I’ve been working on a project for one of my clients that has allowed me to spend a significant amount of time reviewing company websites (I’ve probably reviewed a couple hundred in the last two weeks).
There are two things that have shocked me:
1. There are still a lot of small and mid-market companies that pay little to no attention to their web presence. They’re sites are old, clumsy, look bad and offer nothing of value. It’s amazing, because I’m sure they wouldn’t let their employees look as disheveled as their website.Your customers and prospects will all come across your website at some point, and if it doesn’t it isn’t reasonably strong, it will harm your sales efforts dramatically. It doesn’t cost that much to develop a reasonable site, so if yours isn’t up to par, please fix it.
2. The bigger shock is just how difficult it is for a prospect to reach out to begin a discussion.
It’s this second point I want to focus on. I lost count of just how many sites have three methods to connect:
- The choice to email either info@ or sales@ the company.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and prospects. How special do you feel reaching out that way? Why don’t we just ask our prospects to put a big, fat “Sell Me” sticker on their foreheads?
I’m not saying don’t have a contact page, or even email addresses like these; but, please – PLEASE – give your prospects a comfortable path to connect and engage with you. For example:
- If you have a blog (especially if it’s multi-authored) make it clear who’s writing the posts, and how could someone connect with them.
- If you’re highlighting a product/service, give them a name and a real person’s email address that they can connect to. We live in a noisy world, give them something personal.
- If you’re going to list your leadership/management team, let people know how they can connect with them, in some means other than sending an email to an info address.
Making it more comfortable for your prospects to connect or engage with you and your company will reduce their fear and increase your lead generation.