For B2B marketers communications are all about starting and sustaining relationships – moving the prospects to the next stage of the buying process and motivating customers to interact with you. Digital is an incredibly powerful medium to initiate, develop and sustain successful working relationships. There are a number of strategies that can be employed to increase opportunities in the pipeline, whilst decreasing transactional costs and creating customer loyalty. And the beauty of it is, it works whether your customers are in Sydney or Sydenham.

How do you effectively build relationships online? Here are few starting points:

1. Hold their hand: A dedicated landing page is the single most effective way to turn a click into a prospect. A relevant landing page can easily double conversions versus sending clicks to the homepage, and testing your pages can increase conversions. Together, these tactics alone can result in more leads for every dollar you spend.
 
2. Start a conversation directly with them: Digital provides the means to create and deliver incredibly targeted messaging, create specific customer-centric microsites, online demos or applications. Provide discussion boards and forums, inviting conversation between you and your customers. Talk with prospects in language they understand and show your dedication by creating messages that are directly related to their business issues and the solutions you can offer.
 
3. Usability, design & interaction: The user-experience is vital to fostering your relationship online. The site created for your customer should have them at the heart of it. If your site is designed poorly or is confusing, clients will favour an online presence that is easier to use and navigate. Frustration and irritation are not the emotions you want to evoke in your prospects. If your clients can’t find what they are looking for or the site is slow and clunky, they will go elsewhere.

So, whichever side of the world you’re on, if you want to find out more, get in touch.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Omobono at work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.