B2B Monday Myth: Your Website Is an Online Brochure
by MGB2B
The Myth: Your Website Is Like an Online Brochure
The Truth: Your Website Should Be Used as an Engagement Tool
Your website should offer more to your visitors than a listing of services or products. It should do more than simply tell people who you are (although it should do that at the very least). Think about what your prospects want from your website. Then think about what you want them to find out.
Take into account how your prospects make purchasing decisions. Chances are, a visitor is not going to arrive on your home page and decide right then to buy your product. It takes time, and they are likely exploring competitors. To foster engagement, your website must go beyond what’s contained in a traditional brochure. But it needs to have a clear path for your prospects to follow.
Here Are the Keys to Building a Better B2B Website, and More Effectively Convert Leads:
Define The Primary Function Of Your Site
Clearly identify what you want people to get out of your website. What actions would you like them to take now that they’ve visited you? Is your overall goal to provide buying solutions, or is it to direct a customer to a sales representative? These two functions are very different, and the decision you make will change how your website is set up. Once you know what you want your visitors to do, you can provide them with a clear call-to-action.
Give Your Home Page Purpose
Your home page should very clearly state who you are and what you do. These are basics for what the visitor should get from initially viewing your website. It is also helpful to state your value proposition, or a clear statement that tells the customer what benefits you can provide them.
This may be the first thing website visitors see when checking out your website. First impressions are important. If your home page has too much going on, or doesn’t have a clear call-to-action, people will move on. Keep it simple and easy to navigate.
Create User-Focused Landing Pages to Build Your Leads List
If you haven’t already, you should consider landing pages that live as a part of your website but focus on specific topics that interest prospects. For instance, if you are a manufacturer or components for multiple verticals, but you want to push a product that benefits only the aerospace community, a specific landing page will help you get the job done. You can drive the exact type of prospect you are looking for to this page using Paid Search. If their search terms match what you’re offering, they find a product that is relevant to them instead of finding your home page. Furthermore, you can use the page to capture their information and get them into your sales funnel, instead of having them kick around on your home page, then bounce on over to your competitor’s site.
Use Content To Your Advantage
Another way to drive people to your website is by creating relevant content, usually in the form of a blog. Doing so is a good way to provide information while positioning yourself as an honest company with integrity and authority. Some larger companies go beyond the blog and create full, separate sites just devoted to content. You have to examine what your capacity is for creating content, and churn out only what you feel will be most effective given the time you put into creating it. Whatever you create, make sure it is optimized in order to draw in prospects who are in the right mindset. It is a slower burn than Paid Search, but a great way to gain the trust of a prospect over time.
If your website is only providing information, you are missing out on these key opportunities. Give your site more of a purpose, and use the web as a tool instead of a stand-alone collateral piece, and you’ll both engagement and leads start to rise.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: All B2B Audiences Are the Same
by MGB2B
The Myth: All B2B Audiences Are the Same.
The Truth: Not All Audiences Are Created Equal, and You Need to Personalize Your Content for Each One.
If you’re sending out one set of content to all audiences, you are missing out on a prime opportunity for engagement. Chances are, your company deals with more than one industry. Chances are even higher that many different people, with different roles and positions throughout the buying cycle, are all receiving your content. It is no surprise that people are more likely to respond to something of relevance to them. But there’s no way that every piece of content you send out resonates with each group. Over-simplifying your strategy or generalizing your content can deeply hamper your B2B marketing efforts. Personalizing B2B content may take time, but it’s well worth it.
Segmenting and personalizing can help you engage with each specific prospect, and increase the chance that they’ll develop into a higher quality lead. When developing or changing your strategy, keep these things in mind:
Know Your Segments
You must know who you are targeting before you can attempt to attract or engage them. Who are your subscribers, visitors, or followers? What has resonated with them in the past? Use the vast amount of data and analytics to see when your content is resonating with whom. Did one specific email get a large number of click-throughs from a a certain segment? Continue to pursue that. Testing your emails is a great way to gain these insights.
Core User Studies (sometimes referred to as Voice of Customer (VoC) Research) can also be helpful when attempting to capture the expectations and preferences of your various audiences. This market research technique gets down to the true wants and needs of your customers, and will allow your company to connect with them at many different stages of the buying cycle. Research can be time consuming, but the insights you get from it can change the entire direction of your marketing plan and make increase its effectiveness exponentially.
Approach Each Vertical Differently
As a B2B business, it is common to deal with a number of different industries. Each of your verticals has different interests and faces different challenges; it doesn’t make sense to talk to them as one collective whole. While some cross-industry pieces can be appealing, it is important to deliver content that addresses each vertical specifically. This is especially important when creating content or advertisements for trade publications, where niche B2B audiences tend to spend a lot of their time.
Keep Job Titles in Mind
There are many different people along the buying cycle, all who may be coming into contact with your company’s content. However, each person will have different concerns based on their role within the company. Think about it: a purchaser might be interested in finding a low-cost product, while an engineer is more worried about the quality. The CEO, on the other hand, is in charge of big picture thinking and long-term goals. Any of these three, and a host of others, could be reading your content. Be sure to change your message and propose a different call to action based on who you’re talking to.
Create Personas
One thing that will help you with everything created above is the creation of personas. You’ll likely have at least two, but it could be many more depending on how many verticals and job titles you have on your list. The more you know about those verticals and job titles the easier it will be for you to create personas. A persona is a fictional character who represents a buyer in one of your audience segments. Having a clear idea of who you are creating content for makes it easy to show how your company can provide them solutions. Here’s a guide for creating personas that will help fine-tune your content program and give it more direction.
While it may be easier to blanket all of your audiences with the same content, you need to drill down a little more for it to be effective. The relevance and quality of your content is what will make a lasting impression. Consistently delivering personalized content to your audiences will prove a successful strategy for cultivating meaningful B2B engagement. Invest the time in doing it right — it will be worth it in the long run.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: I Don’t Need Twitter Because I’m Already on LinkedIn
by MGB2B
The Myth: I don’t need Twitter because I’m already on LinkedIn.
The Truth: When used correctly, Twitter can be an amazing marketing tool for expanding your business.
Twitter and LinkedIn are easily two of the biggest social media platforms utilized by expanding businesses. However, some believe that LinkedIn is the only platform you need to make lasting connections with potential customers. They simply aren’t aware of the benefits of Twitter for B2B brands. The truth is, Twitter and LinkedIn have different pros and cons, and when you use both, they complement each other quite nicely.
According to the Content Marketing Institute’s report: 2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends, 55% of B2B brands found Twitter to be effective, while 66% found LinkedIn to be an effective social media platform. The difference in number may be rooted in the approach that businesses take on Twitter. Twitter is not a “set it and forget it” platform – it requires planning and attention. When you put the effort into it, Twitter opens you up to a whole new world of users that may not be available to you on LinkedIn at all.
Here Are the Benefits of Twitter for B2B Brands:
- You Can Post As Often As You Like. We don’t recommend that companies post content on LinkedIn more than twice a day, max. On Twitter, you can have several posts a day. In fact, it’s smart for your brand to do so. Especially with the accompanied use of hashtags to grab audiences searching for topics that are related to your business.
- It’s a Great Listening Tool. Twitter is the perfect spot to listen to both your customers and your competitors. The platform makes it very easy to make lists and categorize users (i.e. competitors, industry experts, prospective customers) that post content that is useful to you. You can more efficiently find out what’s going on in the industry, see what your competitors are doing right or wrong, and what your target audience values most – all in real time.
- You Can Use Twitter to Build Relationships. Use retweeting as a conversation starter. If you agree with something a prospect posted or have something to add, you can retweet their post, mention them with the “@” and use that retweet to talk to them about what matters to them (and you) most.
- Or to Fix and Solidify Relationships. Address the concerns of your followers on Twitter to show the world that you are willing to help them out as quickly as possible. This shows that you are interested in remaining completely transparent. Twitter also offers great tips for both addressing customers’ concerns and harnessing the power of their positive reviews on the platform.
- Lead Generation via Ads. While you may attract a few more bots than you would with a LinkedIn ad, Twitter ads can actually be very effective. That’s because you can use keywords to target ads based on relevant conversations people are having on Twitter. You can also use ads for event targeting to grab the attention of prospects when they are the most actively engaged on what’s going on in your industry.
For the most part, you can think of Twitter as bottom-floor networking. Once you get to know someone through Twitter, then you can take the relationship to the next level — LinkedIn. The trick is doing it in a way that is subtle, friendly, and engaging. Plan out your Twitter presence carefully, and it can be a very lucrative part of a full B2B campaign.
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