Your website might not be the lead generating, sales tool you hoped and dreamed for. You also might be looking for low hanging fruit and suggestions on what you can do to drive quality leads to sales from your website. To turn your website into a true lead generating, sales tool there’s work to be done offline first.

Understanding Buyer Behavior

Today, B2B buyers are researching future purchases without ever having to speak with a salesperson. According to CEB Marketing Leadership Council’s report, “The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing,” B2B customers reported to being nearly 60% through the sales process before engaging a sales rep. By 2020, B2B buyers won’t contact vendors until they are 80% of the way through a purchasing decision. (Source: Terminus)

The shift in power from the salesperson to the buyer has left sales teams scrambling to regain power. It’s not about regaining power though. Instead, companies should understand buyer behavior and scramble to create an experience the buyer needs.

As a marketer, you can finally build a website and digital marketing strategy that caters to the needs and wants of your audience. Speak to their challenges, pain points and frustrations and provide content that will help. Buyers are looking for information that can help them solve their problems.

Sales and marketing alignment

This topic has been all the buzz lately, and rightfully so. Lines between sales and marketing are beyond blurred. It can be argued that sales and marketing alignment is where the greatest opportunity for revenue growth exists.

Think about it: Marketing creates, manages and distributes content to attract potential customers. The experience and content needs to help prospects at each phase of the buyer journey. Sales is on the front lines speaking with prospects and hearing their challenges and frustrations. Sharing this information means Marketing can create content and an overall experience that is helpful, advancing prospects through the marketing and sales funnels.

65% of sales reps say they can’t find content to send to prospects, representing the most common complaint cited by sales teams.
(Source: Kapost, A Marketer’s Guide to Sales Enablement)

Understanding challenges across the full spectrum of the buyer’s journey perfectly positions Marketing teams to execute strategies that have a serious impact on the bottom line.

Determine criteria for a “perfect fit”

An ideal customer will differ from company to company. Ask Sales the criteria for what constitutes a “perfect fit” customer. Criteria might include:

  • Industry they work in
  • Role/position at their company
  • Location
  • Company revenue
  • Pain points, challenges

Knowing who you want to attract to your website makes it a lot easier to do just that. Without knowing the who you’re fishing in the dark, without a pole. Start with optimizing your website for keywords and key phrases that an ideal customer would be searching for.

Once they’ve landed on your website, you’ll need to assist them every step of the way toward converting. Stay tuned for our next blog on what to do when your website fails to generate leads and how you can capitalize on some low hanging fruit.