To get the most efficient B2B landing page, the benefits, forms, and design must appeal to a visitor that’s shopping for their business, not themselves, and therefore has a different set of knowledge and needs that a regular consumer wouldn’t be thinking about. By focusing on these criteria, it’s possible to create a landing page that’s not just “good” but good for your B2B consumer.
Focus on the Benefits of Your Product
The B2B consumer will most likely arrive at your landing page knowing about your type of product, so you should focus on the functional benefits of your product, not the features. Because your competitors may be selling a very similar product, focus on the aspects that make your business unique as well as your product or service. Offer free shipping or 24-hour customer service? Be sure to reiterate benefits that make you stand out for offering more than this product that many others sell.
Emotional benefits are just as important in B2B as they are in B2C, but instead of focusing on “feel-good” emotions like relaxation, create the feeling of accomplishment, efficiency, or even pride (for impressing their boss!). Even though a visitor is representing a business, the “business” can’t do the actual shopping – a person does that, and responds just as well to emotional benefits as a B2C visitor would.
The benefit? Efficiency, with no hoops to jump through
Create One Message and Stick With It
The benefits and target audience of your product should remain consistent from your ads to your landing pages – don’t try to capture more traffic by trying to appeal to too many groups. Your ads are like a small capture of your landing page: they contain your product name, unique selling point (a benefit), and your call-to-action. It’s possible to change up the wording and have it retain the same message, but if you focused on free shipping or bundling as the main benefit of your ad, use that as the main benefit of your landing page as well.
Short, quick quotes is the main message, and they stick with it
The overall idea is to treat your product like its own brand, and by keeping the same message throughout, you are promoting a stronger presence overall, which leads to more visitors converting instead of bouncing when they arrive at your landing page.
Create Forms That Get Leads, Not the Curious
The less you require in a form, the more work you will have to perform scoring leads and weeding out the curious from those truly interested in your product. Forms that require too much information will lead to drop-offs because they’re too tedious; forms that require too little will result poor leads that waste the time of your salesmen.
These options are some that should be required in a form:
- Name: Specify the first and last name – it can be surprising how many people will leave it off if you don’t, and that can be a problem for a salesman trying to get it touch with them.
- Phone Number: While email is often the preferred way of contact, it’s often favored because it’s easy to ignore an email. By requiring a phone number, you’re able to increase the proportion of leads that are serious about purchasing because they want to speak in person.
- Email: Email is often the easiest way to contact a lead, but should be used more as a follow-up medium rather than the main source of contact.
- Credit Card Information: This is often contentious, but requiring credit card information can really help to weed out those who are “curious”, especially if your product has a trial period. This could be left off only if your product or service bills in another fashion, like an invoice.
You may consider other required fields depending on your vertical, but always think about how much those fields contribute to a close – the less important they are, the more likely you should make them optional or leave them off entirely.
Monthly ad spend would change the plan and price of this media platform, so it’s required in the form
Design for Simplicity and Speed, Not Mood
B2B consumers are more likely to be direct and time-efficient with their shopping, and having a landing page that appeals to that will help improve conversions. If a piece of content or a menu isn’t absolutely required, it’s better to leave it off rather than risk cluttering the page.
Consider the following content when developing the main pieces of your landing page:
- Headline: Your headline will carry the message of your product and its main benefit. Keep it simple, to the point, and consistent with your ads and actual product.
- Call-to-Action: A strong call-to-action will not only instruct the visitor on how to take the next step, but will reiterate why this step is a good idea. “Call Now to Grow Your Business” is one example of combining the call-to-action with a benefit.
We’re not just buying, we’re optimizing
- Body Copy: Even complex products generally don’t need to be bogged down by features – there should only be enough to show the visitor that it’s actually the product they’re looking for (like a model name) and the rest should focus on additional benefits. It can be easy to assume that a B2B product doesn’t need so much emotional appeal, but that only applies if you have no competition.
- Images: A picture can sometimes be an afterthought, but you can make it work with your design to “point” visitors in the right direction. Having the “face” of the image (like an actual person’s face, or the front of a product) angled towards the call-to-action or contact information can keep a visitor’s eyes on the most important features of the landing page.
Your ultimate goal is to give your visitor exactly the information they need with little else, and keeping your main design elements small in number will help with this.
Test, Test and Test
Using A/B testing is necessary for both B2B and B2C landing pages, but it’s very important to perform testing because trends and tastes for particular landing pages often change. Experiment with the main elements of your page, like the headline or form fields, for testing instead of smaller elements like the background color; chances are, those small elements won’t make much of a difference.
Additionally, test your control and variation in an 80/20 or even 90/10 ratio in favor of the control. This way, if a variation doesn’t do well, it hasn’t been showing to 50% of your visitors.
Always be testing – even if you have a page that does very well for a long time, trends may change, and your visitors may have new expectations when they reach your page.