.

Download your guide to increasing repeat visits for details on how to implement these tactics and increase your reader engagement.