The fact is that your prospective buyers' behavior online has changed. Studies show that B2B buyers, including the c-suite, are engaging online just as much as any other user. =For instance according to a study made by Google [Google- B2B Zero Moment of Truth, 2011]:
Since the recession started, 62% of B2B buyers spend more time researching products and services on-line during the procurement process
25% of B2B buyers are more likely to change vendors than before the recession.
65% of the c-suite make 6+ work related searches per day.
99% of Small Business Owners consider Search Engines, the most effective tool for finding suppliers.
With the help of SEO, SEM, and SMO, you can entice the right audience to visit your website. Now, how do you convert these anonymous visitors into named leads that will enter your sales process? Traditionally, your website might have "Contact Us" form, hoping your visitors will find it and fill it out. But in today's marketing environment where every marketer is trying out unique selling propositions to capture the leads by doing Internet Marketing stuff, you must now pepper your website with a variety of ways for prospects to reach out to you. The purpose of your website must adapt. Your website must work as a lead generation system.
Here is a list of tips you can follow to get your website to work as a lead generation system:
Identify your value: First clearly identify what are the top 3 problems that your product or service solves for your customers.
Share the wealth: your company is a wealth of knowledge in your area of specialty. Share knowledge with your prospective buyers; show them different approaches to solve their problems, and concentrate all that shareable knowledge in a combination of learning center or blog, advanced content downloadable documents, videos and presentations.
Organize your content by value to your customers, not by technical features.
Place calls to action throughout your site: on-line conversion is not limited to e-commerce sites, and although conversion from visitor-to-customer is unlikely in a B2B environment, your website CAN convert your visitors into leads, as long as you give your visitors the opportunity to do so. To effectively do lead generation from your website, you must provide your target audience with valuable offers and information in exchange for providing their basic contact information. It means you must get inside the head of your prospect to understand what he or she is looking for, and provide a simple process for them to request access to it. The following is a sample of content and features that can be used to convert visitors into leads:
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Simplify your call to action forms: don’t scare potential buyers by asking for a lot of information. Don’t ask for more than first name and e-mail unless strictly necessary.