March 2010

Your B2B Buyers Think Your Website Is Hard To Use

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Yes, I know B2B buyers are savvy. I know most of them use computers and the Internet in their jobs each and every day. And I’m sorry to tell you, they really do think your website is hard to use.

I’ll give you an example from my own experience. My dryer died a few weeks ago and I’ve been doing research before purchasing a new one. Now I’m not the type to actually purchase a dryer online, but I’m happy to do all my research there.

One of the things I wanted to know is how much the dryer was and whether my local store had it in stock. Finding the local store information and getting it to display on the websites was a huge challenge.

First, they all called it something different. Store locator. Store finder. And my personal favorite, directory. In addition to the different terminology, the ...

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Train Prospects with Your B2B Marketing Content

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I can hear the excitement now. There's a way to train prospects? Eager B2B marketers have but one question -- can we train them to buy my product? All the time?

Now before you go off with visions of prospects marching like zombies and chanting "buy, buy, buy," I should clarify a couple of things.

First, you can train prospects. Unfortunately for us, we often train prospects in ways we don't realize or anticipate. And second, now that you know, you can use training principles to create great B2B marketing copy.

Principle 1: Stay Focused

Did you ever have a teacher who presented more than one concept at a time? Or who ran through so many ideas you didn't know which one was most important? Or remembered half of what she said? Don't make that mistake with your marketing copy.

The average person can only keep five ...

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Picking the Right B2B Copywriter for Your Next Project

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The spiking demand for well-crafted content means many companies will end up working with a freelancer at some point.

If you are the lucky soul in charge of choosing, you have a big task ahead of you. Especially if you don't already know a few people who could do the job well.

Perhaps you begin with one of  the big job boards such as elance.com. Or maybe you just do a quick google search to see who's out there. Either way, you're likely to be overwhelmed with choices and promises.

Here's a few ways to help sort through the noise.

Look for Writing Ability

You are hiring this person to write, so evaluate their writing skills. Is there a website? How well is it written? Blog posts? Samples? Emails? You don't necessarily need to see a sample of the exact type of project you want them to work on for this ...

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Three Techniques for Better Website Copy

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For most B2B marketers, the corporate website is the cornerstone of their marketing program. Search engines crawl it and display the contents. Emails and PPC campaigns drive traffic to it. Social media sites refer to it. Even offline promotions, such as sales letters or postcards, often direct their readers back to the corporate website. So it's important. Huge even. So here's my question.

Is the content great?

If your site is like those filled with corporatese, industry jargon and "repurposed brochures" full of company centric content then the answer is no. Not so much.

And let's face it, a wholesale rewrite is probably the best solution...but we all know that's a big job and too often takes a backseat to redesigns for "refreshing" the corporate look. So in the meantime, consider what these three techniques can do to make your website more prospect friendly and help increase conversions.

Kill the Corporatese

If the infestation is bad, it may ...

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