When you are looking to make a purchase – let’s say a new laptop – what do you do? Do you hop on the phone and call up Apple to get product specs and pricing information? In 1990, yes. In 2011, absolutely not. The buyer no longer relies on vendors entirely. They surf the Internet, going to multiple online sources to get the information they want. The real question is, what is that information and are you, the vendor, communicating it effectively on your site?
My company is a free online resource for software buyers. We wanted to see how we were doing with our content, so we hosted a survey asking our visitors multiple questions about what type of information they find most helpful in the purchasing process.
You can visit the original blog post for a detailed breakdown by type of content. Here are the top three most desired types of content that buyers want to see:
– pricing
– product descriptions and details
– online demos
Many vendors reading this might already be congratulating themselves: “Hey! We are ahead of the game! We already have all this stuff on our site.” Not so fast. It’s not just what, it’s how.
Buyers spoke up and gave us some really specific feedback. Not only do they want price, but they want it clearly posted on the website. They want to know what your product does, but they want it in plain English. Do you know what it means to “maintain competitive agility”? Neither do your buyers. Once they know what the product does, they want to see it in action with online demos that aren’t hidden behind layers of landing pages and forms.
These are just a few of the takeaways that we got from our visitors. For the full report and even more tips, visit our blog.
