Oct. 7, 2019

#B2BWebsites 6: How to Prevent Consumers From Wasting Time on your B2B Website w/ Eric Sharp

In the sixth episode of the #B2BWebsites series, , the Founder at , hits on a problem all B2B Marketers face with their website: preventing consumers from visiting, clicking around, and (gasp!) filling out lead gen forms. What. A. Waste....

In the sixth episode of the #B2BWebsites series, Eric Sharp, the Founder at ProtoFuse, Inc., hits on a problem all B2B Marketers face with their website: preventing consumers from visiting, clicking around, and (gasp!) filling out lead gen forms.

What. A. Waste.

Here's the problem. Consumers WILL find a way into your site. It's going to happen no matter what you do. You can't shut your website's doors. But, this traffic is damaging to your marketing and sales efforts. It isn’t qualified and will bloat your analytics and burn valuable sales resources.

So, is this a lost cause? Absolutely not. Try these 5 tips to limit this audience.


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Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:04.519 Are you struggling to come up with original content weekend and week out? Start 2 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:09.189 a podcast, interview your ideal clients, let them talk about what they care 3 00:00:09.230 --> 00:00:14.589 about most and never run out of content ideas again. Learn more at sweet 4 00:00:14.589 --> 00:00:23.699 fish Mediacom. You're listening to be tob growth, a daily podcast for B 5 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:28.100 TOB leaders. We've interviewed names you've probably heard before, like Gary Vannerd truck 6 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:32.020 and Simon Senek, but you've probably never heard from the majority of our guests. 7 00:00:32.659 --> 00:00:36.649 That's because the bulk of our interviews aren't with professional speakers and authors. 8 00:00:37.210 --> 00:00:41.049 Most of our guests are in the trenches leading sales and marketing teams. They're 9 00:00:41.090 --> 00:00:46.570 implementing strategy, they're experimenting with tactics, they're building the fastest growing BB companies 10 00:00:46.609 --> 00:00:49.770 in the world. My name is James Carberry. I'm the founder of sweet 11 00:00:49.770 --> 00:00:53.399 fish media, a podcast agency for BB brands, and I'm also one of 12 00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:57.439 the cohosts of the show. When we're not interviewing sales and marketing leaders, 13 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:00.280 you'll hear stories from behind the scenes of our own business. Will share the 14 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:03.549 ups and downs of our journey as we attempt to take over the world. 15 00:01:04.189 --> 00:01:15.510 Just getting well, maybe let's get into the show. Welcome to another episode 16 00:01:15.549 --> 00:01:19.859 of the B Tob Website series here on bb growth, where we discussed practical 17 00:01:19.019 --> 00:01:23.459 and actionable topics to meet you wherever you are in your website journey. My 18 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:26.859 name is Eric Sharp and I am the host of this year he's if you 19 00:01:26.939 --> 00:01:30.579 are returning listener to the series, welcome back. If this is your first 20 00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:34.409 episode, thank you for your time. In this episode I'm going to share 21 00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:40.849 some ideas and how to prevent consumers from wasting time on your BB website. 22 00:01:41.489 --> 00:01:48.480 Now, this is every marketers worst nightmare. Consumers, the people who don't 23 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:53.319 buy from you, will find a way into your website if you're strictly a 24 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:57.200 business to business company. Okay, so these people will also spend time clicking 25 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:04.230 around and maybe, depending on the quality and clarity of your websites, messaging 26 00:02:04.310 --> 00:02:09.750 even in choir about your product and service. Ah, what waste, right? 27 00:02:09.990 --> 00:02:15.150 We've all gotten those inquiries of people that are just not qualified. I'm 28 00:02:15.189 --> 00:02:17.259 going to have a movie reference here and for those that have kids, you 29 00:02:17.379 --> 00:02:22.539 guys will understand the example here, but if you've ever seen the animated musical 30 00:02:22.659 --> 00:02:24.259 seeing, and thanks to my kids, I've watched it, about a hundred 31 00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:30.129 and sixty three times. These people would be like buster moon when he chose 32 00:02:30.210 --> 00:02:32.810 that five star restaurant for lunch with his Buddy Eddie. For those that have 33 00:02:32.889 --> 00:02:38.210 seen it remember that scene. He shows up with an old, rusty bicycle. 34 00:02:38.449 --> 00:02:40.930 He never orders any food, he actually brings his own lunchbox and pulls 35 00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:46.400 out his own sandwich and ultimately wasted the resources of the waiter and everyone at 36 00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:51.639 that fine establishment. A spoiler alert, he was tossed out of the restaurant, 37 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:54.879 which you probably would assume. Now, unfortunately, you can't toss people 38 00:02:54.879 --> 00:03:00.389 out of your website or even close your website stores. But the key to 39 00:03:00.509 --> 00:03:04.750 this is you can limit that is the the goal here. You can't again, 40 00:03:04.789 --> 00:03:07.710 you can't close your website stores and prevent these people from from getting in, 41 00:03:07.870 --> 00:03:10.389 clicking around and filling out forms, but you can do a couple different 42 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:14.900 things to to limit this audience, get people to recognize that your be tob 43 00:03:15.139 --> 00:03:19.819 and quickly bounce or, you know, put little tactical things in and spread 44 00:03:19.819 --> 00:03:23.979 them around your site to hopefully send them packing, because that's what we want. 45 00:03:23.819 --> 00:03:28.610 So, before I share five ways of limiting this audience, let's talk 46 00:03:28.889 --> 00:03:34.370 briefly about why consumer traffic and website usage is a problem, because maybe some 47 00:03:34.490 --> 00:03:37.370 of you are listening and thinking why is this bad? One? You know, 48 00:03:37.409 --> 00:03:39.610 we're getting traffic, we're looking at reports. You know why is why 49 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:43.879 is traffic bad? Well, I've explored this topic a lot in the past, 50 00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:49.560 but not all traffic is good traffic. So let's talk through why this, 51 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:55.030 this consumer traffic and website usage has a negative impact in your overall digital 52 00:03:55.069 --> 00:03:59.389 marketing efforts. First and foremost, and I hinted on this already, is 53 00:03:59.509 --> 00:04:02.750 it will inflate in skeew your website traffic reports. You know, if you're 54 00:04:02.789 --> 00:04:06.870 reporting on this on on a monthly or weekly or Corali or whatever the frequency 55 00:04:08.030 --> 00:04:12.139 is, you are going to be looking at skewed data and we all don't 56 00:04:12.139 --> 00:04:15.740 want that. And another problem that it has is when you get a lead 57 00:04:15.980 --> 00:04:20.779 from your site, there can be that anticipation and sort of that that high 58 00:04:20.899 --> 00:04:25.569 of getting a new lead, but then you realize they're not qualified and it's 59 00:04:25.569 --> 00:04:29.689 a consumer reaching out to you that's filled out your lead generation form and you 60 00:04:29.730 --> 00:04:31.850 kind of go in this highs and lows and you know nobody wants to do 61 00:04:31.970 --> 00:04:35.329 that. Nobody wants to put a unqualified lead in front of a salesperson. 62 00:04:35.970 --> 00:04:40.439 That, of course, is another negative. It will also create context in 63 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:44.399 your our contacts in your crm that are going to be needing pruning and deleting. 64 00:04:44.519 --> 00:04:47.199 So you got some sort of data clean up and some data management overhead 65 00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:50.759 that you know nobody likes to do. If you're using marketing automation, it 66 00:04:50.839 --> 00:04:56.990 will start triggering different events and emails get generated based upon activity and again you're 67 00:04:56.990 --> 00:05:00.430 sending out messaging to people that don't care about your product, sirs or it 68 00:05:00.430 --> 00:05:03.029 will never buy your product or service. And a couple other ones. You 69 00:05:03.110 --> 00:05:06.579 know your sales teams is going to waste time and energy. Your sales team 70 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:12.060 is going to get disgruntled that marketing is not bringing qualified leads to the table. 71 00:05:12.100 --> 00:05:15.860 Anyway, there's there's definitely this is not a good thing. You want 72 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:21.930 to prevent consumers from clicking around your site, filling out forms and just skewing 73 00:05:21.970 --> 00:05:26.050 your data across the board. So what can you do? So here are 74 00:05:26.170 --> 00:05:30.649 five tips to help prevent again, we're not going to completely alleviate we can't 75 00:05:30.649 --> 00:05:34.649 shut your website stores, but we can prevent consumers from wasting time on your 76 00:05:34.689 --> 00:05:39.000 beatb website. So here are the five ways that you can do that. 77 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:44.360 Number One, I would say you'd probably want to scrutinize any sort of add 78 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:49.870 to cart functionality in focus on a more beadybe specific call to action. As 79 00:05:49.949 --> 00:05:54.949 you know, listener to this show, you're in B tob and you know 80 00:05:55.230 --> 00:06:00.790 businesses that sell to other businesses typically have a sophisticated product or service and a 81 00:06:00.910 --> 00:06:05.620 bebes digital marketing mindset is less about by now and more about learn more. 82 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:11.180 That add a cart functionality kind of gives or the add a cart by now 83 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:15.139 check out. That functionality really resonates with more of a BTC buying behavior than 84 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:18.689 be tob. So when a product can be purchased at Tenzero, twenty, 85 00:06:18.769 --> 00:06:23.730 thousand, forty seven, thou nine hundred dollars with a click of a button, 86 00:06:24.009 --> 00:06:27.250 it just kind of gives this sense that maybe there's a consumer fuel to 87 00:06:27.329 --> 00:06:29.930 your site and it's going to keep them hanging around a little bit longer. 88 00:06:30.129 --> 00:06:33.560 So again I would scrutinize if you have an add the cart functionality. I 89 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:38.519 would say start thinking about different ways of adding in a call to action. 90 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:41.800 So this could be request to quote, this could be crust to demo, 91 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:46.560 talk to an expert, get product information. Those are the types of things, 92 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:48.230 those are the button labels, those are the calls to action that you 93 00:06:48.470 --> 00:06:54.029 really want to be sort of spreading around your website. Okay, so that's 94 00:06:54.069 --> 00:06:57.350 number one. Number two, and this is got a sort of a search 95 00:06:57.389 --> 00:07:00.910 engine optimization bent to it, is you want to ensure that your Seo, 96 00:07:00.459 --> 00:07:08.259 and specifically your Metadata, communicates details of your BEDB product or service. So 97 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:13.420 if you have an SEO friendly website, which we all want, you're going 98 00:07:13.459 --> 00:07:17.370 to naturally open yourself up to getting unwanted or organic traffic. What can you 99 00:07:17.410 --> 00:07:23.410 do to reduce the amount of unqualified traffic here from consumers? Can you do 100 00:07:23.569 --> 00:07:27.089 anything? And I think that you can, when I'm assuming in on is 101 00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:30.120 your Meta title, in your Meta description. So I know I'm getting kind 102 00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:33.519 of technical here when it comes to Seo, but for those that are following 103 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:38.120 the understand what I'm what I'm talking about. I think this is the key 104 00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:43.480 to point number two, is you want to make sure you're really careful with 105 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:46.870 the words that you use in your Meta title, which is again as if 106 00:07:46.910 --> 00:07:49.310 you search for something in Google and you see that big blue link in the 107 00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:55.029 search results page. That's your Meta title and then the text underneath that big 108 00:07:55.149 --> 00:07:59.060 blue link in the Google search results page is your Meta description. Okay, 109 00:07:59.100 --> 00:08:03.579 so you have control over that for every page of your website. So what 110 00:08:03.740 --> 00:08:07.660 you want to do is you want to use specific verbiage, so, for 111 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:13.410 example, product features specifications in your Meta title and your Meta description to alarm 112 00:08:13.449 --> 00:08:20.810 these googlers that your website has got this bedb bent. So hopefully the goal 113 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:26.009 and doing that is you want to deflect them from clicking your link in Google 114 00:08:26.129 --> 00:08:28.800 and visiting your website. So you're almost preventing people from even getting to your 115 00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:33.039 website with some of the key words that you're putting in your metadata. Right, 116 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:37.440 does that make sense? To give you a very specific example, I 117 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:41.590 shared this in a previous episode here on the BB website series, but our 118 00:08:41.669 --> 00:08:48.110 client cactus technologies, and they make industrial grade compact flash. So any sort 119 00:08:48.110 --> 00:08:50.950 of flash storage really, and this isn't flash stores that you can buy at 120 00:08:50.950 --> 00:08:54.509 an incap and best buy right. This stuff is very high end, it's 121 00:08:54.549 --> 00:09:00.659 very industrial and they sell large amounts for it. So they were very concerned 122 00:09:00.700 --> 00:09:07.019 about generating traffic from a consumer looking for compact flash cards and so on and 123 00:09:07.100 --> 00:09:09.889 so forth. So what did we do to sort of combat that? Well, 124 00:09:11.210 --> 00:09:16.809 we made sure that we understood cactuses value proposition, which was all about 125 00:09:16.850 --> 00:09:22.529 industrial grade reliability, you know, some of these very specific features like right 126 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:26.080 protect and security, locking in, those things that you typically don't see with 127 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:30.639 a consumer product. We injected that into the METADATA. So when someone searches 128 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:35.960 for a compact flash and if CACTUS HAPPENED TO FIT that search, they're going 129 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:37.870 to see the person googling is going to see some of those key words right, 130 00:09:37.950 --> 00:09:41.830 the right protect, the security, the industrial grade, and hopefully they 131 00:09:41.230 --> 00:09:45.110 think to themselves, okay, this is not where I go to buy a 132 00:09:45.269 --> 00:09:48.909 compact Flash Card for for twenty dollars. Now, this isn't bulletproof. People 133 00:09:48.909 --> 00:09:54.139 are you know. I'm sure you've Google something and you quickly search on the 134 00:09:54.139 --> 00:09:56.460 search results and you go to the site and then you go back to the 135 00:09:56.500 --> 00:09:58.659 search results and you kind of click around till you find something. But again, 136 00:09:58.700 --> 00:10:03.220 this is something small that you can do that hopefully helps out a little 137 00:10:03.220 --> 00:10:05.740 bit across the board. Okay, so that's number two. Number three is 138 00:10:05.899 --> 00:10:09.850 a less technical. So those are listening that are that are not as technical 139 00:10:09.889 --> 00:10:15.009 I think you're appreciate this one. But you want to nail your value proposition 140 00:10:15.289 --> 00:10:18.929 on your home page. Gosh, I have talked about value proposition so much 141 00:10:20.330 --> 00:10:24.000 over the last decade and it's something that I've really explored and thought long and 142 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:28.840 hard about. But really, this point number three, nailing your value proposition 143 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:33.279 on your home page, is getting people, getting consumers to say this to 144 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:39.909 the to themselves. This company definitely can't help me. If you've articulated your 145 00:10:41.029 --> 00:10:46.029 value proposition on your home page and hopefully everywhere on your site, you want 146 00:10:46.070 --> 00:10:50.379 these consumers to be saying this in their mind once they arrive on your site. 147 00:10:50.539 --> 00:10:52.860 Gosh, this company is definitely not what I'm looking for. Yes, 148 00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:56.500 your bounce rate's going to be high. They're going to go back to the 149 00:10:56.539 --> 00:10:58.980 search results page, they're going to try to find a different website. But 150 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:01.700 that's what you want. You don't want these people hanging around skewing your data, 151 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:05.129 filling out forms and so forth. So the clear that you can articulate 152 00:11:05.169 --> 00:11:09.450 your value proposition on your home page and every page of your website, the 153 00:11:09.570 --> 00:11:13.210 better that you'll do. Is First Turning these people away, and that is 154 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:18.000 for sure a good thing. So that's number three. Number four is and 155 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:22.759 this gets a little tricky, because some some companies don't like to reveal pricing 156 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.519 information on their product or service. But this is tricky. I know, 157 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:30.279 I know this tactic makes a lot of baby company scorn, but you want 158 00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:33.350 to reveal product and service pricing. So, going back to my cactus technologies 159 00:11:33.389 --> 00:11:37.909 client, you know, if they put pricing on their hey minimum order of 160 00:11:37.990 --> 00:11:41.429 five hundred units each and they may be listed there their range of pricing, 161 00:11:41.669 --> 00:11:46.830 that's going to turn away the consumer right that's visiting looking for a fifty dollar 162 00:11:46.990 --> 00:11:50.259 compact flash card. You know this is this is something that you really need 163 00:11:50.299 --> 00:11:54.860 to kind of debate the politics on and discuss the potential sales ramifications within your 164 00:11:54.899 --> 00:11:58.700 organization. This is definitely not a one size fits all, but if you 165 00:11:58.820 --> 00:12:05.289 can educate the people visiting your website and if those people are consumers and you 166 00:12:05.450 --> 00:12:09.850 show pricing, then you're going to send them packing very, very quickly because 167 00:12:09.850 --> 00:12:13.970 again, typically in a BB space you've got a product or service that's got 168 00:12:13.009 --> 00:12:16.840 a long buying cycle, it's got a high dollar amount. Again, this 169 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.279 is gets a little tricky. There are some politics. Some people don't like 170 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:24.200 to reveal pricing information until a demo is required or a demo is facilitated, 171 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:28.919 and there's all sorts of strategies and tactics that back up why you shouldn't do 172 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.669 it. But, you know, I really think that this could be something 173 00:12:31.710 --> 00:12:35.269 that could turn away consumer traffic and that's really the goal here of this episode. 174 00:12:35.389 --> 00:12:39.230 In my point is you could implement a pricing guideline. You could talk 175 00:12:39.389 --> 00:12:41.789 through, you know, if you're a service space company, you could say, 176 00:12:41.830 --> 00:12:45.899 Hey, our minimum level of engagement starts at, you know, Twentyzero 177 00:12:46.539 --> 00:12:50.299 or something like that. In your case studies, which we talked about case 178 00:12:50.340 --> 00:12:54.860 studies in the previous episode, you could work pricing in parallel with case studies 179 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:58.090 if that feels a little bit more comfortable for you. But the key to 180 00:12:58.210 --> 00:13:03.169 this is to reveal product and service pricing and hopefully that turns these consumers away 181 00:13:03.529 --> 00:13:07.610 and finding finding another web site where they can waste their time on. All 182 00:13:07.610 --> 00:13:11.570 right, so number five, and this is the last one, is have 183 00:13:11.769 --> 00:13:18.799 a clearly articulated point of view in your thought leadership and then sprinkle it everywhere. 184 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:24.360 Your Bebe Focus. Content should pop flares for consumer audiences on every single 185 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:26.909 page when you're when you're creating a piece of content, you want to be 186 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:31.750 setting the alarms everywhere for consumers to indicate that, hey, we focus specifically 187 00:13:33.350 --> 00:13:39.110 on servicing bedb clients. Right, and the more that you speak into that 188 00:13:39.309 --> 00:13:41.940 with your thought leadership, your blog post, your white papers, your articles, 189 00:13:43.059 --> 00:13:46.259 and then, you know, you're sprinkling that content throughout every page of 190 00:13:46.299 --> 00:13:50.259 your site. These consumers are going to whatever page that they enter your website 191 00:13:50.299 --> 00:13:54.580 in, they're going to see links to this thought leadership and this thought leadership 192 00:13:54.620 --> 00:13:58.690 is going to be very niche and very specific, and the hope is that, 193 00:13:58.289 --> 00:14:03.169 Gosh, the this is what this company is thinking about and discussing internally 194 00:14:03.289 --> 00:14:07.970 and this is the type of content that they're putting out, I don't know 195 00:14:07.210 --> 00:14:09.240 if they're going to be a good fit for us right, and that's what 196 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:13.600 we want right. We want to kind of create that curiosity and we want 197 00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:18.600 them to sort of stop what they're doing in evaluate if they're on the right 198 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:22.399 website. That's number five again, just to kind of go through this really 199 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:26.710 quickly. Again, the five ways to prevent, again, not a completely 200 00:14:26.789 --> 00:14:30.830 alleviate but prevent consumers from wasting time on your website. was scrutinized the add 201 00:14:30.830 --> 00:14:33.990 a cart functionality. Number two, ensure your Seo's, specifically your Metadata, 202 00:14:35.029 --> 00:14:39.059 communicates details of your BEDB product or service. Number three is nail your value 203 00:14:39.059 --> 00:14:45.539 proposition, especially on your home page. Number four, reveal some product or 204 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:50.580 service pricing. Number Five, have a clearly articulated point of view in your 205 00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:54.970 thought leadership and sprinkle it everywhere. So again, remember this is about prevention. 206 00:14:56.450 --> 00:15:01.490 It's not about completely alleviating. You can't close your websites doors. So 207 00:15:01.570 --> 00:15:05.809 that puts another rap to another BB websites episode here on bedb growth. Hopefully 208 00:15:05.850 --> 00:15:11.399 you've found this valuable. If you have any questions or further thoughts, I 209 00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:15.600 love talking websites, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me on Linkedin. 210 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.200 I can also be found on the one to ten podcast, where I 211 00:15:18.360 --> 00:15:22.710 host and talk to people in and around bedb tech companies about how they grew 212 00:15:22.750 --> 00:15:28.590 from one million to ten million in revenue and beyond. Thank you again for 213 00:15:28.669 --> 00:15:33.750 your time. Talk to you next time. We totally get it. We 214 00:15:33.909 --> 00:15:37.539 publish a ton of content on this podcast and it can be a lot to 215 00:15:37.620 --> 00:15:41.700 keep up with. That's why we've started the BEDB growth big three. A 216 00:15:41.899 --> 00:15:46.299 no fluff email that boils down our three biggest takeaways from an entire week of 217 00:15:46.379 --> 00:15:52.129 episodes. Sign up today at Sweet Phish Mediacom Big Three. That sweet fish 218 00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:54.769 Mediacom Big Three