Ensure you (and your website) have addressed these points to maximise the qualified leads being generated.
1. WHAT ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS' BUYING PATTERNS?
How do you generate sales today? Does it rely on relationships that your salespeople have? Is extra revenue only from existing customers? How your prospects connect and form a relationship with your organisation, largely determines how useful your website will be for lead generation. Understand the path to purchase, as this tells you what parts of that process need to be supported by your website. Understand your buyers, then design web interaction to support what they want to see. Do not babble on about everything there is to know about you.
Do you sell a service or a product or a combination of both? Are you a reseller or partner of a bigger brand – like Microsoft or IBM or Cisco? If you sell time (or professional services) this requires one sort of web presence and demand generation activity that focuses on capability and expertise. If you sell products, then lead generation will be driven by the business problem your product solves. www.4sight.consulting is a great example of both of these. If it is a combination of both product and services, then you must be clear about the distinct difference that your organisation makes – check out www.certussolutions.com.
In B2B sales and marketing, you’re building a relationship, not just transacting. Building that relationship means you want to put appropriate content in front of prospective buyers, at the appropriate time. The currency of B2B social engagement is new and better ideas to solve business problems. Facilitating the exchange of ideas in the form of blogs, vlogs, face-to-face meet ups and showcases, is the way to position those ideas to your audience. Once you have put an idea in front of someone, then ask to move the relationship to the next level – if only to qualify them. Don’t try and sell the wrong thing at the wrong time.
With 57% of the decision process being completed before engaging a salesperson, the more you can digitise the sales process the better your ability to influence the purchase decision in your favour. Scaling the storytelling ability of your salespeople and your Raving Fans (or customers) will deliver ROI on your website. Scaling this capability means building your brand through your best storytellers. One way to do this is to have them appear in video stories – with case studies, success stories, and endorsements.
Analyse where your traffic comes from today. Generally speaking, if you are a consumer product or retail outlet, mobile will be the prime source of traffic. If you are a B2B organisation – your mobile traffic is likely to be people looking for your office or looking for a job. The conventional wisdom is to design B2B web experiences for desktop, yet there has been an explosion in the number of tablet devices being used in and for business. Forbes suggests that… “By targeting tablets instead of smartphones, not only do you provide computer users with a better reading experience, but you lower adaptation costs.” Check out this example of tablet-first design.
Before the first day, you might also consider leaving a note on your new hire.
