Most B2B websites are the primary way companies represent themselves and their products to prospects in the 57% of the consideration process that occurs online. There are (at least) five roles that websites need to perform in B2B lead generation and nurturing.
How do you think yours is performing?
Take this quick self-assessment to identify where you think performance of your key digital asset could most be improved. Give your website a 1-5 rating (low to high) on how you think your prospects would rate it for:
- Relevance: To what extent does it represent your prospects’ business objectives that your products can fulfill (vs. description of your product with benefits)?
- Advocacy: How well does it advocate for your offerings, promoting “why” they are needed (vs. simply describing “what” they do)?
- Credibility: How well does it support your claims with client testimonials and other reasons to believe that are relevant to your prospects?
- Differentiation: How well does it emphasize how and why your offering(s) are different and superior to alternatives?
- Affinity: How well does it give prospects a sense that your company understands and values them and is a company they would want to work with?
Total your score here: ______
- Score 20-25: Kudos to you for what appears to be a great job! Now check that with your actual prospects and sales colleagues to see where they concur and don’t.
- Score 15-19: Kudos to you for being on your way! Pick 1-2 issues as the ones you most want to improve.
- Score 5-14: Kudos to you for being able to see your website from your prospect’s viewpoint! No, seriously. Knowing you need to improve is the first step to making your website more persuasive for your prospects and more dangerous for your competitors. And we’re really good at doing that.
Next steps:
Have your internal team review your website and your 2 top competitors’ websites. Have them review the competitors first to help put yours in perspective. This will give you all a more realistic framework and help you see things a bit more from your prospects’ perspective.
Extra credit:
So far you have been guessing about how your prospects see your website and your competitors’ websites. Now it’s time to actually find out.
When having an online ‘dialog’, it always pays to listen first. In our experience, asking real prospects always reveals surprising opportunities to make your website work even harder for you. This not only shows what they like and want you to improve, but also unveils what is and is not important to them.