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By Rahul Khosla, Partner, eDynamic
This blog is the first in a series on the topic of ‘B2B Online Excellence’
where I will partner with Industry experts and provides insight, strategies and
tactics into what it takes to execute a successful program for B2B technology
products. So if you are a product marketer, involved in your company’s web
initiatives or simply interested in marketing products online this series may
be of interest to you..
B2B marketers continue to shift focus towards digital strategies to acquire and
engage customers. The share of online spend has grown considerably over the
years, and the recent economic dowturn has increased online’s share in the
marketing budget of B2B technology marketers.
Your website and online strategy, if done right, can provide exceptional ROI.
However, we at eDynamic continuously see B2B marketers not implementing key
elements that are essential for the success of their web strategy. Strategies
are being implemented in isolation and are quite often not integrated. The
weakest link often leads in an overall program. We see ineffective conversions
of traffic to leads, not providing insight on leads to close them and leads not
being nurtured amongst other issues that ultimately leads to ineffective online
programs and low ROI.
This blog is meant to identify key elements of an online strategy that a
marketer should consider. Other blogs that follow will consider some of the
following elements in more detail.
Drumroll please..ok so its not all that exciting..but here it goes anyway..the
key elements of a successful B2B technology product website are:
1. Lead Generation
You can have a beautiful house but without a road to it no one gets to see
it. You need an integrated and cohesive online
marketing strategy led by your objectives and tactics around SEM, SEO, Display
and Social Network Marketing.
Driving traffic to your website has to be a key objective of your strategy.
Marketers are using multiple strategies to drive traffic to their websites.
Banner advertising and Search Engine Marketing strategies have now become
‘traditional’, social strategies are gaining favor due to their ability to
reach target audiences most effectively and giving high ROI.
Twitter marketing is a good example of B2B marketers experimenting with social
networking. However, quite a few social marketing strategies are not really
strategies, but simply forays with a lack of focus, as there doesn’t seem to be
a clear objective to those strategies. There are some companies simply pushing
all kinds of information without sound objectives or strategy….’throw it
up..and hope it’ll stick’
B2B companies like Sun Microsystems, Dell and Oracle are good examples of
companies who have well executed social networking strategies. Twitter can be
used for product updates, version releases and new wins. They are building a
community of ‘followers’ to continuously engage. If you are looking for a quick
and easy to understand Twitter strategy, email me and I’ll send a Mind Map that
should get you started…or simply visit
http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/ for a quick overview.
Be careful in executing your social networking strategy, pro-active bloggers and
reviewers will have a say in the reputation of your product.
To eexecute a successful online marketing plan that leads to high quality leads,
we advise our clients to clearly define their objectives first, the target
audience they would like to reach, and then define a clear plan to increase
awareness, engagement and conversion. As part of your strategy, create an
integrated marketing plan to target your audience through various channels such
as Search, Display and Social Media Optimization cohesively. These strategies
are quite often interlinked.
2. Target Audience Analysis and Segmentation
Segment your target audience and prioritize them, and define needs and a
plan for each audience.
Marketers need to identify and prioritize their target audience – this has the
biggest impact on how the online program will function and the structure of the
website. Invest your energy in clearly defining user needs. Interview users
across the target audience segment if possible. A word of caution .. these
interviews can be a waste of time without a well defined process to elicit
requirements and gather feedback. Simply questions such as ‘what would you
like’ may not get you the information you need. You’ll have to craft open and
specific questions.
Once you’ve clearly segmented the targeted audience and have created a
targeting strategy, you will find that managing an integrated online marketing
strategy becomes a lot easier. Your decision making in creating your website
will be based on target audience segmentation and prioritization.
Marketers often make the mistake of simply focussing on only a single audience
group. Marketers need to ensure that focus is not only on the end customer, but
other groups as well. B2B products are quite often sold through partner/VAR
channels, so besides the end customer, they are an important channel to
consider.
User segmentation helps bring clarity to web initiatives. With a clearly
segmented user base, you’ll find it easier to identify user needs and utilize
different online channels to target the audience with specific strategies.
3. Make them Buy, don’t just sell
Don’t sell, but make them Buy!
How many websites have you seen that simply throw up their products on the home
page and hope that customers would buy? This does not lead to customer
acquisition. It is important to understand and analyze the process customers go
through to the point of purchase. This ‘Buying Process’ will have a large
determination of how you structure your website whether you sell direct or
through VARs.
Buying processes for different industries can be unique, but a typical process
for a B2B Technology Product company may be Product Awareness ->Research
and Compare -> Value Proposition -> Purchase -> Engagement
Once you understand the buying process the prospect will go through on your
site, define the criteria which moves the prospect from one stage to another. A
tool that helps to capture this information is a Process Map. Armed with this
information you can create use cases, information architecture and a messaging
strategy, for each phase of the lifecycle.
Effectively tackling certain steps in the buying process are covered in more
detail in the sections that follow.
4. Enabling research and compare process
Allow prospects to get to the information they need efficiently.
A good website isn’t simply a bunch of pretty web pages, but one that allows
propsects to find the information they need efficiently. Most prospects engage
in a research and compare process prior to procuring a product. Enabling this
process efficiently will have a big impact on your abiliy to convert traffic to
leads.
Technology websites often simply provide a list of their products by name and
leave it to users to find the product appropriate to them. Most users don’t
think in terms of product names, but have criteria in mind, based on which they
select a product they need. Lenovo.com, for example, allows users to find
laptops by price, screen size, weight and other criteria. This allows users to
choose the criteria that is important to them and find the product appropriate
for them.
With complex products, consider providing a wizard which allows users to get to
the right product.
5. Prospect Engagement and Value Proposition
Its showtime
So, how do you engage a prospect during their journey through your website? You
need to have a clear strategy to target messages for each step in the buying
lifecycle to move the prospect from one phase to another.
Once the prospect is considering a product, you need to clearly communicate the
value proposition of the product and make your company credible. Some products
have key differentiating features so its easy to emphasize the features of
these products and engage prospects. iPhone marketers have focused on marketing
the product with ease of use through not only TV advertisements but also using
rich media on their website to showcase the product. However, most technology
products play in commoditized markets where feature differentiation doesn’t
work. In such scenarios different strategies need to be applied, which have to
be aligned with the customer acquisition process. Some of the tactics being
used include:
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Product demos in interactive technologies like Flash are ideal to help decision
makers understand your product’s capability
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Customer testimonials to engage prospects: Video testimonials have become quite
popular. Eloqua, a marketing automation firm, for example has excellent video
testimonials from customers
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Customer success stories: Capturing case studies, podcasts and indicating the
value
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Creating emotional linkages with the product. For example physical products,
bringing the product to life through interactive media on websites can help
create emotional linkages with the product.
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Communicating the value proposition of products clearly
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Market Research that indicates your product is a leader
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Providing pricing..yes, this seems to be a major pain point for prospects in
the mid-market space. They don’t want to go down the path of engagement unless
they have either a clear or atleast some idea of pricing. If you cannot offer
specific pricing, which is the case with technology products targeted towards
enterprises, provide some clues such as ‘this product is ideal for mid-size
organizations whose budgets are ..’ . This would give a clue to the prospect
that the product may be of use.
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For mid-sized product companies, showing stability and positioning the company
as a thought leader, is important
6. Effecitve Conversion through M&Ms
Sieze the moment
No, I dont mean get leads by giving candy away, though that does work for Credit
Card marketers at airports! You need to create moments through a prospect’s
journey through your website Meaningful & Memorable (M&M). By M&M
moments I mean moments that build trust, credibility and emotional linkage …
the starting point of a meaningful relationship. These moments typically lead
to the prospect tipping over and converting to a lead and move closer to the
point of purchase.
..and, it could happen at any time on your website.while they are reading a case
study, listening to a testimonial or reading thought leadership material; and
when it happens, you have to seize the moment..this is where calls-to-action
comes into play. These are messages that get prospects to become a lead.
You should consider having several levels of calls to action depending to cater
to all levels of prospect commitment. A lower level of commitment requires a
give and take relationship. You will have to give something to your
audience for them to start engaging with you. Techniques include providing
whitepapers, thought leadership material and case studies as gated content,
i.e. behind a registration process. At a high level of commitment, you need to
provide prospects the ability to ask the company to sell to him.
Your calls-to-action process can be very sophisticated, but some simple rules
should always followed – the user should know how to get in touch with you,
your phone number should be available, your lead forms should have linkages on
all pages of your website.
Best of breed sites integrate the lead management process with CRM systems.
Pushing high quality lead data into CRM systems such as Salesforce.com enables
the sales team. This efficient process allows the sales force to act on leads
immediately. Time is of essence as the prospect is out researching other
products, and the experience around first offline contact with the prospect
will have an impact on how successful you are at earning their business.
For the sales team to be effective, Leads should be scored and the scoring
mechanismcould align sales people with the appropriate leads (though this can
contentious). B2B leads can be quite expensive, so identifying high quality
leads for your sales force is important. Further, getting insight into the
prospects journey (example: the list of products the prospect looked at and how
much time was spent on each of those sections) is important. Analytics and some
content management software provide this insight.
At eDynamic we provide a free assessment specifically to improve calls-to-action
thereby improving conversion..don’t be shy to reach out.
7. Effective User Experience /Look and Feel of the Website
Experience matters
The look and feel of the site conveys a brand perception to users. With many
technology product companies the website is the only window for prospects to
form their opinion about the product. Its important that the website design and
branding conveys your brand perception appropriately.
The User Experience of the site should consider the industry and target
audience. A sonystyle.com experience for an insurance website may cause
problems.
We recommend that you create a brand guide for your site that has deep insight
into what you want to communicate through your website and how. This guide is
used throughout the existence of the website.
8. Lead Nurturing
Most prospects don’t buy immediately
Most leads will not close right away. A lead nurturing program that takes a lead
to fruition by targeting the prospect with effective communication is critical.
Eloqua and Marketo are market leading products that can help you manage and
automate your lead management program.
9. Marketing Insight and Continuous Track and Measure Processes
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate..
Marketers need to gather deep insight into customer behaviour in order for them
to continuously iterate and improve their website. Business intelligence and
analytics platforms can provide excellent insight into user behaviours to
marketers.
Like Content Management Systems, selecting analytics software has is becoming
increasingly difficult as products are not only becoming more specialized but
eco system products, like Content Management Systems, are now offering the same
capabilities. So you’ll find a range of products that offer analytics
capability to choose from, including
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Pure play Analytics software such as Google Analytics and Clicktracks
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Marketing automation software such as Eloqua and Marketo
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Web Content Management systems such as SDL Tridion and Sitecore: They provide
analytics as well, where the analytics is tightly integrated into content
management and can provide deep insight into how content is used.
Each of the above has its benefits, and the choice of the appropriate solution
will depend on your needs. Marketing Automation platforms, for example, allow
you to perform true Lead Management where you can gain insight into your leads
and drive, whereas analytics software just focuses on insight. Your solution
might require more than one capability depending on your needs.
10. You need the technology to enable your website – Content Management
Solution
Managing conent is critical to the success of your website.
Most websites are managed by Content Management Systems. We highly recommend Web
Content Management software like Sitecore, Ektron, Open Text Web Solutions to
manage content. If you’re looking for model details, this video can help
marketers select the right solution –
http://tinyurl.com/l9je5h
ok so i added one more, 10 sounds better than 11… Finally..but first..if
you’re planning to kick your website initiative now create a Strategy and a
Roadmap first
Know where you’re going before start
If you’ve been a part of website initiates, you may have experienced a
frustrating pattern. The direction keeps changing..a new stakeholder or an idea
move the project down another path than first agreed to. This is because you
are throwing darts without knowing where bullseye is. A clearly documented
Project Vision document, a Website Strategy and a clearly defined roadmap will
help you keep on track and focussed.
Conclusion
The elements covered above are important to most B2B websites. A combination of
these elements and a healthy dose of continuous iteration can make your product
websites successful.
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