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ROI expectations: Most likely your company has already defined an approach for measuring return on its
marketing investment, and some idea of what constitutes “goodness” in that scheme. It’s
reasonable to expect that – when comparably measured – the return on your web strategy
should be similar, if not greater. Most B-to-B companies find their web program to be more
efficient (lower cost for same return, or greater return for same cost) than traditional
marketing methods ...which goes a long way toward explaining why virtually every B-to-B
company now has a web strategy effort of some scale. In fact, most companies find that their web site investment pays for itself quite rapidly.
Consider this fairly typical example, using assumptions that are reasonable to conservative
for many B-to-B technology vendors... Revenue from an average newly-acquired customer: $100,000 first year + $40,000 in each
of the next 4 years (from upgrades/renewals, upsell/cross-sell, services, etc.)
Acquisition cost (marketing/sales): $2,000
Profit margin: 20%
Customer Lifetime Value: Net present value of profit stream from customer
= 20% of $184,260 (using a 15% NPV discount rate)
= $36,852 Thus, a web site investment of $20,000 is returned nearly double if it leads to just one of
these “average” customers! It’s a good idea to establish some sort of ROI expectation before starting up your web
program. Even if you later conclude that the target was somewhat optimistic, the efforts you
undertake in trying to hit it will nonetheless enhance your program’s effectiveness. Engaging your site’s visitors Site design; image/brand:
First you’ll need to decide on the overall look and feel of the site. You should have a general
sense of how you want the site to appear before handing it off to a designer. The importance
of this step is to create a site that is appropriate for the image of your company. Your
imagery and look should give some sense of what your company does, even if there were no
content or navigation on the page. << previous | next >>
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