Whether your leads have dropped off a cliff or have been in a steady decline, what to do differently is a conundrum.

Today’s buyer suddenly has a lot of expectations.

They want to research on demand, compare to competition, see your pricing, check out reviews, and talk with peers—all before talking to sales or scheduling a live demonstration. 

It’s a difficult shift for today’s marketers and sellers, and most B2B vendors are slow to adapt. 

They’re used to being the gatekeepers of information and controlling the sales process. If you haven’t checked out our interview with TrustRadius Founder and CEO Vinay Bhagat, it’s a must to learn how buyer behavior has changed. 

Wondering how to find the low-hanging fruit on your website? 

We’ve got you covered. 

Because we regularly review SaaS website content, we see a frequent pattern of mistakes that are easy to fix. 

1. Fix the easy stuff

Put your website through Hubspot’s web grader. https://website.grader.com/

These are your low hanging fruit opportunities in four categories—performance, SEO, mobile and security.

Some simple tweaking (such as reducing image sizes and optimizing for mobile) can have immediate effects on bounce rates and SEO.

You also can use Google’s Page Speed Insights to dig a little deeper. Between these two website analyzers, you’re going to improve - a lot.

2. Positioning and its Impact on Conversion Rate Optimization

Your website is the first thing your buyer looks at, so it’s important to get it right.

Hint—it’s not about “book a demo.” It’s okay to leave that CTA  in the main navigation, but you’re wasting space to have it in the hero. Buyers aren’t ready. 

For more on this, check out our interview with Vidyard’s Tyler Lessard. 

Look for these common positioning mistakes that covey nothing:

“We’re number one in the space, pioneers, best in class, the preferred partner, industry leader, etc.” 
Today’s buyer has heard it all before. 

AI-Powered, or AI for XYZ. 
Artificial Intelligence is not the differentiator it used to be. Therefore, leading with it does nothing to set you apart from competitors. It may be part of your “how it works” story, but not the “why.”

You define what the product is, or the category you’re in, but don’t immediately convey why you’re different. Example: ERP Software Solutions for the X industry.
That’s not much of a differentiator. You eloquently say nothing at all and immediately ask for something. 

“Lean into human connection to hire great people, faster. Let’s talk.” 
Can you tell what these companies do? Is “leaning into the human connection” enough of a differentiator?

Innovative technology. Exponential insights. Challenge what’s possible in healthcare.
Umm, you’re gonna need to be a little more specific if you want me to read more. 

Way too much industry jargon. Example: Industry’s first PIM, DAM & Data Syndication software on the cloud powered by AI & ML. 
Is being the foremost aggregator of all these acronyms the reason I should look at your product?

You’re telling not showing:

The power behind your project-to-product transformation. Request a demo. 
Not sure what that means, or if I should care.

Your autonomous spend-to-pay platform. Request a demo.
Lots of terms to get your head around here

Modern, scalable CRM your teams will love. Request a demo.

The fix: Craft messages that define the problem and present a new perspective. The prospect should look at your main messages and think, “YES! I have that problem, and I’m interested in your perspective on solving it.”

Check out this video from TaylorMade that demonstrates the power of the “reframe” in terms of defining the problem from a new vantage point and driving toward the close. 

By the end of the video, I planned a trip to the golf store. 

How could you create something like that in your content? 

What unique insight into the problems your prospects face can you shine a new light on?

3. Content doesn’t tap into pain, point out gaps, challenge the status quo, or provide insights.

When the content game was about maximizing SEO to drive traffic, marketers pumped out blogs and whitepapers on top-of-funnel topics that were interesting and somewhat helpful, but their consumption did not indicate someone has intent to buy.

Today, the torrent of content being published amounts to little more than noise, and any “leads” that come through this kind of content marketing will be weak. 

The fix: Take a differentiated position, develop a compelling narrative, and look for content you already have that can be repurposed and re-written. 

Look for buried leads, dull headlines, and ways that you can get the prospect to question their status quo. 

Write “illuminator posts” (like this one) where you present a new perspective on solving a problem and “contrarian posts” where you show how current thinking is inadequate (also kinda like this one). 

Even better if you have a podcast and can interview prospects to gain insights into what they care about. That way, you’re consistently hearing about what’s important to your buyer and then you can develop insights that have been validated. Oh, and some of those podcast guests can be converted into clients.

Shout out to Sweet Fish Media. We learned about this business development motion from them.

Ultimately, to develop a narrative that drives qualified buyers, you must talk to current customers and seek to understand their true motivations for buying. 

Yes, we can help with that. 

And another thing, Ultimate Guides are over. 

More on that later, but for now I challenge you to find a more provocative headline than: “the Ultimate Guide to Whatever.”

Use this template for starters: How to do X thing/how to conquer Y problem in (demonstrable time frame). 

Then, use this format in your copy:

1. There’s a big problem out there (get them to agree on the problem)
2. Companies try to solve it by doing XYZ, but that doesn’t work (get them curious about the reframe)
3. That’s why we’ve developed our technology this way (get them interested in learning more and coming along with you for the journey.)

4. Too many gated assets

Yes, I know your salespeople live and die on leads generated and that’s in no small part how marketing is measured. 

But if you’re sending them low quality, low intent, useless “leads,” they hate that even worse.

As Vidyard VP of Marketing Tyler Lessard says, “It’s not about selling better, it’s about buying better.” And buyers hate forms. 

Personally, I fume when presented with a long list of required fields like company name, title, industry, city, state, zip, mother’s maiden name, etc. especially when I’ve attended one of your webinars before—you have it already. 

Long forms reduce conversions–so buy the technology to append the data for you in your CRM or even better yet, make use of those BDRs you have and have them research my contact info and landscape my account while they’re at it. 

So, why are you putting so many barriers in front of potential buyers?

The Fix: Remove the forms from all content that doesn’t help the buyer make a decision. (That’s most of your content).

Yes, live webinars require it. Just simplify it—email, name. That’s it. 

And never on case studies. 

You can embed forms inside those assets—for example, as you’re reading our Guide to Fixing SaaS Lead Gen in 90 Days or Less and when presented with the offer  to have us provide a complimentary content review, you literally jump at the opportunity – and fill out the form happily. 

Keep the forms only on demo requests, contact us, ROI calculators, etc—closer to “sales ready.” Yes, there will be fewer leads, but your salespeople will thank you. 

Ready to make some changes?

If you’re seeing leads drop off, the most likely reason is that you’re out of sync with today’s buyer and what they’re trying to accomplish when they consume your content. 

That doesn’t mean a complete makeover is necessary–often, current content can be revamped and repurposed to gain greater engagement.

But it does mean that you’ll need some strategy and positioning changes so that you’re providing customer insights and showing your superior expertise. 

If you’d like an expert opinion on content and positioning for today’s buyer, sign up for our complimentary content review. 

It’s a $3000 value, and nothing we've offered as a free service in the past has had as many universal accolades.