Here’s an important question for your organization: Can you quickly describe what value, products, or services your company offers? You can? Great. Now, go visit your company website. Is your answer clearly reflected on the home page?
Chances are high that it’s not.
Websites are often muddled and outdated. Visitors don’t take much time to form an impression.
In fact, an 2012 study clocked it at less than 3 seconds. Often when companies undergo a digital transformation, the website gets overlooked. Though it’s not a new and shiny component, the website isn’t going anywhere. It’s your front door, and, because of that, needs to be impressive.
It’s not just a problem of old fonts or not being mobile-friendly – although these low-hanging fruits are still too prevalent. It’s that often the website isn’t serving its basic and primary function: There’s an exchange that needs to happen with the customer. In order to make a sale or have consumers share their information, something of worth must be offered in return.
If you want to be a thought leader, put out thoughts. Blogging is an old, but still effective vehicle to build a reputation and establish a dialogue with customers. Leverage the underused webinar, splicing it up into short clips to extend the value. Then, be the go-to resource. Offer product information. Have videos of demonstrations and repair jobs.
Predict your customers’ problems and have your “Frequently Asked Questions” answer them, whether it’s:
If your customers need you most because something is on fire, then have messaging that reflects you’re there, 24/7, when needed most. Be sure to provide your phone number, and make it prominent on the page. What separates you from the competition can be as simple as providing value quickly. You want your site to be the first and only stop for customers.
UX vs UI vs CX: If your 3rd party delivery driver throws the package containing a fragile item over the fence, the customer is going to blame you, and this is going damage your overall CX, no matter how good the purchasing experience was.
There might be internal pushback, especially if not everyone in your organization buys into the digital age.
Salespeople don’t want to lose business to online, and executives fear giving away information that could help a rival. It’s understandable, but only to a point.
Certain customers only want in-person service. That doesn’t have to vanish, but most don’t want a sales pitch. Consumers do their research before a sale – 59 percent, according to Forrester – and want the best and final offer to buy online. That segment is only going to grow. Service them now as a way to future-proof your business.
As for information, there’s no sense in being protective. People can easily search any place on the internet for what they need. It might as well be your site, where the information is useful, and not every post is pushing a product or extolling your greatness.
That last part is key. It’s a confident move, and one that customers will appreciate. They might not buy at that moment, but since you’ve made their lives easier, they’ll remember and will come back.
We absolutely must stop measuring B2B marketing success in terms of campaign clicks, quarterly reports, and lead volumes alone. The B2B brands who will win are the ones we’ll remember.
Analytics software allows you to measure how long people stay, what they read, and what they share. There’s no need to guess.
If a feature doesn’t work, drop it. If it does, keep it, and what you’re left with is a cemented impression of being valuable.
