If you aren’t using your B2B website to increase your firm’s revenue, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Unfortunately, many sales professionals drastically underestimate their company’s digital presence and the power of its ability to generate revenue.
While traditional means of outreach and word of mouth can be great sales opportunities, your company’s website is an excellent source for getting new leads, nurturing existing leads, and keeping the conversation going with existing clients.
In this post, we take a look at how your marketing and sales team can leverage your firm’s B2B website design to increase revenue.
Generate inbound leads using SEO
Looking for a new source of warm leads for your B2B company? Right now, your target market is searching online for your products and services using Google, Bing, Yahoo or another search engine.
Did you know: 68% of B2B customers prefer to research independently online. 60% would rather not communicate with sales reps as their only information source (Source).
The best way to get in front of these potential prospects? Optimize your B2B website for traffic from search engines, aka SEO.
By optimizing your website for search engines and targeting the keyword phrases your target market is using, you can generate new inbound leads. The best part? These leads have already shown interest in your products and services. They are partway down the sales funnel.
Write content to solve problems & address needs
Most B2B marketers understand that creating content is an essential part of their overall lead generation strategy. However, many sales professionals don’t understand the true value of creating content that solves problems and addresses needs.
Consider this: You have a prospect that has 10 questions about the services your company offers and you answer all of them clearly during a one-on-one meeting. You have addressed their needs by providing helpful answers. But what about the prospects that want their questions answered without committing to a one-on-one meeting? Don’t you still want to be a valuable resource to them?
Drafting content that solves problems and addresses needs positions your company as helpful and shows you understand your prospects. By the time a prospect makes contact via your website, you’ve already answered many of their questions and built up trust as a valuable resource. This is a competitive advantage.
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Direct prospects to relevant content
As a sales professional, isn’t it ideal to have an array of tools to help you nurture and convert leads? What if your website had a ton of relevant content, including things like pricing plans, the entire suite of service offerings, delivery times, features, functionality, best practices, and implementation strategies?
If your B2B website design hosted all of this relevant content, you could simply send these links to prospects so they can easily view them during their own time. You don’t have to deal with sending documents that need to be downloaded or risk files getting corrupted in transmission. The best part is that your prospect can review these links before they ever get on the phone with you, saving you and them time by getting their basic questions answered.
Retargeting ads to get visitors back to the site
A website visitor arrives on your site, learns about the products and services your company offers, then leaves without completing a form since they are just doing preliminary research. As this person continues to browse online over the next 30 – 90 days, they keep seeing ads for your company on the websites they visit. When it comes times to make contact, schedule a demo, or get a proposal, all they have to do is click on your ad or they already remember your name since the ads have created strong awareness of your company’s brand. This is retargeting.
Studies have shown that it typically requires six or more visits to a website before a B2B prospect initially converts. You need to stay in front of prospects with retargeted ads especially because by visiting your company’s website the first time, they have already shown intent and interest. Retargeting ads are the most cost-effective way to stay in front of people who have already visited your B2B website and to bring them back to convert.
Search ad campaigns to get your company in front of potential leads
Search engine optimization takes time and continual effort to maintain. While organic search traffic tends to perform very well (aka convert), you might want leads now. Running search ad campaigns (also knowns as PPC or pay-per-click ads) is the quickest way to get your company in front of prospects.
If a potential prospect performs a Google search for “accounting software” or “software for accounting firms,” ads directing that prospect to your accounting software website will show up in the search results. Since it’s pay per click, you only pay when the prospect clicks on your ad.
Convert leads, follow up, close leads
If you’ve ever worked retail, you know that anyone who walks into your store is a potential buyer. The same is true for anyone who visits your B2B website, they are all potential buyers. Treat them as such.
Whether they complete a contact form, a demo request, a proposal request, download a white paper or e-book, or sign-up for your newsletter – they are all prospects. While a person who downloads a white paper may not be a “hot buyer” they are still a warm lead. Simply making contact with them after their download can be the difference between closing a deal and losing a prospect to a competitor.
All website leads should be treated as valuable, contacted for qualification, and nurtured. A successful B2B salesperson values all leads especially inbound leads. Ignoring an inbound lead, regardless of whether they request a proposal or simply download an ebook, is akin to ignoring a person shopping in your store.
