1: It's not memorable, or it's memorable for the wrong reasons

The number of buyers in the market has significantly grown over the last few years, but there's still a finite pool of people to reach, so once they're on your site, you want them to keep coming back for more! Outside of activities such as PPC & retargeting, a key way to get visitors to keep returning is by ensuring your site is memorable - for the right reasons!

So what makes a site memorable? It's all about the experience. Netflix is a prime example; people aren't just going back for the catalogue, it's the entire experience. You login and you're presented with content curated based on your preferences, it's personalised to you and it's easy to navigate. This keeps users returning time and time again.

Things shouldn't be different just because you operate B2B.

Some quick questions to think about:

• Is it easy for buyers to find what they're looking for?
• Can they engage with content - for example can they save shows of interest? Easily connect with a relevant sales person?
• Does it load quickly?
• If buyers need to register to access content, is the process seamless?

If you've connected Google Analytics, which I highly recommend you do if you haven't, take a look at the new vs returning visitors pie chart on the audience page. Each individual organisation will set their own ratio targets, but if your returning visitor number is low, poor user experience could well be the culprit.

2: You don't learn about your visitors

There are two main types of tracking user activity online

1. Anonymous data - this data gives you insights about general behaviour of your visitors online. You can get this type of data from tools such as GA & Hotjar
    
2. Known data - can be tracked in a number of ways, but the easiest is if your users are asked to log in before they can view content, which luckily for you is common practice for distribution websites!

It's fairly likely your website asks users to log in before they can see full catalogue information, which is great. But do you have a way to report on what those buyers have been doing? If not, your website is essentially a shop window instead of the powerful sales tool it should be. Understanding, and using, buyer activity is so important. In fact, our latest buyers survey showed that 90% of buyers expect to be presented with bespoke content - a guessing game if you can't track their activity!

3: It's using outdated tech

Technology is constantly evolving and so are the tools for creating a decent website. Using outdated tech can have a massive impact on your both yours and your users' experience. 

The impact:

• Internal frustration when making small changes or updates on your site. It should be easy for anyone on your team to quickly add a blog, make a change or update a video. If it's not, or worse still you're reliant on a 3rd party to do it, it's time for a change
• Browser compatibility - your site needs to work for all users, including the rare ones who still use Internet Explorer!
• Loading speed - sites that load in five seconds (compared to those that load in 19) see 70% longer average sessions
• Responsiveness - over 50% of website traffic is via a mobile device, so if your site isn't providing a good mobile experience, you're cutting out over half your audience

4: Slow loading

Website speed really matters. So much so that load time has been a ranking factor for Google since 2010. Slow loading pages disrupt the user experience and people just won't wait around. You can check how quickly your site loads (and get pointers on how to improve it!) through tools such as GTmetrix. Ideally, you should be aiming for a load time of under 3 seconds.

5: Security

Websites get hacked. Fact. And websites relying on older technology are more vulnerable to breaches - the experience is stressful at best and a lawsuit at worst, especially if you store personal data.

Fines for a data breach under GDPR are up to €20million or 4% of annual global turnover - whichever is greater. And that's not just a scare tactic.

Earlier this year, the ICO announced that British Airways was to be fined £183m in relation to a 2018 incident in which around 500,000 customers had their personal and account information harvested after being redirected to a fraudulent website. Just a day later, the ICO revealed it also planned to fine Marriott International £99m due to a 2018 breach in which the personal data of approx 339million guests was exposed.

 

6: Integrations

Time is money and websites that aren't properly integrated with the rest of your tech stack are wasting a lot of time. As a distributor, chances are you're managing multiple platforms for videos, rights, content, assets....the list goes on. If your website doesn't integrate with these things, it becomes yet another thing to manage.
 

Interested in learning more?

We've created a quick online assessment (genuinely, it will take you 5 minutes) which will give you an idea of how effective your distribution website is.

It focuses on 4 key areas:

• Buyer Experience
• Internal Experience
• Security & Stability
• Market Readiness

Your results will give you an overall website score as well as a score per section, with actionable insights on how to take your site to the next level.

How effective is my website?