01/12/2021

Improve Your Website’s Ability to Generate Leads by

Focusing on Buyers’ Needs
Published 11 January 2021 - ID G00738990 - 19 min read

By Analysts Mark Stanyer, Bindi Bhullar, Fabrizio Biscotti, McKenzie Smith, Viharika Peddi

Initiatives: Technology Marketing Effectiveness

Websites are a critical marketing asset, but they often lack effectiveness and,
ultimately, underperform in driving lead generation. To improve lead generation,
technology and service providers must create website messaging that is both
impactful and clearly aligned with prospects’ needs.

Overview

Key Findings
■ Because website messaging must serve the needs of multiple audiences, technology and service
providers (TSPs) often create broad messaging that is applicable to everyone, but compelling to no
one.

■ There is often an exclusive focus on the vendor and its product or service, with little attempt to identify
what sets the product, service or vendor apart. This makes it hard for customers to differentiate
between offerings and vendors.

■ Website messaging typically jumps directly into a product-centric focus, ignoring that the core
requirement is for early-stage lead generation, where target audiences value business outcomes over
features.

■ Website messaging often does not clearly illustrate the “pathway to value,” preventing prospective
customers from understanding how the product or service will lead them to their desired outcome.

Recommendations
To improve the effectiveness of website properties with compelling messaging and stories, TSPs should
take these steps:

■ Improve the quality of leads by defining your core audiences clearly and determining your positioning
based on your target market’s needs, while also ensuring website messaging addresses the needs of
other audiences, such as partners, investors and candidate hires.

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■ Articulate what makes you special by detailing your with discernible differentiation and being clear
about what sets you apart from the alternatives.

■ Create impactful messaging by providing insight into your deep knowledge of buyer challenges and
required business outcomes and through use of externally derived proof points (for example, case
studies or success metrics).

■ Identify the pathway to value for your prospective customers by showing how they can get from
where they are now, to the superior situation your offering can create.

Introduction
The most important marketing asset is arguably the website. In fact, the 2020 Gartner Technology
Marketing Benchmarks Survey identified it as the top source of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). 1 We
consistently hear that the website is the No. 1 marketing resource for buyers seeking information about
the vendor, its offer and other details to inform their selection. The website needs to, but often doesn’t, go
beyond an introduction to your products and services. It must also provide enough depth to answer the
questions about objectives, goals and concerns from disparate buyer personas that the (on average) 12
to 14 members of a buying team will have relative to your offer.

During the process of buying a solution, buyers need information that helps them understand more
about the specific business challenges they face and what is possible in terms of an outcome. This
process of exploration and evaluation typically takes place in the absence of direct engagement with
any given vendor as we demonstrate in Figure 1, where we show how inspiration leads to activities that
might result in a purchase. This exploration almost always involves a vendor’s website. Indeed, the
website can also be instrumental throughout the buyer’s experience with the vendor (for example, in
providing material that supports ownership or is an integral part of the solution purchased).

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Figure 1: B2B Technology Customer Life Cycle Model

Buyers can become frustrated or lose interest in spending time on a website when:

■ It is hard to find the specific information they are looking for.

■ The information is vague, confusing or contradictory.

■ They aren’t confident they can trust what they read.

Buyers are busy people, with many priorities beyond the problem you can support them on. Gaining their
attention amid the huge variety of their other challenges requires a carefully honed and forever-evolving
messaging approach. Done right, this approach will rapidly and accurately capture their attention and
compel them to engage in the next step of the process, whatever that might be.

This research focuses on creating the most effective web content for the purposes of improving
awareness and driving lead generation activities. Our advice here focuses on this use case and ignores
the other (sometimes critical) capabilities of your site (such as product utilization and enablement to
support customer satisfaction and retention, or the website being the product). Furthermore, TSPs
should implement the advice contained within this document by working with digital marketers to ensure
that technical requirements (such as search engine optimization) are met.

Analysis

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Define Your Target Audiences

Building a Website Starts With Who It’s For
Refining your target audience definition as narrowly as possible increases the likelihood that the
messages you create will improve the quality of leads in your pipeline. This is because it will create
stronger resonance with the target audience, while also enabling prospects who are not a good fit to self-
select out of the pipeline. Typically, we find that vendors look to articulate to as broad a market as
possible and not limit their sales potential. However, this approach simply alienates all audiences by not
clearly aligning with any one set of challenges. Having a defined message targeted at a refined segment
of the market does not prevent selling to other segments, but it does create a strong alignment with your
core market, driving understanding and need.

Where the target market is large due to the scale of the vendor and the extensive capabilities of the
solution, refined messaging is still highly desirable. While you may understand that different industries
or market segments have essentially the same problem, audiences desire information that is aligned
with their specific problem as closely as possible. Presenting website visitors with a pathway to self-
identification, where information can be presented in a context they will recognize, can achieve this goal
with little additional overhead for the vendor. The Website Hierarchy and Navigation section covers, in
more detail, how to achieve this simply and clearly.

Before creating any messaging, technology providers should:

1. Create a clear vision of the target audience to understand and define the target market segment(s)
(see A Practical Guide to Market Segmentation).

2. Define the ideal customer profile within the segment(s) (see Tech Go-to-Market: The Enterprise
Persona — Defining Your Ideal Customer Profile).

3. Ensure a clear and differentiated value proposition has been captured through positioning (see
Positioning Revisited).

The process of positioning forces you to consider your audience’s specific needs and wants, and how
you provide a unique outcome. Furthermore, it also defines the typical scenario you are looking to
change, highlighting a driving “need” through your audience’s current suboptimal position.

Clearly Articulate Your Value Proposition

Each year, Gartner analysts review product messaging on hundreds of client websites. During this
process, we see clear patterns of mistakes and problems. The main challenge we identify is messaging
focused on what the technology provider offers — whether products, services or other technical
capabilities. This is due to one or both of the following:

■ The assumption that buyers have fully identified their needs and requirements before coming to the
website

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■ The TSP’s inability to step back from its own daily interactions and consider the buyer’s needs

Either of these issues leads to a site that is all about providing product information, with little to no
information about value and use cases. Even when use cases exist, they often fail to communicate clear
insights and value drivers specific to the target audience, and/or they are poorly located on the site. The
insights and value drivers could be placed far down on pages or placed on separate pages with no clear
navigation pathway to them.

To drive improvement, assess your website in its ability to make it easy for prospects to find and get
answers to three questions (see Accelerate Buying Decisions Through a Customer-Centric ‘Questions to
Answer’ Content Strategy):

■ Why change? This is an essential question to address in the exploration activity stream (see  Beyond
the Buying Cycle). The key point is providing information that makes a strong case and sense of
urgency for doing something different — the business value that can be achieved.

■ How to change? In the evaluation activity stream, provide more details on alternatives (comparing
your technology and approach with others), and identify the key requirements for successful change.
Product information, implementation guides and details can be important here, but providing context
that links to how those capabilities support successful change is required.

■ Who to change with? In the engagement activity stream (and yes, your website plays a role), provide
the roadmap for how you or your product/service will help the prospects successfully make the
change. Help them to feel comfortable that you care about their needs and will provide the optimal
outcome, now and in the future.

Great Websites Capture Attention

Impact is created through articulating a clear vision related to a potential or an outcome that will appeal
to the audience. The visitors you want to engage with for lead generation will be in the exploration
phase, looking to address one of two situations:

■ Actively researching a known problem in search of a solution, which could result in a planned
purchase

■ Following up on an area of intrigue (for example, created from content that has captured the
imagination) or a known problem for which they were previously unaware there was a solution, which
could result in an ad hoc purchase

In either of these, capturing their imagination will give prospects a clear idea of the value in investing
more time on your site. We often see vendor sites with promotional highlights that focus on a feature or
a capability that is meaningless to a prospect engaged in the exploration activity stream.

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Impact (and, hence, clarity of the reason to stay on the site) is created by highlighting possible
outcomes. The best and most impactful outcomes to highlight are those that provide validation.

By that, we mean identifying a measurable impact through a quantifiable metric (something your
prospect can prove if they chose to), or through external validation — an impactful brief testimonial, for
example.

The ultimate intent here is to get the site visitor to think, “I want to learn more.”

Create Impact by Identifying the Problems You Solve

With the website having established impact, visitors need to quickly know why they should stay on the
site to learn more. Establishing the situation you tackle very early in the site helps visitors to understand
that you deal with and solve the very challenges they face. Rapidly identifying this need creates interest
and helps them stay on the site longer to learn about this problem, how it is impacting them and what
they should do to get to a better outcome.

This is a continuation of Gartner’s recommended storytelling technique (see Improve Messaging and
Communications Through Storytelling), moving from the outcome (capture attention) to the situation
that you address.

Without this clear articulation, the buyer may move onto other sites, or to other challenges.

Value Exchange
The knowledge contained within providers is valuable to your prospects. Sharing it with them creates an
alignment with their situation, helps them pinpoint specific challenges they may not have been aware of,
and provides an understanding of the correct way to resolve those they are (now) aware of. In some
cases, elements of this messaging can be referred to as “thought leadership.” This is where it creates
insight into how evolving conditions will force the need to change, and/or how the evolution of
technology will present entirely new ways to address challenges.

This presentation of knowledge of their situation and how it impacts their business creates a value
exchange, where you share your knowledge, and, in return, buyers invest their time with you. Ultimately
trust is being generated through this exchange. This process and understanding it is covered in more
detail in Trust Drives the B2B Technology Customer Life Cycle.

Clarifying for prospects the impact (as part of the storytelling approach) that the status quo or present
situation is having on their business also creates urgency and drives them to resolve the problem.
Without a clear driving reason for change, ad hoc purchase processes won’t begin, and planned
purchasing processes may stall. This is due to a lack of clarity that the current situation is hugely
suboptimal when compared with the outcome you can provide.

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Identify What You Do

Once the problem has been identified, it is possible to present the way your organization addresses it.
First, establish clarity around whether the approach is a product, a service or a solution (a mix of
products and services). Provide some level of definition of the product category (or, where a new
category is being defined, the traditional alternative approaches). Visitors want this category definition.
Visitors are also interested in features and capabilities. Beyond the homepage providing detail on how
your solution provides value, the salient features and abilities it can deliver gives them more depth to
better understand how your proposition is right for their needs.

When reviewing websites, we find that this area is typically well-covered. Shortcomings we do find are
service companies that build or use products to enhance their services, but don’t make that clear. This
leaves visitors to wonder — are they focused on their products or their services? Visitors to the site
should be clear on what the offer is (and what the product or service architecture is).

With most business challenges, there are usually multiple ways to solve the problem. Use your
experience to guide prospects to the most appropriate resolution to theirs. It pays to be honest here;
happy customers who realize value are not only easier to retain, but also help drive new client
acquisition.

Be Different
From the prospects’ perspective, it’s highly likely that there are multiple vendors with seemingly similar
offerings that all profess to resolve their challenge. Be clear about what sets you apart from competition
by making clear and substantiated claims specific to the needs of your target audience that other
vendors cannot make. Help prospects understand why your approach leads to a better outcome. Create
contrasts that lay the groundwork for preference. For further guidance on how to achieve a highly
differentiated message, see 10 Steps for Improved Differentiation.

In our website reviews, we typically find a lack of explicit or implicit comparisons that start to articulate
differentiation. Or, we find vague statements of differentiation that are made with no context of what the
comparison is.

This is very unhelpful to prospects looking for ways to identify which approach will provide them with
the lowest risk and best outcome. Clarity on how one proposition is unique or provides value in ways
that others cannot helps to guide opinion on the correct method of resolving the situation. In many
cases, we find differentiators that relate only to the TSP’s beliefs, which do not provide a strong platform
for differentiation. For example, many TSPs profess to employ only the best people. To be impactful, this
would require competitors to admit to employing only the least expensive, least qualified people, which is
clearly unrealistic. True differentiation sets one vendor apart in ways others cannot match.

Proof points are a decisive way to demonstrate the validity of your approach. Case studies and the
insights contained within them, independent awards, testimonials and scores from review sites, and

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even product benchmarking data all represent resources that provide prospects with a valuable means to
gain trust in the storyline being presented.

Present the Pathway to the Outcome

Potential customers — especially those evaluating different offerings or approaches — want to know
what it will take to achieve value. These details may not have to be on the homepage, but buyers want to
know how they move from where they are today to a better future with your products and services.

When we review websites, we normally encounter general descriptions of services and methodologies
that feel like a feature listing for products. Conversely, there is rarely anything that lays out the path to
value, or the process for engagement. Providing an understanding of the pathway to getting to this value
proposition helps the prospect understand the simplicity (or complexity) of the initiative. As many TSPs
today are presenting simplicity as a differentiator, it makes sense to articulate what this means in real
terms to the prospect to avoid confusion further along in the sales process.

An example of this is Enlighten (see Figure 2), a U.S.-based vendor that specializes in operational
excellence. Its website contains a sample project timeline, with an upper dashboard that changes to
demonstrate the value received at each stage in the project timeline. This clearly demonstrates to visitors
how they themselves might expect to gain from an engagement with this company and how the value
will manifest itself.

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Figure 2: Enlighten’s Pathway to the Outcome

Source: Enlighten

Other Critical Considerations

Website Hierarchy and Navigation
Conveying all these points is challenging when there are multiple buying and influencing personas within
your target segment(s) to consider and you want to describe the extent of the offer with brevity and
simplicity. To this end, create depth with increasing layers of coverage through the site. For example, the
homepage becomes the high-level description of the outcome and the problems solved with validating
elements. The next level down provides clarity on the offer — what you do to solve the problem. Below
this, present elements that cover aspects that buying team influencers — CIO, CFO and legal and
compliance teams, for example — will need to know. Finally, the lowest level is the technical breakdown,
that is, the information necessary for the technical teams — the most specialist influencer. Not all
personas need to be served with an individual page, but it is important to ensure that everyone’s needs
are met somewhere, and they can quickly navigate to what they need.

Where there is more than one target segment, provide a clear journey that allows the visitor to self-
identify, such as a navigation menu by industry, where the homepage relays an appropriate high-level
message, but the detail is industry-specific. Or, where the complete message needs to be specific, a drop-
down or guided navigation menu (as shown in Figure 3) that clearly demonstrates how the visitor should
navigate can be used. These options provide access to a page specific to the audience and their needs.
The content and links contained here should be relevant to that audience, but will include assets,
content, calls to action (CTAs) and links to other pages that are common across the site.

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To navigate the layers of detail, provide all audience personas with the ability to clearly define their
journey through the site. Allow them to self-identify with “more detail” or menu options that speak to
their needs and ensure that their journey is as painless as possible.

A clear example of directed navigation is Oman Data Park (see Figure 3), an IT services provider based in
Oman. With a vast number of services and offers, it provides visitors the ability to self-identify what will
be relevant to each company type it serves on its homepage. It also provides the option for those not
served by this simplistic mechanism to search for what they came for.

Figure 3: Oman Data Park’s Persona Journey

Source: Oman Data Park

Calls to Action
Ensuring that website content, messaging and navigation are effective is essential; however, having
achieved these, you then need to prompt the visitor to action. Content must be written to work in concert
with CTAs so they can collectively act to support the overarching message and provide a means for the
vendor to engage with the prospect directly, or vice versa. A CTA’s purpose is to provide access to richer
content or begin a conversation. In this context, the CTAs must be visible on the site and at strategic
points on the page, although not in a way that impedes on the visitors’ journey or information collection
activity.

Consideration should be given to how the visitor will perceive what will happen when the CTAs are taken.
For example, the typical “Contact Us” CTA on websites comes with a built-in expectation. As a prospect, I
believe that hitting that button and providing my details will result in a sales call, with the salesperson
looking to verify that an opportunity exists. If I’m solely exploring solutions and not ready to talk about a
potential purchase, my perception will be different. I believe this doesn’t provide me with value and,
instead, will be a burden if I do not wish to be pressured or chased by a sales representative. However, if

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you promise me value through a contact CTA such as “speak with an expert,” a free trial, value
assessment or another mechanism that creates an expectation or a value proposition, then my
perception will change.

The underlying process for the vendor only needs to change insomuch that the vendor representative
calling starts the conversation with, “I gather you have a problem. How can I help?” rather than an
approach that conveys the impression of “What would you like to buy?” Through the call, the person
conducting the outreach should naturally glean enough information relating to any opportunity. If not,
and the call went well, then they can ask the prospect for the missing information — it’s a value
exchange, after all.

Finally, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming of age. The chat boxes with human sales development reps
staffing them, which were typically outsourced lead generation agencies or teams of in-house reps, can
now be supplemented or replaced by highly competent chatbots. These can serve buyer needs at the
time time the buyer needs them. This removes friction from information gathering for the buyer. Even if
that’s 9 o’clock at night and the prospect wants to schedule a demo for a future date, it gets done right
then and there. There is no form to complete, and an internal process can be initiated with the prospect
to schedule the interaction.

Summary
Websites are one of the primary demand generation and engagement tools for vendors. Websites need
to engage prospective buyers by providing clear guidance based on significant expertise in solving
specific business challenges to help them to identify both their issues and the correct ways to solve
them. Demonstrating expertise in a way that gives the prospect value creates a value exchange and
generates trust. With a clear outcome for an identified challenge and through a clearly differentiated
offer, the website can help to position the vendor and solution as the best and least risky path to
resolution.

Evidence
2020 Gartner Technology Marketing Benchmarks Survey, conducted online, from April through July
2020, with three distinct waves running on the following dates:

■ 14 April through 17 May

■ 21 May through 15 June

■ 16 June through 15 July

An average of 167 respondents respond in each wave, for a total of 500 respondents over the course of
3 months. Results within each wave, and within the total sample, follow the following proportional
targets:

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■ Country split: U.S./Canada (75%), U.K. (25%)

■ Company size: with less than $50 million in revenue (20%), $50 million to less than $250 million in
revenue (30%), $250 million in revenue or more (30%)

Respondents were required to have one of the following primary job functions/roles:

■ CEO/president/founder

■ Demand/lead generation

■ Marketing leadership

■ Sales leadership

■ Web/digital social marketing

■ Marketing operations/analytics

They were also required to have knowledge of the marketing budget and spend for the company or
business unit and knowledge of the marketing campaign/programs tactics. At the country level, quotas
were established to guarantee a good distribution in terms of product offering (software, technology
services, and hardware) and company size (revenue). The survey was developed collaboratively by a
team of Gartner analysts and was reviewed, tested and administered by Gartner’s Research Data and
Analytics team.

Disclaimer: Results of this study do not represent global findings or the market as a whole but reflect
sentiment of the respondents and companies surveyed.

Document Revision History

Improve Your Website’s Ability to Generate Leads by Focusing on Buyers’ Needs - 27 June 2019

Recommended by the Authors

Accelerate Buying Decisions Through a Customer-Centric ‘Questions to Answer’ Content Strategy
The B2B Customer Life Cycle for Technology Products and Services

A Practical Guide to Market Segmentation

Examples of Sales Enablement Programs Driving Double-Digit Results

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