Stay Longer, Buy More

Shoppers that stay in your store longer will buy more. Nothing revolutionary here. It's one of the main conclusions and recommendations from Paco Underhill and his excellent book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping.

Mr. Underhill suggests that retail shops and stores invite their customers to stay longer. His ideas include: making the environment pleasant, placing children's items low so they can interact with the products and providing seating like an area for husbands to so their wives can browse longer.

Kind of like the beer commercial where the guys set up the tv in between the clothes racks so they can catch the game while the wife shops.

But Mr. Underhill's recommendations apply to the online world as well: keep your browsers and shoppers on your site or your blog for longer and they will buy more.

How do you do it?

First, provide valuable content. The more valuable your content on your site, the more time people will spend with your information and the more they will soak up your brand.

Second, if you have a blog, make sure that the links you add to your posts open a new window. It takes a bit of HTML coding, but it is not too difficult to do. For Blogger, I go to the "Edit HTML" tab and I add the following code to the end of each link: "target=_New". This ensures that a new browser window opens from a link and the reader won't get bumped off my blog, thus absorbing more of "me" and my message(s).

Third, get interactive. Browsers and consumers that can interact with your site by posting comments or providing ratings will engage your readers and have them spend more time with you.

Finally, give browsers a reason to come back or give them a reason to get more information from you. This means you will need to update your content frequently. You will also need to provide ways for prospects to subscribe to your newsletter and feeds or a widget so they can become a follower.

Mr. Underhill studied the off line world, but his recommendations apply to both on and off line: if prospects stay longer, they will buy more. And if your prospects spend more time with you and your message, you will move your business to the next level.