These cookies aren’t chocolate chip, they are digital identification tags that pop up on the screen whenever a Web surfer enters a site he has not visited before. And they are becoming widely used by marketers looking to gather and store information about prospects.
The concept is simple, the better a company knows its customers, the better it will serve them. In a cluttered world, cookies are an easy way for electronic merchants to track their customer’s tastes, and deliver to them only the products or content they are specifically interested in.
Online sites like Amazon.com, Microsoft.com and LLBean.com are using cookies effectively to gather personalized data on prospects and turn them into customers. Although, many merchants are making mistakes as well, forcing customers to click on a cookie to gain entry to their site, and dismissing them if they don’t comply.
When using cookies, go slow – it’s better to wait for customers to volunteer their likes and dislikes than to demand information from them that may scare them off, permanently. What follows is a list of suggestions from savvy online marketers:
Do Practice “Permission Marketing”
The first step, says Alby Segall, president of Alby Segall & Associates, a public relations firm in Denver, is to practice “permission marketing” when it comes to cookies.
In other words, don’t automatically try to milk information from customers with cookies when they first arrive at the site, says Segall. Instead, take a more gradual approach. Explain to your visitors why you want the information and how it will help them as they tour your site. “Be clear and let your customers know exactly what you want,” says Segall.
Do Let Those Who Don’t Accept Cookies to Access Your Site
If the customer refuses to provide the information, they should still be able to see the site, and not have to suffer through a needless error message or some other such cyber-punishment.
Do Provide a Benefit for Using Cookies
Site operators should give visitors some tangible benefit for providing the information they request. For too many sites, the only benefit seems to be some unadulterated spin about how great their visit will be once they provide the information. Holt Educational Outlet recently conducted focus groups to determine if using cookies on its site was appropriate. “Customers were not afraid to use the cookie as long as the next time they logged on they were greeted with a personalized message and were offered special pricing and discounts based on their individual buying habits,” says Annie D. Bourgeois, a spokesperson for Holt.
Don’t Redirect Cookie Users
Avoid promotional deals with other marketers and redirecting your customers to them. Travelocity has used this technique to route surfers to advertisers. But it’s considered a highly risky move, one that could easily alienate your prospects.
What are some other, positive uses of cookies your site can incorporate? Microsoft’s Slate.com, the online magazine run by former Washington pundit Michael Kinsley, uses cookies to help recognize a user and bypass the password process when visiting the site. Others are using cookies to allow online shoppers to add products to a virtual shopping cart while browsing a catalog, and when they are ready to check out, the cookies are used to total the order.
