How effective is your website for building awareness and consideration? Most people would say it’s pretty good. In fact, the majority of B2B marketers say it is their most effective tool for the early stages of the buying funnel. In a report by Forrester, most B2B marketers said their business websites were more effective than SEO, sales enablement, or digital advertising.
But, it appears they can all use major upgrades.
The research and consulting company did their own analysis. Looking at 12 B2B industries, it found that nearly every site it examined needed significant improvements to meet those goals.
“Think of a prospective buyer’s website visit as a first date with a potential love interest. If you talked about yourself the whole time, did little to relate to or engage with your date, and shared long, boring stories about what you do and what you think . . . it’s guaranteed that you would never see that person again. So why would a prospect revisit your website if it behaves the same way?” – Forrester as quoted in Forbes.
The company found that too many B2B websites make people dig through page of product offering to get answers and find what they are looking for. They found content that was not engaging, interesting, or compelling. They cited a lack of interactivity.
It’s not the first time they’ve identified this issue. Take a look at this chart from a year ago. They asked whether the content provided by vendors was useful. Not only did those surveyed say it was not useful, they said it’s been getting worse year by year. In fact, the majority said they get their info from other sources rather than the vendor itself!
At a time where most B2B buyers are doing research online before every contacting a sales rep, your content is at its most important. If buyers can’t rely on your content during each stage of the buying cycle, they find it irrelevant, or – even worse – can’t find it, they are likely to never reach out to you.
Credible, Empathetic Content Wins Over Elusive B2B Buyers
“Self-sufficient and digitally adept business buyers are tired of wading through piles of marketing and sales content that isn’t helpful or interesting. B2B marketers need to step away from producing content that focuses on what they do and step up to showing customers that they understand their problems and can help solve them.” – (Forrester, Dec 2018)