Optimizing for B2B and Customer value optimization

This is the part 11/12 in my series reviewing the Conversion Optimization Minidegree, provided by CXL Institute.

Over the past week, I had the opportunity to delve into two other courses that make up the Conversion Optimization Minidegree: “Optimizing for B2B”, by Bill Leake, and “Customer value optimization”, provided by Justin Rondeau.

Here is a brief compilation of my main lessons!

Optimizing for B2B:

During the “Optimizing for B2B” crash course, Bill Leake, veteran McKinsey & Co. alumni, and Dell Computer, reveals what changes when optimizing websites for B2B companies. Here are the highlights:

Differences between B2B and B2C:

In B2B companies, the sale can happen months after the conversion on the website. It is common to come across:

• Longer sales cycles;
• Higher tickets;
• Possible use of a sales team;
• Higher level of complexity.

Therefore, the conversion must be thought of as an experience and take into account aspects such as the content, the persona, and its phase in the purchase journey.

Defining Goals in B2B Optimization:

Assertively setting goals is a critical task. You need to be clear about what your goals are and how you are going to measure them.

Most of the time, the goals for B2B are leads, so it’s important to analyze the entire funnel:

• Impressions, especially in media campaigns;
• Website visitors;
• Engagement metrics: engagement with videos, time spent, pathing, etc;
• Form fills;
• Sales.

Other very common goals are account-based marketing and tracking for attribution. In B2B, the attribution discussion is even more delicate, because there can be a change in the moment of the user’s purchase journey.

Determining and Prioritizing Lead Type:

Bill makes it clear that, in general, it is difficult to get cheap, qualified leads in large quantities. You will probably need to let go of some aspect.

To balance the scales and make assertive decisions, the first step is to understand your sales machine. If you can qualify leads with an in-house sales team, it’s probably better to have more leads, as maintaining this sales structure is already a cost.

If you have an excessively lean team, on the other hand, it’s probably better to bet on more qualified leads, even if fewer in quantity.

Identifying & Optimizing for Personas:

Bill recommends starting personas identification and optimization from the bottom of the funnel as the earning potential tends to be greater. Also, it’s important to analyze your customer base to understand what the ideal customer profile is.

Optimizing Calls-to-Action:

When optimizing call-to-action and understanding whether you should encourage direct calls or purchases, Bill shows that you need to consider 5 points:

• What are you selling;
• What do you want to sell more;
• What is the price point;
• How people want to buy;
• How much information is needed for the purchase?

As an example, Bill brings the case of a client who had a very strong tech team. In this case, despite the competitor encouraging the scheduling of meetings, it was much more effective to use a call-to-action focused on downloading and using the demo.

Some of the most common mistakes in call-to-action optimization are:

• Optimize for an email list with low-qualified leads;
• Over-optimizing for sales.

Optimizing for content:

Historically, many B2B sites had a lot of content. Users’ attention, however, is decreasing, making smaller and easier-to-digest content improve conversion.

Especially for lead capture, the contents listed below tend to convert well:

• Videos;
• Mobile-friendly pages;
• Add long-form white papers;
• Third-party content;
• Earned media wins;
• Webinars;
• Press;
• Customer testimonials;
• Teaser content;
• Industry analysts.

Conclusion:

People often try to use practices in B2B that work in B2C without making any kind of adaptation. This is a mistake.

B2B businesses have longer sales cycles, higher tickets, can involve multiple people, and require more consideration before purchase. Therefore, the approach must be more relational than transactional.

Customer value optimization:

Many companies devote much of their effort to optimizing conversion rates. According Justin Rondeau, CEO of Digital Marketer, it is equally important to be dedicated to optimizing customer value.

During the “Customer value optimization” course, Justin presents the 5 steps of the “Customer Optimization Model”, an original framework that aims to increase the value of each customer.

The five steps are:

1. Identify your market;
2. Generate leads;
3. Convert lead into buyer;
4. Turn buyer into multiple purchaser;
5. Return path.

I. Identify your market:

The first step is determining your offer. It is the longest phase of the process.

It is necessary to understand how the ideal customer is and how he is after consuming the product. It is worth considering: what does he have, how he feels and what is his status.

II. Generate leads:

According to Justin, lead magnet is “a highly specific chunk of information that is highly actionable and used in exchange for an opt-in”.

A good lead magnet is:

• Highly actionable;
• High value perceived;
• High current value;
• Easy to consume.

It needs to be specific and allow targeting of your audience. E-books and newsletters, for example, are NOT lead magnets.

III. Convert leads into buyer:

After capturing the lead, it’s time to turn it into a customer. For this, we can use a tripwire, “a tempting offer that is intended to convert perspectives to buyers”.

Trip wire’s main objectives are:

• Relieve acquisition costs;
• Changes relationship from prospect to buyer.

IV. Turn buyer into multiple purchaser:

After purchasing the tripwire offer, the fourth step is to offer other products and increase the portfolio of available products.

V. Return path:

These are the people you can bring back into your funnel.

It doesn’t have to be just someone who is already a customer. People who have seen your tripwire, for example, can also be triggered via ad and taken back to your funnel.

This article was originally posted on fefy.com. It is part of a series of 12 posts sharing my main learnings during the Conversion Optimization Minidegree, provided by CXL Institute.

You can read the previous articles on the links below.

• Week 01: 5 conversion rate optimization best practices to increase your results
• Week 02: The (almost) mathematical formula behind millionaire salespages
• Week 03: Neuromarketing, emotional content strategy and influence design
• Week 04: Google Analytics for Beginners: an almost illustrated guide
• Week 05: Landing Page Optimization and Conversion Research
• Week 06: Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager — CXL Review
• Week 07: User Research and Fast and Rigorous User Personas
• Week 08: Heuristic Analysis, Google Analytics Audit and Voice of Customer Data
• Week 09: A/B Testing Foundations, How to Run Tests, and Testing Strategies
• Week 10: A/B Testing Mastery and Statistics for A/B Testing
• Week 11: Optimizing for B2B and Customer value optimization