The why matters less than knowing if that might just be your company website, too - and fixing it.
Poor websites equal poor marketing & sales results...
Compared to companies who make or sell products for consumers, websites for professional service firms, manufacturers, and B to B companies making equipment or providing industry services often lag behind in design, and are rarely updated. The B2B website can be an afterthought because it’s simply not seen as all that vital to sales or company profitability. The result is a neglected website that can look (and often is) sadly outdated, with content to match, and little or no attention paid to how well it ranks in the search engines.
If this is the case for your company, it’s missing out on a wide range of business advantages a great B2B website provides. At the worst, your old website is actively costing you sales and opportunities you’ll never even know you’ve lost. Your website is a fixed cost, but one that can be highly leveraged to create actual ROI. It’s an investment that pays off in ongoing customer leads and real ROI, unlike advertising that disappears forever as soon as the paid time is up. After all, your B2B website is a sales rep that’s working every hour of every day, year after year.
Here are the three key reasons that investing in and maintaining a top-notch website with well-written content is vitally important and a key driver of sales for B2B-focused companies:
Your Website Represents Your Reputation
Great products and a sterling reputation may be your company’s foundation and a key reason potential customers look you up. But your website is often their first direct interaction, and that makes it a pivotal impression about your company and what it offers. That being the case, it is shocking how often manufacturers who pride themselves on high-quality, precision-engineered products, or deeply experienced B2B services firms, can completely undercut their reputations with a poor website. Your company may be best in breed and cutting-edge, but if your website is painfully out of date or appears poorly designed, that’s the impression all of your key audiences (from sales leads to partners to employees) will take away from it.
Even if the site’s information and functionality are effective, simply having a website with outmoded graphics and layout can make it seem amateurish – no matter if it showcased the coolest in web design when it launched. A job seeker might be extremely talented and experienced, but would that be as evident if they wore a suit from the 70’s to the interview? The same effect holds true for potential customers who are looking for info on your website to help them make a purchase decision. Internet trends and tactics evolve rapidly, and a website that’s only a few years old can come across like it was designed in the disco era. Make sure the impression given by your site design reflects the attributes you want associated with your company: high quality, progressive and industry-leading, and highly professional.
Importantly, content also matters, and bad copy can undercut your positive sales messages just as much. When you refresh your website design it also provides an excellent opportunity to review your website copy, company info, sales messages, and content areas. Great design and great copy reinforce each other to create an even more impressive and effective client experience – and a terrific marketing tool. But copy also matters more than ever for another vital B2B sales function: driving potential customers to your site via SEO (search engine optimization). Conducting digital PR and having great writing is a key factor for SEO and how well your website ranks in major search engine rankings (a critical advantage in acquiring and converting sales leads).
If Customers Don’t Find You When They Search, You’ll Never Even Know You Lost Them
Relationships still count for a lot, and it’s understandable when B2B companies rely on their sales teams to cultivate leads and land new business. But with every passing year, sales calls are being supplanted by customers finding your company directly and relying on websites for their initial ‘education’ phase. For customers who find and learn about you by searching online, contacting a sales rep happens much later and farther along the sales funnel than before. Yes, the deal may be closed after talking with your sales rep, but before they decide to make that contact a customer is evaluating your website, reading the info and messages there, reading blog posts and industry media articles about you, or downloading useful content authored by your team.
Many industrial/manufacturing firms recognize SEO is an important marketing strategy, but still fail to be proactive in making sure their website is found when potential customers search for what they provide. Even if your sales team is still your focus for leads, it doesn’t change the fact that there are thousands of leads being lost if your website ranks low for key search terms.
The search terms a potential customer enters to find your product or service are usually quite consistent – and you’re battling every competitor in the country (or the world!) to be near the top of the results page. Google’s algorithm now focuses on website and internet content (copy) to determine how highly companies rank. If your site is only a few years out of date, it won’t reflect the new rules of SEO – and your website copy won’t either.
An up-to-date, modern website will account for the SEO factors that are major contributors to ranking above your competition. Does your website have an active blog? Is your site tied into and linked up with pertinent articles, reviews or industry insights? How about your website PR and any external announcements or press releases talking up your company success? All of these play a critical role in SEO, but are very achievable for companies that make the effort. SEO tactics require ongoing efforts to be effective, but all still lead back to the same key marketing tool: your website.
A site optimized for SEO, and set up to maximize the strategies that impact your ranking (from company blog to social media, keyword content to company news), will drive new sales leads. And, a well-executed site helps drive those visitors through the sales funnel. Your site needs to excel at keeping them engaged, giving them the info they want, and capturing their info for your sales team or proactively asking you for a quote.
Turn Your B2B Website Into a Lead Generation Machine
Ok, now you’ve invested in having a great site that reflects your customer profile, looks and flows better than any of your competitors, and has great content to keep visitors engaged. Your SEO efforts have taken you to the top for many of your most important search terms, so people are clicking onto your site. Now, how effectively is your website steering them to that all-important ‘contact us’ page? Or (same principle), capturing their contact information for your sales team to follow up on?
Because most B2B website operate primarily as online brochures, there is often a lack of marketing strategy in the site design aimed at making sure visitors become active sales leads. Capturing their information, or better yet, spurring them to contact you for further info or a meeting, is the crucial final mission your B2B website has to accomplish. Strategic websites lead the visitor through tiers of information designed to drive them to the contact page, or catalog/order section, or to download free (valuable) content in return for their contact info.
Also be sure your website facilitates and encourages clicking onto the contact page itself (an element which should be accounted for in the design phase). Proven tactics for high-converting websites are now common knowledge among savvy web designers, from always-visible ‘contact us’ buttons, to frequent ‘asks’ within the site copy itself.
For example: say you’ve got some teaser copy about your products or services on the homepage. Before directing them to learn more in another section, remind them they can easily contact you right now so that you (well, your sales rep) can directly answer all of their specific questions, concerns, and requirements. This function can also be built into your contact page itself. For customers who shy away from sales calls, your site should give them the option to fill out an online form addressing all the specifics they may want, or, any that they don’t. Plus, it lets them decide exactly how they want you to follow up: with an email, a call, or even to set an appointment.
Another tactic is commonly used today, but should be carefully considered first: the popup box for ‘free valuable content.’ Not only can these popups potentially annoy, and thus drive away possible customers, but Google is beginning to frown on the practice as well. Insights and valuable info about your products, industry trends, and so on ARE a great marketing tactic to use. It establishes expertise, drives them along the sales path, and incentivizes a prospect to choose your products or services. But, this valuable tactic might be better employed through other digital marketing techniques that lead them to that content vs. a popup box on your site. An experienced web and digital marketing agency can help you decide the best to employ this content tool.
Opportunity Awaits
As mentioned at the start of the article, an encouraging fact is that a great many manufacturing, industrial or professional services companies simply do not have effective or well-designed websites. This means there are tremendous opportunities for B2B companies who DO decide to invest in a website that looks, reads and works better than others in their industry. Making your website an engaging, effective marketing tool and sales agent is a proven competitive advantage, driving customers to your site, discovering new leads for your sales team, and providing real ROI on your digital investment.
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