The most beautifully designed website in the world is just window dressing if it doesn't help move visitors further along in the sales cycle. And in order to help them move forward into sales, you need to be their source of help and guidance where they can have their questions answered, their potential solution options introduced and explained, with customers feeling like they are benefiting from their communications with your business. This is what makes a great website.
When it comes to creating or revamping your company’s website, the first instinct is to start with design. But before you can even start thinking about design and layout, what key components will you include and what purpose will they serve in helping your company reach its goals?
If your website content does not already include a blog, now is the time to start. The importance of blog articles in attracting and maintaining customers cannot be understated. As found in the Inbound Methodology, publishing regularly on your company’s blog is an important “top-of-funnel” action that helps filter down prospects who are actually interested in what your company has to offer or have questions that your firm can especially answer and provide help with. That way, you can confidently move forward through the sales process with promising prospects and leads building on the initial interest that your blogs helped garner.
And once you’ve established prospects and leads as customers, the usefulness of blog articles don’t stop there. Continually publishing helpful articles on your website and including links to these articles in email newsletters provide valuable resources of information and education for your existing customers.
When writing blog articles, think about the most frequent and important questions and pain points your buyer persona is facing and the different stages of the buyer’s journey they may be at. Be consistent in publishing your blog content to establish authority and credibility in your industry. However, sometimes having to write blog article after article like a well-oiled machine is impossibly demanding and extremely difficult. To help avoid writer’s block or burnout in the midst of content creation, consider recycling your existing blog content and remixing them as fresh pieces of content.
Remember, sales are important all around, but your sales won’t amount to much without happy, educated customers. Nowadays, buyers prefer doing their own research and learning about their own options before making a decision and committing to a single solution. This is where providing high-value resources on your company’s website comes into play. Building on your blog content, these resources offer a more in-depth wealth of information on a particular topic that is relevant and would help answer a prospect’s most pressing questions, such as eBooks, white papers, infographics, webinars, sign-ups for an online course, etc.
Because these resources that your company has spent considerable time and energy creating provide high value and thus help pique the interest of prospects, they serve as effective conversion opportunities to generate leads and customers. By asking for a prospect’s email address to receive a free eBook on investment options for example, it’s a win-win for the prospect who can now learn all about investments in one convenient PDF while you gain a lead who is interested in solutions your firm provides.
Including a live chat feature on your company’s website not only enables open communication with your customer in real time, but significantly increases customer satisfaction. As cited in Forbes of a study conducted by customer service giant Zendesk, it was found that 92% customers feel satisfied when they use the live chat feature, compared to other communication options like voice (88%), email (85), web form (85%), and social media (Facebook 84%, Twitter 77%).
Why does this specific form of communication have such a lasting impact on customers? A live chat creates an environment for organic conversation between a customer and sales representative where the customer can conveniently voice their questions and needs and can expect to receive quick, helpful responses from a person on the other end in return that make them feel cared for, with “person” being the operative word.
Humans relate best with other humans and when a customer feels that they are talking with another person in a live chat versus automated robotic responses, this helps to cultivate a pleasant buying experience and positive impression of your firm’s brand. When you optimize the communication between your firm and your customer, the more trust increases, and customers feel comfortable to do business with you.
Here are some useful tips when starting to use live chat:
Taking it one step further, enabling a booking feature is a key action that every website should take advantage of. When prospects and leads are looking to book a consultation or demo with one of your firm’s sales representatives, they are interested in deeper communication with your company and have a much clearer idea of what they themselves need help with.
If they have a question about their pain points and goals or your firm’s services, they need to be accessible to them a way to contact you directly in person. If they can’t, they just might decide to take their business elsewhere. This is where a booking feature not only provides prospects and leads much-needed information and answers, but is a valuable conversion opportunity to nurture a relationship with them and ultimately help drive sales.
Look for a booking feature that allows leads to view a calendar of various time slots available for a consultation to streamline the process, compared to an inefficient back-and-forth email conversation trying to decide on a date and time to talk.