ENGAGEMENT

In essence, the request is for you to trade a precious resource - your "attention" - in exchange for information that you may or may not be interested in. This one-sided transaction is the crux of traditional interruption-based marketing, and it's exactly the kind of approach that marketers should steer well away from when creating website content.

Successful online marketing prefers engagement over interruption. And one of the most critical engagement factors is creating compelling, personal, tailored website content.

You're working in a very personal environment when marketing online. People conduct sensitive business conversations online. They fall in and out of love online. They maintain contact with family and friends online. So it's essential that you develop your website content with this intimacy in mind.

The online environment is increasingly bound-up in our very notions of self, so it's no wonder that the most effective form of online marketing is based around developing website content that seeks permission from consumers to be involved in their day-to-day life rather than screaming for them to pay their limited attention.

Permission-marketing techniques such as email opt-in forms serve to develop relationships between you and the people interested in your product or service. They help you to build rapport with visitors by providing website content that gives them something - knowledge, information, and advice - in return for their contact details and other information pertinent to you developing website content that suits your long-term marketing strategies.

The articles contained in this section centre around how you can engage visitors with new-world marketing techniques and website content that'll leave your yell-selling competitors out in the rain.