We’ve all seen them… the static B2B website that looks more than anything like a 10-page brochure (hopefully, yours isn’t one of them!). And we’ve heard all the excuses for why they tend to stay that way:
- we don’t have budget to redo our site
- all we really need to do is put forth an attractive image and our contact info
- our top management isn’t really committed to online
- our prospects don’t buy online, anyway
Kipp Bodnar (who’s heard all this before, too) got to pondering this issue while book-shopping on amazon.com, and wrote up… his thoughts in a worthy post over on Social Media B2B. His main points?
- amazon.com has clearly evolved from a killer B2C e-commerce site to a killer social network, with a coterie of fans eager to contribute book reviews, their own profiles, and more.
- there’s no good reason why your B2B site can’t do much the same thing …and reap all the benefits of providing a killer visitor experience.
Just like Amazon, there’s no way your company could answer the number of product questions your users have daily, or contribute diverse credible viewpoints on all of your products. As Kipp puts it: “If you want your customers to have the best experience and service, then you have no option but to ask for their help.”
How to get there? Kipp suggests asking yourself the crazy “what-if” questions, think hard about the answers, and incorporate them in your next-generation site design; questions like…
- How can you connect your employees and customers?
- What type of experience makes your company worth telling other people about?
- How do you connect the products you make with the people that make them?
- What if you made it simple for your customers to talk to each other?
- Is there a model out there for the kind of experience you want?
Kipp’s conclusion: “Ask yourself these questions and take the leadership within your organization to help make change.”
