The #1 Missed Opportunity for Corporate Websites

Increase the flow of leads to your sales team, grow your marketing database, and make it easy for users to connect with you.

The corporate website is the single biggest opportunity overlooked by sales and marketing teams in many business-to-business companies. As a marketing agency specializing in B2B high tech clients, we’ve seen the good and bad, and our experience has given us insight into some clear best practices.

Here’s how you can dramatically increase the conversion of corporate web visitors to sales.

Most corporate websites, particularly for companies that require sales rep involvement to sell, read like a brochure. There is great information about products and services, and a “Contact Us” form thrown in for good measure. But consider the value of these visitors to your site:

•They’reinherentlymorequalifiedthanothermarketingtargets. They took the time to come to you directly.

•Fromamarketingperspective,itmakessensetotrytoget 100% of these visitors into your marketing database.

•Theincrementalcostofaddinganemailaddresstoanewsletter is near zero.

•Manyhotprospectsmaynotbereadytofillouta“contactmenow” form, but are willing to take a meeting with a sale rep if engaged directly.

Enter your call to action (CTA) strategy. A high performance call to action:

•Entices users to interact

• Provides value in return for their contact information

•Isquick and easy for prospects

Keep in Mind...Be realistic about socialIncludesocial,butberealisticabout how much your users will want to engage. Do you really expect many people to posttotheirFacebookwallabout your products page? Don’t overemphasize the social aspects to the detriment of higher performing actions like newsletter signup. This mostly applies to your design team — no huge social logo bars when a “like” button or two will do.

Short formsGet a group of your colleagues together and ask them what questions should be on your website’s registration form. Inevitably,you’llendupwitha laundry list, everything from industry, company size and timeframe to buy to favorite color and industry opinions. Throw it all out. No doubt that it would be great to have that information, but study after study (and our own experience) has shown that conversion rates (the percentage of people who complete the form) drop off linearly with the number of questions. The ideal form asks onlyforanemailaddress.Ifyoumust have more information, choose wisely — each piece of information you add reduces the number of prospects you will get into your database.

Good website redesign increased the conversion rate (of visitors to leads) by 20-50%, from an average of 1.5% to somewhere in the range of 1.8-2.25%.

~ Forrester Research,“TheROIofWebSiteRedesignsMadeSimple”

Elements of a Great CTAOur Call to Action on bnj.com

Designing the perfect call to action is a blend of art and science. You must know your audience, what they react to, and how to engage with them. That said, at the core, there should be three primary elements:

A Great OfferGive your visitors a reason to casually interact with you. A great piece of relevant content (an analyst report, infographic, thought leadership paper or technology review) is the perfect way to entice them to engage. Now you have the opportunity to continue the conversation, nurturing them over time with more great content.

Multiple Ways to EngageIt’samistaketohavearegistrationformwith10questionsasyouronlycontactoption.Visitors should be able to simply enter an email address to access valuable offers, or be able to “Like” youonFacebookor“Tweet”aboutyourcontentonTwitter.

Your sales team may believe “contacts without phone numbers are worthless,” but as marketers, we knowbetter.Today’squalifiedemailaddressispotentiallytomorrow’scustomer—moneyinthe bank if you stay in front of them until they’re ready to buy.

On the flip side, let visitors easily self-select if they want to connect with a sales person; they are late-stageprospectsandwon’tmindafewextraquestions.Itshouldbeobvious,oneverypage in your website, where to go if a prospect wants to buy.

Pervasive and Visually ConsistentMost likely, each prospect will visit a few pages on your website — exploring before deciding toengage.Studiesshowthatpeopleautomaticallyignorebannersandotheradvertising elements. And to your skeptical web visitor, your CTA is just another banner.

By being consistent with your call to action design, you are creating multiple impressions — giving yourselfmultipleopportunitiestoachievethedesiredresultofleadcapture.Whenaprospect decides to engage, they know where to go.

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The call to action on our website, http://www.bnj.com

Putting It All Together

Take a moment to evaluate your website against this criteria. How well do you score?Doyouhaveagreatofferasincentivefornewslettersignup?Isitclearhowtoconnectwithasalesperson?Isitpromotedconsistentlyacrossyourwebsite?Can you track conversion rates?

Mostwillfindamixofhitsandmisses.Corporatewebsitesareoftenpoliticalplaygrounds,withmanycompetingpriorities,anditcanbedifficulttoagree on design changes. That said, your team should be able to agree that increased sales is a priority, and you can impact that immediately by optimizing your call to action strategy.

About Babcock & JenkinsSince1992,wehaveevolvedtheconceptofaccountableB2Bmarketing—targeting,acquiring and converting prospects. Retaining customers. Making heroes of our clients. And doing so through relevant conversation that begins by intercepting each contact where he or she consumes information. This approach requires intricate insight into your audience, advanced understanding of marketing’s evolved role in business, and creative thinking about every stage of the complex sale. At its core, this requires a comprehensive content and communication strategy that can carry someone from spark to sale and back again.

WedothisforsomeoftheleadingB2Bcompaniesontheplanet:Ourpassionis to deliver authentic, unique, relevant stories on behalf of our clients. To build brand, drive demand and accelerate pipeline. To engage audiences in meaningful conversationstoformandpreservelasting,profitablerelationships.

Ifyou’dliketolearnmoreabouthowBabcock&JenkinscanhelpyourcompanyachievegreatROIandnewlevelsofmarketinggreatness,visitusonlineat http://www.bnj.com,orcontactLaurenGoldstein,VPofBusinessDevelopment, at laureng@bnj.com.

Keep in Mind...TestingWhenyourCTAgoeslive,yourjobisjustbeginning.Ideally,you should be constantly trying new approaches with A/B testing. That includes offers, copy and design. The websites with the highest percentage of conversions have been testing and tuning their approaches for years and have built a rich history of successful and failed experiments that lead the way. Build the same discipline, and watch your conversion rates (and marketing database) get better and better over time.

MetricsMost B2B companies with a long sales cycle don’t have great website conversion numbers, if theytrackthematall.StartyourCTA project with some goal setting.Whatpercentageofvisitors do you want to convert to your newsletter? A rate of 2% isn’t an unreasonable goal for a well-executed effort.