You should consider your website your company’s best salesperson.
Not just any salesperson. A credible, highly intelligent, engaging, and persuasive B2B salesperson with critical information about the prospect. Not just their name, number, and email address. She can obtain their interests, moment of pause, and what piqued their interest as she provides specific information targeting their needs. Afterward, she keeps them engaged with detailed information that helps them through the buying process. Next, she contacts the right professional within your organization to hold their hand through the process until the sale is closed. Then, she checks in after they become a customer and reports their activity to your service, marketing, and sales departments to continue providing them with an exceptional experience throughout their journey. If this description applies to your website, it is in tune with Revenue Operations, and it is vital to growing your B2B company.
Often, as I work with manufacturers, distributors, and other businesses that support the building industry, I first look to understand their needs through their websites. Your website is your digital doorstep to your company. As a professional who can see inside the company through digital communications, I learn a lot about where you are in your growth journey just by looking at your website. I look for digital canaries in the website coalmine to give me clues and context, such as what CRM tool you use, when you built your website, which content management platform you use, and how it enables functionality. I can see if you have a dedicated marketing team or if your marketing strategy is the responsibility of different members of your company. I learn about how you ask for business or if the site is simply a digital brochure. More than 90% of the time, your website is not the articulate and efficient salesperson you wish it was or are just beginning to realize it can be.
If your website has any of the following symptoms, there is a good chance your organization is experiencing related operational challenges:
Website Symptom |
Operational Challenge |
|
Poor positioning and messaging |
Teams and management have different definitions of the organization's goals, or they are not well defined |
|
No CRM tied to the company’s website input forms, chat functions, or website pages |
Use of Excel spreadsheets to manage sales and customer service efforts |
|
No CRM linked to the company’s website, no chat functionality, no customer FAQs or self-service functions, hard to find contact information |
Communication between departments is typically slow or detached |
|
Different technologies used for contact functions (i.e. different chat, email, and website technology) or no technology present |
Each department has its own set of tools disconnected from each other |
|
No content management system on the website, no tracking on URLs to report attribution |
Calculating ROI on marketing efforts is difficult |
|
No automated follow-up for sales inquiries, few or no content offers or forms to help move sales from website visitor to lead to sales qualified prospect |
Management of lead qualification and sales follow-up is manual and cumbersome |
|
Different or no contact management (CRM) system, different tools for sales and service functions if integrated into the website, no segmented emails - everyone gets the same email “blasts” |
Customer information is saved in multiple places; there is no one single record with all information about a customer from sales to service |
|
No email personalization, little to no content for different audience types (customers, prospects, strangers) |
Management and segmentation of customer and lead databases is complex and tedious |
|
Lack of tracking codes on links, few or no call-to-action links |
No clear attribution of website activity to sales |
|
A general email account or contact form for all inquiries, no automatic confirmation email when a form is submitted, no ticket assigned for customer service inquiries |
Staff burdened with manual processes, such as filing and manual email follow-up |
|
No customer self-service options such as a portal, customer service ticketing or email routing of customer forms |
Internal processes are not standardized or well documented |
Your prospective customers are also looking at your website. Today there are more than 4.6 billion internet users and more than 1.8 billion websites. To stand out in this crowded online space, you need to understand the latest technologies and trends in web design and consumer behaviors and expectations. Consider:
- 48% of people cited that a website’s design is the No. 1 factor in determining a business’s credibility (source)
- In a study commissioned by Google, decreasing mobile site load times by just one-tenth of a second resulted in a significant increase in conversion rates (source)
- It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not and whether they’ll stay or leave (source)
- 70% of small business websites lack a Call to Action (CTA) on their homepage (source)
If your site isn’t engaging, thought-provoking, and interactive, you're just scratching the surface.
Your website + RevOps
A profound shift is happening in how companies think about their revenue process. The need for transparency, accountability, and predictability is more significant than ever before.
Partially, this is because the customer’s buying journey has changed. They’re conducting their research well before they even reach your website. Plus, what happens after the sale is just as important as before.
Because the customer journey is mostly over by the time they get to the sales department, other team members are now responsible for driving revenue. Sales, marketing, service, and operations, must be aligned throughout the entire funnel if they want to succeed. And you should integrate these departments into your website so they work together to give your customers the ultimate user experience.
Your website should act like a 24/7 salesperson. It should be a revenue-producing asset your company is proud to share with visitors, prospects, and customers. It should target your ideal customers with beautiful, informative content that engages them and makes them take action. Your website should invite visitors to interact with content so they can learn more about your solution or ask questions. Prospects should have the ability to purchase online and receive cart nurturing messages to push them further along the funnel. It should thank them and make them feel excited and amazed by their experience with your company. And your website should support internal communications between your prospects and your company by notifying your sales and service teams to provide your customers with more exceptional experiences.
Illumine8’s phased approach to web design, development, and optimization tackles the most common web issues: low conversion, high bounce rates (how quickly people leave your website), slow speeds, and lackluster design. Our team begins with a project plan to create an engaging and thought-provoking website that turns visitors into leads and leads into customers. Attaining business growth starts with your website no matter your goal, such as selling products via an e-commerce platform, generating or revitalizing revenue streams, or upselling to and engaging with existing customers. All growth starts with a well-designed and developed website that drives conversions and increases engagements.
If you feel that your website is lacking, you are not alone. All of us have experienced a transformation over the last two years. The pandemic forced a digital transformation in adaptation skills, software, processes, and communication. Growth happens with awareness and change, and we are here to help!
Let's start the conversation. Take our digital transformation readiness quiz to get started if you are curious about how Illumine8 can guide you through an effective transformation in your B2B, middle-market growth stage company.
