Yesterday I had a branding consultation session with a client and a few questions came up that I’m going to tease out here. This post will cover questions and answers on how to attract (in new media speak: how to get people to engage your brand) and keep users to your site happy. This is the first of two posts on this subject.

How do I attract people to my site/brand/product?

There are so many answers to that question. It helps if you live in Boulder where everyone and their mother (it seems) has a new venture of some sort…living in a place where asking for and giving feedback is not only ok but encouraged helps a lot.

Attracting new users is as simple and difficult as building something remarkable. Seth Godin, probably the most well known marketing guru out there, has written extensively on developing your Purple Cow. What makes you remarkable? Think you’ve got too much going on? Spend more time narrowing your branding statement.

People can sense remarkable even as bugs lurk and quirks linger.

I’m currently a beta tester for several startups. I am a big believer in giving sites a chance to evolve. When I first joined sk-rt (now kirtsy) I was unclear about what I was supposed to do on the site. It wasn’t even the navigation–there was just a lot going on on the page and I didn’t visit frequently because I didn’t “get” it.* This week they’re celebrating their one year anniversary by giving tons of stuff away and I help out by being an editor. Not only do I get the purpose, I often find myself explaining it to other folks in a way they can understand. I’m a devout kirtsy member. I believe in bumpy beginnings.

How to keep people coming back?

Show them you appreciate them by giving them free shwag. T-shirts (and if you’ve got female beta testers, please make sure they’re girl friendly sizes!), parties, contests, bottles of wine, even reg codes for partner sites for a discount. That and let them know news before anyone else, put tiny stars on their profile or highlight them on a page of their own. Upgrade their account for free. I’ve seen all of these things and they all work. Pizza works, too. Cupcakes do, too. But what’s the killer giveaway?

Love. Sound radical? It may be, but I believe you can show your love in the design details on your site, the way you communicate with your users, the stuff you share with them. Kirtsy gets it. Google gets it. Zappos gets it. I’m not talking about manufactured love, I’m talking about rain-drenched alleyway, heart-pumping real love. And it doesn’t mean you have to respond to every single tweet directed at you, but you must love your users.

With true love comes vulnerability. I remember being in an English lit class reading Sylvia Plath’s poem Morning Song. We talked about how releasing a poem or book into the world was likened to giving birth. It’s precious and fragile in the early moments. It grows strong and resilient over time. Love is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by putting that blog post, book or startup out there. It’s scary, you can do it.

Observe, include & transcend.

Flickr politely asked me to take a survey today. I did and was asked questions about the level of trust I had for its brand. They want to know all about me and how I feel about Flickr. Asking for and incorporating feedback helps keep your users happy.

A big part of my yoga practice is about “observing.” Observe the breath. Notice it, don’t alter it. Observe the body. Be aware of it, but don’t come out of a posture just because it gets intense. Include the information you get and rise above it.

Above all, what happens on the mat today may be totally different than what happened yesterday. Learn to stay present with what is rather than what you think it should be.

How does this apply to you? Your customers, like you, have moods and lives independent of your brand. Relationships to brands change constantly; expect and incorporate change.

Ask someone that’s never visited your site before what they’d do first, second, third. If it’s different than what you were expecting or hoping for, incorporate that information. The quicker the better.

{This is the first of two posts on creating happy users. Part two includes what I look for before committing to a brand, a thought experiment and some resources to making happy users.}

–
*I’m currently playing with Plurk and am finding I have a similar problem with it. A ton going on and I am often like “what does that do?” So I point, click, backspace and essentially “learn” the interface. It could be easier, but I’m honestly having a fun time learning by playing with it.