Your B2B website is one of the most important tools in your sales arsenal—and your website content is the ammunition.
In today’s digital world, buyers are doing more research on their own before ever talking to a sales rep.
In fact, Forrester Research found that 57% of the B2B decision-making process is complete before a prospect even speaks to a vendor.
Your website is often the first interaction a prospective buyer has with your brand. Even if you first reach out via LinkedIn, then Zoom/phone, your prospect will go to Google to check out the products or services you’re selling – whether you know it or not.
Remember today, the power is with the buyer.
Times are different today compared to 15 years ago when it was the sales rep who was the best source of product/service information.
Today prospects have almost everything they need by searching on Google. That means they only need to speak to your sales team later in the buyer journey.
And if your content isn’t showing in Google when your target buyer searches, then your competitors’ content will be.
That’s why it’s so important to have high-quality, informative website content that speaks directly to your target buyer.
Here’s a closer look at how your website content can directly impact B2B sales and how you can make the most of this opportunity.
Build Credibility and Trust
Your website content is an opportunity to build credibility and trust with prospective buyers.
A lot of B2B selling can involve reaching out and connecting with people on LinkedIn, or using existing relationships to connect with buyers. But from the point at when you first connect on LinkedIn, all the way through the sales process, there will be numerous points at which you lose control.
Your target buyer will open up Google and carry out additional research about the products/services you’re trying to sell them.
The businesses that show up in Google will be those answering the exact questions your prospects will ask you at some point in the sales process. If you’re not showing up, it’s your competitors who will be getting involved in the conversation to sell.
Wouldn’t it be great if when your target buyer searches online that your website was appearing at or near the top for a range of topics and questions that your prospect would ask?
Suddenly to your prospect the levels of trust substantially increase. Significantly more than you could achieve through messages, emails and phone calls.
To your prospects you suddenly appear as THE trusted person/company in your space. The expert of your product/service online.
When the trust is high is when the selling becomes much easier.
One of the reasons that the selling becomes easier is when buyers find information by themselves, without a sales rep. They come to their own conclusions to buy your product/service – through their own research – rather than being told buying is a good idea by a sales rep.
When buyers are considering a purchase, they want to work with a company they can trust—a company that is an expert in their industry and has a proven track record of success.
So your website content should position your company as a thought leader in your industry.
Share case studies, white papers, blog posts, and other forms of thought-leadership content that show prospective buyers what you know and how you can help them solve their specific challenges.
The more credible and trustworthy your content, the more likely buyers are to do business with you.
Don’t let the term ‘thought-leader’ put you off.
Creating content for your website is relatively easy. You or other subject matter experts in your business should be very comfortable with the types of questions you target buyers ask.
All you have to do in 20-30 minutes is write a good question/answer post and publish it on your website.
Even if it means, that to begin with, your article contains 400 words, get it published.
Don’t be a perfectionist, give your buyers and Google an early chance to consume your content.
You can add to, enhance and update all of your content over time.
Generate Leads and Nurtures Prospects
In addition to building credibility and trust, your website content should also be generating leads and nurturing prospects throughout the buyer’s journey.
Include calls-to-action (CTAs) on every page of your site that encourage visitors to take the next step in their buyer’s journey—whether that’s signing up for a free trial or downloading a white paper.
Your CTAs should be relevant to the stage of the buyer’s journey the visitor is in.
For example, if someone is in the awareness stage, you wouldn’t want to include a CTA for a free trial because they’re not ready to make that commitment yet.
However, you might want to include a CTA for an ebook or webinar so they can learn more about their challenge and how you can help them solve it.
By including relevant CTAs throughout your site, you can turn prospects into leads and leads into customers.
Speak Directly to Your Target Buyer Personas
Your website content should be laser-focused on your target buyer personas. These are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer that are based on market research and real data about current customers.
When creating new content, always keep your target buyer personas top of mind so you can create material that appeals directly to their needs, challenges, pain points, etc.
The more relevant and targeted your content is to your target buyer personas, the better results you will see in terms of lead generation and conversion rates. So take some time to get to know your target buyer personas inside and out—it will pay off in terms of increased sales down the road.
Website content has a direct impact on B2B sales—but only if it’s high quality, informative, trustworthy, targeted, and relevant to the buyer’s journey. By creating website content that ticks all those boxes, you can generate leads, nurture prospects, build credibility and trust, and close more deals.
And it doesn’t have to be time consuming. Simply start by getting a list of the top 20 questions you or your team are asked in the sales process, and getting writing the answers. I’d recommend you do this straight on your website and save as a draft before publishing. That way your content is less likely to gather dust on your computer, and bever see the light of day.
Integrating website through the sales process is critical. More and more business are jumping on this opportunity. It’s one of those approaches that simply makes sense because it helps you build trust.
Quality website content used wisely in the sales process, really does make the selling easier.
Don’t get left behind.
If you need advice to create content marketing that will help you close more B2B sales click here to arrange a non-salesy call with me, Mark Reynolds, or learn more about me here.