Turning Your Website into a Tech Pro Lead Gen Machine

Excellent B2B lead generation website design is a critical skill for marketers targeting technology professionals. The buying landscape across most industries has shifted such that buyers are increasingly serving themselves and showing resistance to more traditional sales-heavy approaches.

“We’re all consumers at the end of the day — whether I put my CMO hat on or my mom of three hat on, I’m still looking for the ‘WHY?‘” says Pam Erlichman, Chief Marketing Officer, Jebbit.

“Is it a good experience? Are they helping me in some way? The lines continue to be blurred, especially in the all-digital world we just lived in during the pandemic.”

Giving customers space & a service at the same time

Erlichman stresses that B2B website website design focusing on lead generation should allow target buyers to help themselves to information at their own pace.

Jebbit’s website gives prospects the option to immediately demo their solution if they’re already interested — but otherwise, they can take a quiz to find the right product for them.

They capture visitors’ attention with an interactive quiz to target what their specific needs are, and a rough idea of company size (are they big enough to warrant a salesperson/demo request?). Then, the results match them to the right solution on their own terms.

According to Erlichman, B2B brands are probably more willing to use more data practices in their digital approach. Data overlays, third party sources, to improve the intelligence of who they’re talking to. They’re a little more aggressive, especially around price points.

But critically, they need to understand customer pain points and the value they pose to the people landing on their websites.

“Many people don’t want to book a demo or talk to someone; but conversely, chatbots are infamous, and not everyone wants that experience,” she says. “B2B brands don’t need to claim to have a human around 24/7, they just need to allow people to explore on their own terms.”

“Doing this sets up more trust in the consumer. In this way, we’re increasing transparency by getting someone to immediately answer questions that are helpful to both us — the company, and our consumer.”

This way of doing things is baked into Jebbit’s business model, as the solutions they provide help other companies engage with websites in meaningful ways. On average, consumers who start a Jebbit experience complete it 85% of the time. Some of their customer brands report even higher results.

This helps brands capture direct, first-party data from consumers in an organic, transparent way.

“We do a good job of giving the person an upfront value proposition – learning more about content, packages, etc.” she says. “We give people landing on your page a very easy exchange. The lead capture is the big part of our experience.”

Michael Mongiardo, Senior Director of Digital Marketing at Crestron, agrees, adding that they’ve leveraged guided selling platforms which allow the customer to easily find products that best fit their needs on their own by answering a few simple questions.

“We find that when the customer feels more confident in their own product research and knowledge, they are more likely to reach out,” Mongiardo says.

“More emphasis needs to be made on learning and understanding who you are trying to reach, what their needs are, and what drives them. Focus on building tools and programs around that and don’t allow your preconceived notions drive you. Do the upfront work to build confidence in people, the more they feel empowered the more likely they are to raise their hand.”

A case study in building the customer experience

Dean DeCarlo, Founder and President of Mission Disrupt, says designing tech websites for better lead gen is all about user-centric design, which includes building an experience around what your potential customers want to see.

Creating content that showcases your product/service differentiation sparks interest with a purpose driven story and will improve lead generation efforts.

“If you can’t nail down content that establishes you as a thought leader or provokes interest in your product, it will all be over before it even starts. By making a content strategy the focal point of your design efforts (whether its a large site or one-pager), lead generation becomes much easier,” he says.

First, ask yourself who your target audiences are

Like many tech and software companies, you probably serve multiple industries, with solutions for each industry that may have different use cases.

Those industry use cases will serve as the basis to design content.

“Instead of appealing to all of your audiences with a one-size-fits-all approach, I recommend creating personalized pages with copy, media, and FAQ’s that speak to each specific industry,” DeCarlo says.

The phrase “Be something to someone, rather than everything to no one” is the perfect way to describe this approach and is adapted by many tech leaders.

For example, LiveIntent understands their customers have different needs when using their product, as they have their website divided into Advertisers, Publishers and Analytic Pros:

By building industry specific pages, you will accomplish higher page engagement by speaking directly to the pain points of the potential customer.

Next, you need to convince prospects that your product is the best way to solve their problem.

DeCarlo recommends using visuals, charts, and case studies to demonstrate the power of your product. Remember to keep it simple by breaking down the visuals to address one of three categories; the problem, the solution, and the benefits.

By reducing all content into one of these three categories, you can build visual content.

Here’s an example of a site that effectively uses the benefits category to display the value of their solution over their competitors:

Notice the brand didn’t use paragraphs of texts to explain their value. The chart can be read within 15 seconds, wasting no time to deliver.

The brand below took a complicated multi-channel strategy which also could have been described in paragraphs of text. Instead, they used one sentence and a visual chart to explain what “Multi-channel marketing” means.

Another way to establish value is by giving customers access to a list of case studies — specifically by industry or product solution.

This helps provide proof of concept of your solution and allows the customer to see how the solution applies to their needs.

Remember, there are never too many case studies.

The technology service company WinMill used this approach in their design:

The last part of the strategy is to convert users into official leads.

This means designing “an offer they can’t refuse.”

“When it comes to product offers, my first recommendation is to understand what your competitors are offering, as you want to make sure it’s comparable or better altogether,” DeCarlo says.

“I would argue that generic CTA’s like ‘Book A Sales Appointment‘ — although straightforward — isn’t as enticing as ‘View Live Demo/Start Free Trial‘ or even offering a time-sensitive offer such as ‘25% Off For The Next 24 hours‘.”

Both of these provide immediacy in what the customer receives as well as creates a sense of urgency for customers to sign up.

Creating a sense of urgency is the last element needed — remember, in this world of limited attention spans, ensuring customers have an instant offer is critical to improving conversion rates.

Bolster the web experience with customer knowledge

Deyan Georgiev, CEO of page speed improving service Nitropack, says it is relatively easy to focus on building a good-looking site, focusing on a user journey, and creating funnels.

But only recently do you see people focusing on the actual experience of the user on their website.

“Customer acquisition has grown a lot over the last few years — you want to make sure you use every opportunity possible to attract the customer,” he says.

User experience needs to closely follow the value of your content or services.

“We do tend to see generic messaging in B2B where companies talk about themselves but not the shortest path to value for their users.

“We try to understand our users as much as possible. How are different segments experiencing us, and how do our site speed performers impact this?“