Draw Customers to You Through Web Events

Email delivery problems has put an urgency to the priority of changing how we communicate with customers on the internet.  At one time, you may have conducted virtually all of your marketing and customer interactions via email.  Not that long ago, there was a time when email was so dominant as a form of communication that we all depended on it almost exclusively because it was the only thing that was truly interactive about the internet.
Two developments in how the internet works has changed that scenario significantly.  From a negative point of view, email delivery has continued to grow as a bigger and bigger problem every year.  That means that more and more online merchants have struggled with how undependable email communications has become.  The problem, of course is that spam as relentlessly eroded how much anyone can depend on email except for private communications.  So to avoid having to make email delivery a second career, many online merchants and retailers are looking for new and up to date modes of communication to replace email.
The second development is more positive and it is the WEB 2.0 evolution of the internet which has changed how the internet works.  Whereas business web sites used to be nothing more than online brochures, all web sites are now migrating to the WEB 2.0 model which means web sites themselves are seats of  customer communications which takes the emphasis off of email as a sole line of communication with customers.

These developments bode well for providing an escape for online merchants with the cumbersome overhead of trying to keep up with email delivery issues from month to month.  But it doesn’t mean you will abandon email entirely.   The one aspect of email that has yet to be totally replaced is its ability to remind a customer of your products and services.  Just having a highly interactive web site is good but internet denizens are notoriously short in the memory department and they need a reason to come back to your web site from time to time.
A web event is a great way to create excitement and to make your customers want to come to your web site at a specified time to be part of the big event.  A big sale, a special speaker, a musical performance or an interview with a notable celebrity from your field of expertise is just the thing to draw people to your web site to experience something new and interesting.
The more you can get away from using email reminders and communications, the more you get away from having to worry about deliverability issues.  This is especially true with a web event.  If you go to the effort and expense of scheduling a big event for your users, to have email deliverability problems stall or lose your reminders resulting in a failed event would be a disaster.
So to build your clientele for the big event, promote it interactively on your web site.  You can use your blog, message boards or chat rooms for promotion and to create excitement.  Then from each of those web site pages, take interested customers to a sign up page for the event and do an email verification of their sign up.  That verification can be used to encourage those customers to add a specific email address to their preferred users list.  Once that is in place, you have much more leverage to email your users about this and other events and drive your customers back to your web site for events, sales and for you to do your marketing dynamically and interactively, the WEB 2.0 way.