Guest post by Eleanor Hecks.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is just important for B2B companies as B2C businesses.
Image credit: Amjith S on Unsplash
B2B marketers spend a great deal of time, effort, and money on top-of-funnel activities to drive website traffic. Converting those visitors into potential customers and putting them on the path to a sale is essential in order to see a return on that investment.
Convincing them to take the next step (and ultimately, to buy from you) can be challenging, however. CRO requires the right strategy. Here are six ways to make sure your B2B CRO strategy is on the right track.
1. You Know the Steps of the B2B Purchasing Process
An effective B2B CRO strategy begins with understanding the purchasing process. If you haven’t mapped out how your customers move from awareness of your brand to a sale, it will much harder to move them through the purchase funnel.
This is especially true for B2B vendors, as the buyer’s journey is often complex — one purchase can be months in the making and require input from multiple decision-makers.
The typical B2B customer will move through these steps before they convert, though the process is not always linear:
- Identification of need: The buyer identifies a problem they have and decides to buy a product or service that will solve it.
- Search for information: The buyer uses tools like Google and their professional network to research possible solutions to their problem.
- Awareness: The buyer learns about your brand for the first time.
- Consideration: The buyer uses information from your site and the web to decide if your brand has what they need, and belongs on their short list.
- Conversion: The buyer determines which products or services they’re most interested in and then decides whether or not to buy, and if so, what to buy.
Buyers can be targeted before and after they know about your brand, but people at different stages of the process require a different approach. Buyer personas and similar marketing techniques can help you consider diverging needs when building your CRO strategy.
2. You Use the Right Tools
It will be hard to optimize your site and marketing for conversion without the right information. You can use various tools to see how many potential buyers are converting.
Google Analytics (GA) is a powerful, free tool that provides information and reports on how visitors are interacting with your website. You can use GA to track conversions, see where people are coming from and identify potential issues with your site — like a high bounce rate or low dwell time for important pages.
Other popular tools include Hotjar, which collects data on user behavior, Adobe Analytics, and Instapage.
Using the right web analytics tools will help you determine how visitors really see your website, making it easier to optimize individual pages or content for conversions.
3. You Know What Marketing Strategies to Use
Companies will need to use different marketing strategies to convince potential customers to convert. Web marketing is essential for all businesses, but it’s not the only technique a B2B should use.
Phone and text message marketing are two alternatives that can help keep buyers engaged or move them further along their journey. The right technique is also important — knowing how to use text messaging effectively will be vital if you want to move customers along their journey.
4. Your Homepage Is Optimized
Your website’s homepage is arguably the most important element of your brand’s web presence. It’s critical for SEO, your chance to make a great first impression, and your virtual store front. You may be missing out on a massive number of conversions if it isn’t optimized.
The best homepages feature a compelling mission statement that explains your brand — why your company exists, how you solve problems your customers have, and who you solve those problems for.
An effective opening statement will include your company name, your market, and what you offer. It should also feature some product qualities and your business’s unique value proposition, or what makes your offerings different from competitors.
Landing pages should include similar information, but with more focus on a particular buyer persona or set of needs, plus one clear call to action (CTA).
Your homepage and other site pages should also include intuitive navigation features that make it easy for visitors to find the information they need. Dedicated pages for product information, contact information, and testimonials are essential for conversion, but visitors won’t benefit if they can’t find them.
A header or sidebar with links to important information will help visitors find what they need from your homepage — or any page on your site.
5. You Keep Your Site Forms Simple
Most B2B customers won’t move straight to a purchase from your site. They’ll need to get in touch with your team first to discuss product options, payment plans, and other important information.
They’ll have to fill out a contact form to get in touch. These forms should be kept as simple as possible — with just enough fields to get the information you need to move forward. The more complex the form is, and the more information you ask for, the less likely a visitor will fill it out.
You can keep forms simple by reducing the number of fields or shortening them where practical. You can also try splitting it over multiple pages. Multistep forms will still provide all the information you need, but they make the pages look simpler and easier to fill out.
6. You Have a Compelling Call to Action
Your CTA is one of the most important elements of your CRO strategy. It should be clear and easy to spot. Buttons should be highly visible and use words that show up throughout your site — like “Contact us” or “Get a quote today.”
The CTA will help make it obvious where links and buttons on your site will go. Clear direction will ensure customers can move forward when they’re ready.
Reviewing the CTAs on your site is a great way to ensure your landing pages or homepages are optimized for conversions.
How to Know if Your CRO Strategy Is Optimized
The right B2B conversion rate optimization strategy should increase the number of visitors and potential customers who convert.
Knowledge of the B2B buyer’s journey, CRO tools, and site optimization are essential components of an effective strategy. It’s also important to optimize use of different digital marketing techniques you have at your disposal, like web, chatbot, or text message marketing.
Taking the right steps can ensure your company converts more B2B prospects into loyal clients.
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a prominent digital marketing agency prior to becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philadelphia with her husband and pup, Bear.