When Traffic Comes Home

New tactics can attract a mass of new visitors, but will the Web site be ready?
 
As businesses jump to integrate social media into their marketing campaigns, they too often overlook whether their Web site is equipped to continue the conversation. As a result, many b-to-b sites are largely unprepared to support their companies' social media innovations, according to industry experts.

 

“Brands are operating their Web sites and their social media largely independent of each other, with businesses still treating their corporate Web site as a one-way static publishing environment,” said Jeremi Karnell, president of digital agency One to One Interactive, Charlestown, Mass.

 

Karnell said digital technology has entered a “Web 3.0 evolution” that has moved beyond social media's ability to connect people into a new realm of “connecting knowledge.” In this world, companies willing to embrace the fusion of the Web with social media will be rewarded, he said, adding: “Brands that continue to separate the realms will find themselves behind.”

 

Given the right fusion of social media and Web design, the Web page can be a jumping-off point for an entire brand.

“A few years ago, we saw the Web site more as a one-way communication,” said Andrea Fishman, VP-global strategy at BGT Partners, Miami. “Now, we're really using the Web site as a foundation for b-to-b communication.”

 

Merely understanding the importance and potential of a company's Web site, however, is not enough to guarantee an improved marketing campaign.
 

REFINE THE MESSAGE
Specifically, companies often dedicate their Web sites to explaining what services they provide. Laura Ramos, former VP-principal analyst at Forrester Research (who left at the end of March to become VP- industry marketing at Xerox Global Services), said that devoting Web space to what companies do is much less interesting to customers than the kinds of problems they solve.

 

Based on a Forrester review of over 1,200 company Web pages, Ramos said that the vast majority of companies fail to meet Forrester's criteria for an effective Web site. She said that most of these failing Web pages focus on the company instead of showcasing how the company's services will help visitors improve their own businesses.

 

“If you have customers and potential buyers coming to your Web site, you need to think about how your Web site is helping them get what they're looking for and moving them along in the purchase process,” she said.

 

Compounding that problem, many companies bog down their Web pages with poorly integrated social media, say interactive agency execs.

 

“When business buyers come onto a Web site, they tend to be more focused and tend to be looking for more specific information, unlike consumers who have shorter buying cycles,” said BGT's Fishman. “Business customers go through a bidding process, multiple levels of approvals, multiple people chiming in, so there's a huge risk if you try to overcomplicate it and put too many widgets and gadgets in.”

 

Another problem introduced by social media is regurgitating the material from the home page in each application. Widgets and other tools are excellent ways to drive interest back to the company Web page, Karnell said, but they are often wasted if customers cannot find any new content.

 

“If the Web site has all the same stuff as the social outlets, by the time customers have reached the Web site, you've burned your user experience,” he said.
 

PERSONALIZE YOUR SITE
When companies set out to build a successful Web site, the best place to start is always by understanding what the audience wants, experts say. After researching what services their customers expect out of a company and where those people are spending time online, marketers can determine the right message and mediums to convey it.

 

“If the brand has a really good understanding of their customer needs through robust customer experience research, that will tell them what aspect of the ecosystem should or should not be in place,” Karnell said. “Starting from the customer's perspective and working up is really the right approach.”

 

 

Additionally, researching how an audience interacts with their brand online can help marketers personalize Web site delivery for their customers. Fishman said BGT Partners has had success building multiple versions of its clients' Web sites with past customer behavior dictating which site is prompted—a process it calls “behavioral targeting.”

 

“With these new technologies out there and the ability to see where people have been before they come to your site, we can really customize their experience when they get there,” she said. BGT takes customers' Web browsing and search histories and creates several audience profiles. It then builds different versions of the same Web page for each profile.

 

Finding these innovative solutions that tailor Web pages to capitalize on social media and Web analytics is the only way to maximize a Web site's potential, interactive experts say.

 

“It's not just about your site any longer,” Karnell said. “It's about the content and functionality, and the sum of all the parts together that represent your Web presence.” M