Dec

18

How to use curiosity to drive repeat visits to your membership site

Filed Under Content, Member retention

James Howard Kunstler, the outspoken novelist and social critic–author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, among others– uses a simple, but compelling feature, to attract repeat visits to his website, www.kunstler.com.

Scroll down the home page, until you reach the Architecture section about halfway down on the right. Look for a thumbnail graphic and headline reading, Eyesore of the Month.

Each month, Kunstler features a different Eyesore; typically a visually-challenged, often grandiose, attempt to attract attention and win awards. (Lately, there have been a lot of museums.) Inevitably expensive, the Eyesores typically dwarf their surroundings and sacrifice the creature comforts of those who must deal with them on a daily basis.

Eyesores are frequently submitted by Kunstler’s loyalists. Each photo is accompanied by Kunstler’s brief, acerbic comments. I’m addicted to checking back every month, and reviewing some of my favorites. The Eyesores are proof that bad taste can be equally shared by both architects and clients.

The trick for you, of course, is to come up with a similar draw to your side, a repeating element that your site’s supporters will willingly go out of their way to share with you and your site’s other visitors. Do any ideas come immediately to mind?

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