Missing a trick

In the consumer space, company websites have evolved from the brochureware of the 90s into sophisticated, personalised e-commerce and CRM tools with the corporate website seen as a primary consumer channel. And this is reflected in consumer use: the ease and convenience of online shopping meant that online sales for Christmas 2007 were 30-40% higher than the previous year. Our experiences as consumers with sites such as Amazon are now setting expectations as to how easy to use B2B sites need to be, and how well product information is presented.

However in the B2B space there is still an overwhelming view that a company website is simply a source of information. Remarkably only 5% of companies look to their corporate website as an integrated part of the CRM and support process and 1.5% of businesses don’t even have a website.













Of course, the B2B sales process is more complex than consumer e-tail. It involves multiple stakeholders and departments, an (often) lengthy sales cycle and a focus on personal contact and relationships.

So part of the issue is that B2B sites are not often viewed as e-commerce channels where the final purchase can be made online. As a result they frequently do not have clear metrics set against them, other than the traditional measures of unique visits & page impressions. And because the true value of the site is not measured, the necessary budgets are not allocated to its development and evolution.