We get that individual motives might differ, but it’s worth remembering that when the lesser-spotted B2B buyer is still a B2C buyer when they clock off. Now we’ve mentioned it, Shopify (love you) recently told us business buyers still prefer the B2C ecommerce experience when applying strategies to their day-to-day purchasing. When placing a business order online, we’ve grown to expect the ease and convenience we’re used to when purchasing directly from brands. So, it’s super-important that a path to purchase is slick AF.
B2Bs reign supreme when it comes to key performance indicators, so we’re not gonna lose out on the phrases we love the most like Average Order Frequency, Customer Loyalties and Conversions. Relevancy is the mantra of brand marketing and it comes down to data every time.
Eh, what’s your point again?
You can only optimise your website if you know what your customers are interested in. Naturally, as a Google-orientated agency, we think Google Analytics is pretty fucking brilliant for that. The keyword (not sure if the pun is intended, just gonna see how it pans out) here is usability: your website offers still need to be bragging about the value they’re adding for customers.
Since bounce rates, for example, vary considerably depending on the topic and industry of a website, it’s no breeze to determine reference values. As you might expect, you’re going to want to see a positive trend of users… wey, not leaving basically.
What business objective do you want your users to meet or complete? What’s the point? Filling in a form? Downloading a white paper report? Or, god forbid, actually picking up the phone? (Yeah I know not actually picking up a phone coz it’s 2021 and it’s a clickthrough now but stay with me on this).
Where are your tabs?
Sometimes we underestimate the quick fixes. Happens to the best of us. Consumers can’t be navigating to things they can’t find. So as much as you can polish, tidy and tweak your website it’s good to bear in mind that much like B2C pages, business buyers just want to be able to find what they’re looking for.
As much as we love the sound of our own voices at BFBC, we aren’t exempt from that rule either and this part works better with an example.
We idiot-proofed these bad lads from the get-go:
The three most important elements to us gaining that all important conversion from folks looking at our website, scratching their heads about making money online comes from them:
2️⃣ Us being piss easy to get a hold of
3️⃣ Easy to digest evidence that what we do works
The same principles can be applied to just about any B2B website. Your client testimonials can act in the same way a product review would do on your more standard DTC platform, and they look even friendlier when you remember to pop them on Google My Business.
Lead Magnets
Honestly as easy as they sound. Lead magnets are basically a bit of a barter of you showing a prospect what you’ve got in exchange for info like an email address, a follow up or something that’ll lead to… wey, a lead. Look:
We can’t stop you offering a discount
We can’t hand on heart say walking in with a discount on the table is best practice, coz we don’t really think it is – but we’re not daft enough to overlook it as an incentive altogether. It is a good time to consider upcoming events, what people might be searching for and how you can retarget your content so that traffic can find your business. And it’s always a shout to remember discounts exist for new and existing customers.
Mailers will take you maybe 15 minutes to master
Look, that’s what we did right here. If we can manage it, anyone can.
Rather than basing buying decisions on a single, or even multiple emails, B2B prospects will need a consistent stream of valuable content if they’re to consider any supplier of anything. Yeah, real business words.
Ebooks / webinars and the class of 2020
There’s maybe a sexier way of recommending knocking a digital sheet together, but remember in the first lockdown when the world and its mam got on the ‘learn at home’ bandwagon? Naturally, the first person you learned your optimisation from is the first person you’d call for advice.
We might look into this this year – do you want to see something like that from your PPC Agency before you climb on the Be Found Be Chosen money making bus? Give me a shout and let a gal know.
Pair your USP’s with your customers
There’s not loads to elaborate on for this one – make context the source of e v e r y t h i n g you do. That’s it, that’s the bullet point.
Speaking of which…
Your B2B baes aren’t quite as likely to jump at a one off, snappy promo. If you think that customers are looking to build a steadfast business case, you’ll need to generate the right amount of buzz around your brand.
Socials are your friend. I promise. Even if you think the business to business world is a bit stale, a little more difficult to tease content out of – it’s going to be your ally wayyyyyyyyy sooner than it’s ever your enemy.
You don’t have to churn a huge amount of your budget into brand awareness posts to begin with, either. There is ample opportunity to re-target email ignorers through Facebook Ads and Google Ads, though, and it’s a good idea to remember no one wants to interact with a brand that only talks about itself 🥴
Keeping your engagement levels high is a ball ache for any brand – but customers that drop off the face of the earth aren’t lost forever. You should try, at the very least, to win them back and rekindle some brand love. Simple re-engagement programs are tried and tested sources of revenue.
An agency should be making this easier for you, if you’re using one.
And if you’re not engaged with an agency yet… slide into this boy’s inbox. He’s a smooth talking customer journey dreamboat and he’ll blow your B2B mind. I mean, we all will if that’s your thing. We aren’t here to kink shame – we just want to grow your brand online.
