How are you using your website today? For many industrial organizations, websites are approached in a few different ways:
As an online product brochure. In this situation, the website serves as a compendium of product information. There are stats and technical information galore! It functions primarily as a resource for technical buyers and engineers in the later stages of their purchase process. It highlights product features and performance data.
As an overview of the company and its history. Many industrial companies have a proud history, perhaps originating from the development of a technology or the discovery of a better way to do something. These websites often have an extensive about us section, detailing the company’s evolution and accomplishments.
A necessary evil. Some industrial companies see their website as a necessary evil, a box to be checked rather than a valuable resource for current and potential customers. This mindset often results in a bare-bones or neglected site and can lead to missed opportunities for customer engagement, brand building, and lead generation.
Are these website approaches inherently wrong? No, but they are incomplete and often result in missed opportunities for growth and value creation.
Why Websites Matter
Do websites matter in B2B industrial businesses? In short, yes. Your website should serve as a resource hub that generates leads, builds relationships, educates your ideal customers, and facilitates revenue generation.
In a recent study of purchase decision-makers and influencers for B2B organizations that Strativise conducted, we found that 75.5% of people start their search for a new supplier online. Moreover, when asked these purchasers to rate a website’s significance on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 meant the website was not important at all and 10 indicated they would not consider a supplier with insufficient online information, two-thirds of respondents responded with an 8 or higher.
Source: Strativise Original Research, 2024
Our research findings align with previous studies by Gartner Inc. that look at the value of different digital marketing efforts. They published the percentage of buyers who engaged with digital supplier interactions in the purchase process:
For industrial companies looking to acquire new customers, delight and grow existing customers, and strengthen their company’s reputation, their website should be the cornerstone of their growth strategy.
3 Common Website Pitfalls
Pitfall #1: Your Website Is All About Your Products
This is the most common mistake companies make with their websites - especially in B2B organizations.
When a company’s website focuses solely on its products, it can miss out on attracting potential customers searching for solutions to their problems rather than specific products. These product-centric websites don’t effectively facilitate the customer journey. For example, a new prospect may land on a supplier’s website while researching their problem. They aren’t ready to compare product features at this stage. First, they need to determine if this type of product (and the company offering it) can help them solve their problem.
With this in mind, carefully consider the content on your home page. In fact, the top section, often referred to as “above the fold,” is the first thing people see when they land on a page and is arguably the most valuable real estate on your site. This top section should clearly communicate what business you are in, who you serve, and how you create value for your customers.
Take Strativise, for example. Our website heading is Industrial Marketing Agency, in bold font. There is no misunderstanding who we are.
The next section of our home page offers more details about who we are as a company and how we help our customers. While we have detailed content on our offerings (i.e., the marketing services we provide), we don’t lead with this. We want our target customers to know that we can help them grow before we explain how.
Consider your customer’s journey, carefully map it out, and then adapt your website content to address each stage.
Pitfall #2: You Talk to Only to Engineers
For most of us in the industrial space, our offerings are highly engineered products, original equipment, or critical components. Our customers require technical documentation and support as part of the business relationship.
Engineering departments generally have a considerable impact on purchasing decisions through the specifications they set. However, they are only one set of stakeholders.
In our recent study of purchase decision-makers and influencers for B2B organizations, we found that other departments beyond engineering were influential in the purchase process.
Source: Strativise Original Research, 2024
In our research, the procurement and supply chain functions exerted the most influence, which isn’t surprising. However, the next two most influential functions are sales and quality assurance, followed by engineering.
These figures are, of course, averages, and the situation may be very different for any given company. However, the takeaway is that effective websites should resonate with a variety of stakeholders from different functions.
Focusing only on one stakeholder type, such as engineering, will limit your influence.
Pitfall #3: Lack of Engaging Content
Besides product and company information, what should you have on your website? The short answer is everything that’s required to attract, convert, and delight your ideal customers. That’s easier said than done, but here are a few ideas to get you started evaluating your company’s website.
First, consider building educational content tailored to different stakeholders. White papers, case studies, and industry reports can position your company as a team of experts while addressing the specific interests of various departments including engineering, procurement, sales, and quality assurance.
Next, think about incorporating a variety of content types that cater to the different learning preferences of your target customers. Videos, webinars, and even audio clips or podcasts can improve user engagement. For instance, an engineering-focused video demonstrating your product’s technical specifications or a procurement-oriented webinar discussing cost-saving strategies could hit the mark with your target customers.
Now, don’t underestimate the power of a blog. Regularly updated blog posts can drive traffic to your site, improve your search engine rankings, and help establish your company as an authority in your industry. Today, with the assistance of AI, blogs can be a great way to tell customer success stories, address common questions, and share examples of how your company creates value for your customers. It’s important that your articles are authentic, relevant, and genuinely helpful.
Interactive content is another way to engage visitors and facilitate the customer journey. Tools such as calculators, configurators, and ROI tools can provide great experiences on your website. While these can take more time and resources to build, they can be a valuable part of your customer experience and potentially free up your inside sales and engineering teams from answering routine questions or running calculations.
Content organization is crucial to guiding your various stakeholders through their respective journeys. Structure your website to facilitate easy navigation, with clear pathways for engineers, procurement professionals, sales teams, and quality assurance experts. This might include dedicated sections or landing pages that cater to each group, ensuring they can quickly find the information most relevant to them as they support their purchase process.
In Conclusion: Transform Your Website Into a Resource Hub
Transforming your industrial B2B website into a resource hub is not just an innovative idea but a necessity for industrial companies that want to remain competitive. The days of viewing websites merely as online product brochures or company overviews are behind us. To get the most from your website, it needs to serve as a multifaceted resource that provides value to your target customers.
Addressing the common website pitfalls discussed in this article is an important early step. A product-centric website can miss the opportunity to connect with potential customers who are still in the problem-identification stage. Similarly, focusing exclusively on technical content for engineers neglects the needs of other influential stakeholders, such as procurement, sales, and quality assurance professionals. By broadening your content, you cater to the diverse information needs of your audience. This not only improves your customer’s experience, it also positions your company as the go-to team of experts that can solve their problems.
Content organization and interactivity are also key to transforming your website into a resource hub. Strategic navigation paths help visitors find relevant information easily, while interactive tools like calculators and configurators enhance user experience and streamline the customer journey. Regularly updated, authentic blog posts drive traffic and boost search rankings.
Transforming your website into a dynamic, customer-centric resource hub will help maximize its potential to attract, convert, and delight your customers.
The information in this blog is based on the findings of our original research and our experience with working with industrial B2B organizations. If you are interested in booking a strategy session to discuss how Strativise might be able to assist your company with digital marketing, please follow the scheduling link below.
Download your free copy of our research report, “How Industrial Companies Make Purchasing Decisions Today,” or head over and book a strategy call with us today.