Do You Seriously Think, Your Website Can Generate Business For You? Part 3

Everyone gathered at the meal table for lunch and a delicious menu of spicy veg and non-veg food buffet was served..

All of us helped ourselves to their taste and volume of food.

With his plate in hand .. Mr. X was still looking lost in deep thought of our previous discussion.

He had a lot of queries for sure. I walked up to him.

“Acche se khana khao … baad mein tumhara bheja khaunga … (eat your fill now, am going to eat your brains later)” he warned.

Suddenly, his phone rang.

“Is this Mr. X from X Printers Pvt. Ltd?”, asked someone on the other side.

“Yes, Good afternoon…” Mr. X

“Good afternoon, am calling from the sales dept of FLY Aeronautic Company Ltd. We are looking for new vendors to supply us industrial printers for our projects. Our marketing team found your website on Google and we are connecting in that regard. Do you deal in SE-154 grade printers?”

“Er .. YES”, Mr. X was flummoxed ,” Yes we do.”

“We are looking for 15 units and need a demonstration set up for our technical team review. When can this be set up?”, the prospect continued.

“Well, my marketing team can set this up early next week, if that suits you? Could you please drop in an email of your requirement on our official email address with contact details? Our marketing team will arrange for the demo accordingly.” Mr. X

“Sure, business@xprinters.online is the ID right? Will send out right away. Thank you.”

“Yes, please. Thanks for connecting and we’d love to fulfil your requirement if given a chance..” Mr. X in a concluding mode …

Just then I put a hand on his shoulder and gestured to ask about

– How did they reach our website through their online search?

– What key phrases were they typing to check for companies?

– What made them connect to us once they looked at our website?

“Before we disconnect, can I ask you something?” Mr. X to the prospect.

“Sure do.”

“How did you reach our website?”

“Well, our marketing team is always looking at adding new suppliers based on changing technology and price points. This SE-154 grade printers are latest tech in the market and our existing suppliers don’t have them. Secondly, they need sophisticated tech and environment to install and operate as well. Hence, it became very necessary to find an established, experienced and reliable supplier. Naturally, our first choice would have been to seek REFERRALS from our internal team. However, we decided to do this slightly differently.”

By this time, Mr. X had already put his phone on speaker mode so everyone in our room could hear the prospect talk.

“We got our marketing team to SEARCH for suppliers based on our requirement via Google, Social Media and other online platforms. They searched for specific SE-154 part names, SE-154 installation and operation procedures. If we had searched for generic SE-154 searches like “top SE-154 printer suppliers in India” or “SE-154 company in Bangalore” … we would have received a ton of links claiming to supply the product. This would have defeated our exercise. We are looking at specialist, not generic suppliers.

For our key phrases, your website actually showed up on Page 2 of Google (Yes, our team actually went there because our search was specific and all we got was generic results on Page 1. Ideally, we would have liked to see you on Page 1 though). We then reviewed your website for our requirements and felt there was a match. I must say, the content is pretty basic for a hi-tech printer but it mapped our search. And hence this call to establish connect and validate your company and products. For your information. we are evaluating 2 other companies as well.

I look forward to response to my email and hope we can associate if everything falls in place. Good day to you Mr. X”

“Good day to you too. Bye” Mr. X actually stuttered impacted by that onslaught from the prospect’s call, tone and presentation.

Stunned silence for a minute.

Everyone looking at one another, trying to sink in the call.

“WOW … Mr. X, your website is already working for you. It’s getting you business !!” Ms. Y exclaimed.

The ever so cool Mr. X responded, “Let’s see how it goes? But interesting indeed… How do you read into this?” looking directly at me.

I tried to put the pieces together:

“Firstly, the prospect was very savvy, focused and planned buyer. He had his requirements, process very clearly outlined as you can expect from the tech manufacturing industry. As businesses become increasingly sophisticated in terms of tech, online and their communication, this will be evident. We are looking at very intelligent buyers online here. As you can imagine – reaching, connecting and engaging this audience is going to need more than just your information brochure type web presence.. It needs to be much more than that. Even he mentioned that. Since your product is hyper targeted with less competition, you will still be found for now but the moment things pick up, this scenario will change dramatically. ”

I took a pause to look around for questions.

Ms. Y remarked, “He also mentioned reviewing our website in detail. I never thought customers actually reviewed websites. Always felt they come over to get our phone number or email and connect to us directly with questions?”

“Well, not only are customers reviewing product information on website in detail before connecting with you, they are actually evaluating your entire business through online channels. They will get your legal status and information from Govt sites, information on founders or management from social media sites, your experience working with other customers from review forums and customer reviews, etc. Only, once they verify this information will they actually connect with you. Time is money. They would prefer to talk to select 3 suppliers rather than evaluating 30 generic ones. Makes sense?”

“ … And does that mean my website needs to be content rich, updated and engaging all the time…” enquired Mr. O.

“ Yes indeed sir,” I continued, “and it needs to rank well on Google if your customers have to search and reach out to you”

“Most searches don’t go beyond Page 1 for obvious reason – TIME. People search on the fly and hence if not found, they prefer to change the search platform rather than clicking on next page links. Hence, it is very important you show up at the right place.”

“But, he mentioned typing some specific queries .. I didn’t get that.” quizzed Ms. D

“You can try for yourself. Type in Top SE-154 Printer Suppliers In India and see what shows up?” I questioned

“I see all directory and aggregation portals showing up for that search”, she said showing her mobile results to Mr. X

“Will that get me to the right place? – may be yes. But, that’s where I will under-utilize power of Google Search. It is very smart and we should put it to work.”

“How so?”

“Can we take this up a bit later? I have a client call in next 20 min. We are doing an interesting exercise of analyzing their 6 month traffic data and mapping it with their lead queue qualitatively as well as quantitatively.” I requested.

“Sure. I need to get my marketing team to start preparing for this presentation any way…” Mr. X got excited.

“Sounds good, can I sit down with you during your call with this client?” enquired Mr. Q

“Would love to Mr. Q, but we ensure confidentiality of customer business and their business. Hope you understand?”

“Of course, I understand. You can always generalize it for us after your session, isn’t it?”

“You bet, I will. Thank you and be back soon…”

Everyone dispersed in the hotel lobby.