When we were planning our new website, making sure that our end users found our site useful and easy to use was high on our agenda. We asked Dan Ellis, Managing Director of Orckid Business Transformation to be our first guest blogger and share with us some insights on how your marketing team can maximise the effectiveness of your site as a B2B sales tool. Here are Dan’s top tips:
“Your website acts as the shop window to your business, and in the world of B2B sales connecting with your target audience is even more important. B2B conversions take more time than B2C channels, so it’s important that your website projects the right message and nurtures your audience towards those targets.
Ensuring your visitors understand exactly what you do from the outset is key, so you need to make sure your lead message is clear, concise and talks to your customers in their language. Your potential customers need to know that you understand their requirements, and that you have the proven knowledge and experience to solve their problems.
Create a narrative that resonates with your customers, highlight the problems and solutions and then provide targeted calls to action that reinforces your messaging. By showcasing key client case studies, you instil confidence in your audience and demonstrate proven success within key industry sectors.
Re-engagement is also a key factor in generating B2B sales; most B2B conversions require a number of visits and touch points to convert, so give your customers a reason to come back by providing fresh content and value-add resources.
While the quality of your content is crucial, it is important that you don’t lose focus of your website’s performance and security. If your website takes more than a couple of seconds to load you will likely lose prospects, so make sure your site is fully optimised particularly if you utilise a lot of imagery. Security and mobile optimisation are also essential for SEO, with search engines automatically decreasing your ranking if your site is not mobile-friendly or secured with SSL. By ensuring your site is secure, whether you process sensitive information or not, all adds to your brand’s perception through the eyes of your customers.
Ultimately any B2B website needs to be built with the customer in mind, understanding their needs and rewarding them with rich informative content and a reason to choose you over the competition.
Successful businesses who are looking to transform and grow B2B opportunities through their website should first step back and take a view on more than what technologies has to offer.
Start with identifying a product or service which can make a difference to your customer’s daily lives. Build a team around people who genuinely embrace this offering, and by instilling a working culture and the processes to support them will reflect in your customer experience. Learn where your customers operate, how to engage them with an experience that is both rewarding and of high value.
Today, invariably businesses require a website which is more than a sales brochure. It is this shop window, powerfully combined with new technologies, that keep us connected with our customers and unlock opportunities.”
We hope you enjoyed this guest blog and we look forward to bringing you more sales insights over the coming months. Why not join our Sales Community and receive regular insights to help you elevate your sales.
