Make Your Website Work Smarter and Harder in a Recession
New White Paper from ThomasNet Helps Industrial Marketers Use Measurement Tools to Hold their Sites Accountable for More Revenue Growth
New York, N.Y.-February 3, 2009-At a time when every sales dollar is more difficult to come by, there are strategies industrial companies can follow to make their websites work smarter and harder to keep revenues healthy.
By making an industrial website as accountable as a staff sales executive, the company will reach more qualified customers, close more deals and realize more revenue, according to a white paper just published by ThomasNet: "How to Use Measurement to Manage Your Website as an Effective Sales Channel." The offering outlines best practices for making a company website more accountable to the bottom line in the face of the current recession.
"Today, websites are no longer marketing pieces; they're the number-one influencing factor in business-to-business buying," said Susan Orr, Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, ThomasNet. "Understanding what's working online, and what's not, is the first step in ensuring that a site helps a company meet its overall business objectives."
Half of industrial buyers have chosen one supplier over another based on the capabilities of their sites, according to research by ThomasNet. Their white paper advises industrial companies on how
to understand what is engaging these buyers, or causing them to leave a particular site, at different points in the sourcing and buying process.
"An industrial website should serve as a 24/7 sales executive, being able to fully respond to the range of questions a buyer might have, and move them to take the next level in the purchasing process," said Ms. Orr. "Consistently using the right measurement tools enables companies to uncover and then fix areas of their websites where prospects drop off, and build on the strategies that keep buyers engaged to the point of purchase."
The white paper advises marketers to step back and outline their three top business objectives before they begin the measurement process, and then ask, "How can my website help me achieve these objectives?" Answers to these questions will help companies determine what they should measure on their sites, and the type of content they will need to offer to be successful.
The white paper also provides more information on:
--Monitoring buyers' conversion actions-the positive actions that they take which move them closer to making a purchase. Riten Industries, which makes workholding devices, used these kinds of metrics to determine that when prospects downloaded CAD models from their site, eight out of 10 inquiries turned into orders.
--Six questions every industrial marketer should be able to answer on a weekly basis-from "How many visitors came to my site this week?" to "What key phrases did they use to get there?"
--Specific tools for answering questions such as where website visitors are coming from, or whether they are converting from just visiting to buying. For instance, Thwing-Albert Instrument Company, which tests the physical properties of materials, found that when they improved their online catalog, they increased conversions and began to achieve double-digit growth in sales.
--Strategies from other online marketing and sales authorities, from Forrester Research analysts to authors Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett.
To download a copy of the white paper, please go to https://business.thomasnet.com/dlwhitepaper.html.
About ThomasNetSM
ThomasNet (www.ThomasNet.com) is the leading online destination connecting industrial sellers and buyers worldwide. Buyers from Fortune 500 companies, the government, the military and more depend on ThomasNet to search for and purchase the products and services they need. ThomasNet provides access to over 607,000 industrial companies, indexed by 67,000 product and service categories, and featuring over 20 million CAD drawings that help buyers find products to meet their specifications. Industrial manufacturers and service companies are successfully using ThomasNet to grow their businesses, discover new markets, develop new customers, and uncover new revenue sources. Drawing from the company's experience in the industrial market and ongoing research on buyers' and sellers' needs, ThomasNet has helped thousands of clients create websites that incorporate online catalogs, CAD drawings, and e-commerce capabilities.
