An effective website involves so much more than design and aesthetics. When done properly, websites play a key role in boosting sales, recruiting top talent and increasing customer retention. Despite all of these benefits, many manufacturers are neglecting their websites. Not only are they outdated from a visual standpoint, but they also lack any type of strategy and acknowledgement of the buyer experience.
Recently, our manufacturing marketing agency was featured in an episode of The Industrial Marketing Show to discuss how manufacturers can get more out of their websites by tailoring them to the modern-day buyer. Ultimately, it all comes down to understanding what your customers care about and creating a website that speaks to this.
Where Are Manufacturers Missing the Mark?
Longevity is inherent to the manufacturing industry. With some companies having a history that spans 20, 50 and even 100 years, many manufacturers are incredibly established and rely on their history as a selling point. They tend to neglect their websites and treat them as a bare necessity that they know they need to have, but don’t necessarily value. This is where manufacturers miss a precious opportunity to create a website that will make their jobs easier, help them recruit top talent and earn new business.
Manufacturers must also acknowledge the fact that today’s buyers have more options than ever before. If your website is outdated or confusing, visitors will leave within 1-3 seconds and take a closer look at your competition.
Skilled workers also have an abundance of choices for future employment. If your website doesn’t appeal to job candidates and provide the information they’re looking for, they’ll search for another company that seems like a better fit.
Understand Your Customers & Ace the Homepage
As an industrial marketing agency, we are constantly exploring manufacturers’ websites. Time and time again, we encounter self-promotional sites that are all about the company rather than the customer. In order to create an effective website that engages and converts, manufacturers need to address what their customers actually care about. What are their typical pain points when working with manufacturers and how is your company different? What are their interests and concerns? What type of businesses do they work for and how are they finding you online? These are all questions that manufacturers need to address across their website, especially the homepage.
No matter how a visitor reaches your site, the most important part will always be the homepage. This is where you lay the framework for the buyer’s journey and introduce key sections of the site in a linear fashion. The first area is the hero section, which is the top banner above the fold. The hero needs to quickly tell visitors what you do and who you serve so that people know they’re in the right place. If there isn’t a prominent hero section or it fails to address what you actually do, this will confuse visitors and cause them to leave your site. Following the hero section, you should summarize your products and services, show customers that you understand their challenges and explain how your company is best equipped to solve them. From there, you can introduce other sections of your website such as testimonials to provide social proof, articles and case studies to improve credibility, etc.
Here’s an example of a homepage that caters to the buyer’s journey and incorporates all of the elements we just mentioned.
Accelerate the Sales Process & Recruit Top Talent
By overlooking their websites and doing the bare minimum, manufacturers are missing opportunities to accelerate the sales process and free up their sales teams. Providing information on your process, products and services can do much of the legwork to convince prospects and instill trust in your capabilities.
Aviate President Paul Kiesche explains how this works:
“Prospects won’t have questions about your process because you’ve already brought them into it. This takes a lot of weight off of the sales process because by the time they pick up the phone and call you, they’ve already been convinced to a large degree and are looking for additional validation. On our own website, we provide a lot of information about our process and how we work. So by the time we’re talking to a prospect on the phone and asking them if they want to talk about this or that, they tell us, ‘No no, I already learned all about that on your site.’ If your website proactively addresses customers’ pain points, many of the questions that buyers would normally direct at your sales team have already been answered.”
One problem that continues to pervade the manufacturing industry is the skills gap crisis and the constant struggle to recruit skilled workers. What most manufacturers fail to realize is that their website can (and should) be a recruiting tool as much as a sales tool. When job candidates visit your website, they should have a clear understanding of what it would be like to work for you. This can be achieved through a careers page that includes information about your company culture and what you bring to the table as an employer. Candidates will also visit your “About” page, so make sure this page is up to date and includes more than a short paragraph. Just as you address customers’ pain points for the buyer’s journey, you should do the same for the worker’s journey. Talking about things such as work-life balance, company culture, ongoing training and growth potential will separate you from the majority of manufacturers that aren’t doing this. For even more information on how to recruit top talent through your marketing, check out this other blog post we recently wrote.
Other Tips for Mastering the Buyer Experience
We covered a lot of ground in the recent podcast episode. Here are some other helpful tips to keep in mind with your manufacturing website:
• Create landing pages for specific products or services and then direct traffic to those pages. This allows you to really hone in on a particular audience and provide the level of detail that customers need to convert.
• If you serve multiple industries, create a separate page for each industry. With this approach, you can focus on the unique challenges of each industry and show visitors that you understand their world.
• Consider enlisting the help of a manufacturing web design agency. An experienced agency will take the time to understand who your customers are and what their buying experience looks like. When we help clients update their sites, we develop a comprehensive information architecture (i.e., blueprint) from the very beginning. This helps our manufacturing writers understand how the parts of the website make up the whole and how to cross-reference content to create a more holistic experience.
• Niche down whenever possible. If you serve several industries, consider focusing on a few to gain more traction in those markets and make your marketing more effective. On the flip side, if you offer several services, niche down and specialize to become the guru for a particular service. The more specific you can be in what you do and who you serve, the more likely you are to attract the right customers who will look at your site and say to themselves, “This is exactly what I’m looking for.”
• Look at the data, but don’t base everything on it. If you find that the majority of visitors are reaching your site through a desktop, this could indicate a behavior pattern of your target audience. However, it could also mean that your site has a terrible mobile experience and visitors are deferring to the desktop. Keep in mind that while data tells you what’s happening in the moment, it doesn’t necessarily indicate what should be happening.
• Be strategic with your call-to-actions (CTAs). Whether you want customers to schedule a consultation or purchase a product, understand who your audience is and what steps they’re likely to take. Additionally, don’t hound visitors with an excessive amount of CTAs. If they’re greeted by a chatbot and a pop-up contact form right away, they’re more likely to become frustrated and leave your site.
• Tailor the site to your customers’ preferences. Many customers in the B2B world still prefer phone calls over emails or online contact forms. If you know this about your audience, don’t remove the phone number from the homepage. While doing so might discourage spam, it will also discourage leads from contacting you.
• Find the right balance between optimizing your website and directing traffic. Many manufacturers invest money into SEO and PPC when their branding and websites are outdated and ineffective. While it is important to have enough traffic, it’s pointless if your website doesn’t convert. Consider optimizing at least the key portions of your website before heavily investing in SEO.
For even more tips and tricks on how to fully leverage your manufacturing website, check out the full podcast episode and tell us what you think!
