Websites are hard work, right? From medical website design to maintenance and updates, a lot seems to go into it.
What’s the point of it all though? Surely a couple of pages with the usual information is enough? Is there really any need to plan out every aspect of it, can’t you just throw something together?
Sure, of course you can and that is the preference for many companies who choose to focus their time and marketing budget elsewhere and that totally works for them.
The truth is though, today’s buyer is more digital savvy than ever before, and they expect companies to have super smart websites. In fact, 81% of shoppers will research online before making a purchase and 84% of today’s consumers believe a website makes your business more credible.
So, let’s have a look at websites to understand why they’re so important to buyers, and what it is they need to do to be successful. We’re not here to persuade you that websites are the almighty marketing tool, just to shed light on what they’re capable of so that you can make an informed decision for yourself.
Websites offer unique opportunities
With so many other channels and methods of reaching your audience out there, do you still need a website?
It’s true that social media, emails and conferences are great for distributing content and getting in front of your audience. People pay attention to lots of different channels, and they like to digest content differently.
In some cases, these channels are cheaper and easier to take advantage of than websites, and they don’t require the help of a developer (although, on some platforms, it’s possible to build and maintain a website yourself, find out more here).
However, websites offer companies a few things that other channels simply aren’t capable of.
They’re your buyer’s first point of call
Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer. If there’s something you want to know, whether it’s a general query or it’s a company-specific query, where is the first place you go? For lots of people, they head straight to a search engine.
It’s more convenient to do a Google search and be taken straight to the information you need than it is to scroll through social media channels hoping to come across what you’re looking for. Although in-person events provide the opportunity to talk directly to a company representative, they’re no good in situations when someone is sat at home or in the office and they’re looking for information straight away.
Having a website that contains all the information your customers are looking for means that they can easily find exactly what they’re looking for when they’re looking for it.
Other channels cannot contain the same volume of information
Social media and emails are great for presenting information in engaging, bite sized chunks. These snippets of content can build a story over time, but when it comes to longer form content, these just aren’t the right channels to go out on.
Furthermore, although posting frequently and consistently can boost social media success, if you flood your channels with too much information over too many posts, you may very well annoy people and lose followers. To learn more how to do this read our full article.
On the other hand, people expect to be able to find a wealth of information on your website. Longer extracts of copy are more acceptable, whether it’s a full article or landing page.
Your website can be set up to help the user search for what they’re looking for, whereas that isn’t really possible on social media, and users aren’t likely to scroll too far back in your feed, so they miss out on the information they need to make a decision.
Other channels cannot be made as unique
As well as the above, websites just offer more freedom than other channels. They can be custom coded to your exact specifications, so you can include all of the bespoke and interactive elements you want.
Unlike social media, you are not confined to the content that the platform allows, you are able to get creative, and this could be more engaging for your audience.
Of course, there are limitations to this. Not every website building platform allows you to add custom code, and you will probably need the help of a developer to do this, which will come at a cost.
Still though, your website is yours to do with as you like, but it’s good to always keep your user in mind and consider what they would want when designing your pages.
What should a website do?
It’s true that websites are a lot of work and effort, and if they’re not done correctly, all of that work and effort could be for nothing.
When it comes to creating your website, it’s good to have an idea of what your website should be doing and helping you to achieve, and this should help your website to become an undeniable success.
Act as the convergence point of all your marketing channels
It’s impossible to determine if your website is a success or not, until you have a clear idea of what success actually means.
For most medical device companies, success is either through making sales or generating leads. Your website is probably the destination where these will happen.
Why, therefore, do you need to bother posting on social media, sending out emails, putting ads in journals or any other marketing strategy? The overall goal of these channels for most companies will be to increase brand awareness and drive traffic towards the website, where users will find out more, before buying or getting in touch. Your website is therefore the convergence point for all these channels.
Guide buyers through their journey
As mentioned above, the job of your website is to get users to perform a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling in a contact form – essentially your website is trying to guide them on the buyer’s journey.
This is something that you need to think about over and over again when doing website design. On each page, it’s useful to consider what stage of their journey the user is likely to be at on that page, and what you need to do to encourage them to move forward.
Usually, you will need to repeat the same get in contact call-to-action throughout the pages of the website, so that it is consistently in the user’s mind.
All of the hard work will be worth it when your website becomes a lead-generating machine.
Answer your buyer’s questions
Another thing you need to keep in mind when considering how to move the user on their buyer’s journey is what information they need to make a decision.
Your audience usually needs a certain level of information before they perform your desired action, and the page of your website is the best way to provide that.
Considering the questions your potential customers are likely to ask and creating content that truthfully answers those questions is likely to win over their trust. Once you’ve earned their trust, you’re likely to earn their sale as well.
Allow your buyers to qualify themselves
Answering the questions of your potential customers is also great for expediting your sales process because it allows users to self-qualify. For example, price tends to be the main curiosity that potential customers have, but lots of companies shy away from talking about it until they talk to the customer directly.
If the price is way out of the potential customer’s budget, that sale probably won’t advance, and the sales team’s time has been wasted. On the other hand, if the pricing information had been easy to find on the website, that potential customer would have known it was out of their budget and wouldn’t have bothered to get in contact, allowing your sales teams to focus on more qualified prospects.
Answering their questions on the website also means that potential customers come to the sales team already educated and with most of their questions answered. They’ve probably already made the decision to buy. In this scenario, the sales process is super short – all because of the content on the website.