Each B2B company has to decide where to invest its marketing resources.
They all face similar challenges:
- Bring qualified buyers to their web site and produce quality leads for their sales force.
- Connect with buyers and create value for them at each stage of their buying process.
- Build a foundation for a continuous and long-term relationship with buyers.
Companies can overcome this challenge. But they require good information if they are to discover the insights necessary to make wise marketing decisions.
You have access to a wealth of information
It can often seem that buyers have all the power today. Certainly they have access to much more information than they ever did in the past. B2B buyers have full control as they consume content when and where they want, avoid vendor interactions and directly engage one-on-one with their peers.
But buyers aren’t the only ones with access to information. You also have at your fingertips a wealth of knowledge, more than ever before. You can use it to make smarter decisions about your online strategy.
It doesn’t cost much to collect this information. Google Analytics is free and is getting more powerful all the time. Other tools are available free or at low cost.
Use tools and people skills to extract value from your data
In fact, these tools allow companies to collect so much data that it quickly becomes overwhelming. How do you sort through all of it? Even on a small website the interactions are complex.
It takes skill and experience to decipher what is real and what is fake, to discover meaningful, actionable insights.
The answer lies in a mix of tools and skills. Avinash Kaushik advises companies to spend 10% of their analytics budget on tools and 90% on people skills. An experienced web analytics person can make sure that your data is clean and that you pull useful information from it.
Start small and make continuous improvements
With so much information about your website visitors you’ll suddenly be presented with a long list of marketing changes you want to make. In fact, you’ll be tempted to take on too much.
Resist this temptation! You don’t have to do everything right away.
Start small. Constrain yourself to incremental changes. Look for obvious areas where you can improve the experience for your visitors. Make those changes. Watch your results. Then look for the next set of changes to make.
Adopt a marketing and measurement model that makes sense for your business. It should capture information about how you attract visitors to your website, how they behave on the site, and the outcome of their interactions with you.
With insights into customer behavior and intent, you can make better decisions about where to invest your marketing resources. You’ll improve your ability to help your buyers find your website, obtain the information they want, and become customers.
