How to Reinvent Your Website to Grow Revenue (and Make Buying More Enjoyable)

Every time a visitor lands on your website, your business is given an opportunity to tell its story.

The words they read, the customer stories you share, and the value you offer can significantly impact their buying decisions and their overall customer experience.

Yet, a lot of websites are like a dead-end street. They are one-sided. They don’t give customers the directions they need to make it through their buying journey.

A big part of this is the fact that corporate-speak doesn’t sell products. Having real conversations with your customers does.

But for these conversations to happen, you’ve got to reinvent your website to allow for two-way communication—no more dead-end streets.

And reinventing your website to combine key elements of a digital conversation, like authentic messaging and value-based marketing, doesn’t have to be rocket science. By creating real-time engagements and interactions with visitors, you can accelerate revenue, get more qualified leads in your pipeline, and, most importantly—leave a lasting, positive impression on your customers.

Here are five tips to reinvent your website and turn visitors into loyal customers:

1. Make it educational. 🎓

First things first. It’s important to remember that the buying journey has turned on its head in recent decades.

Research from Google found that buyers conduct an average of 12 different searches before they engage with a particular brand. 👇

That’s a lot of research taking place before a potential customer is ready to talk to you.

When they finally arrive on your site and are ready to engage, you need to take advantage of the opportunity and help them find the answers they are looking for.

My advice? Cut the fluff and instead focus on educating your buyers. That means your website must provide enough valuable information and resources so the buyer can continue to research your products and services.

With conversational marketing, you can go a step further. Use conversational marketing to personalize content for each visitor depending on what content they’re engaging with during each part of the buying process.

For example, if a customer is looking at your product features, you can educate them on specifics by offering un-gated white papers or ebooks. If a customer is looking at your pricing page, use a chatbot to educate them on what package might suit them best, as we do at Drift 👇

We even took our love of learning to the next level and created Drift Insider – a community for sales and marketing pros to unlock the next level of growth for their business and in their career. Why’d we do it? Because joining a community of like-minded folks is one of the surest and fastest paths to innovation.

And hey – that’s also why I joined and am so excited to be part of the RevGenius community 🤓

 

Sure, there are lots of communities your customers can choose to be a part of. But RevGenius co-founder Galem Girmay said it best. The community you surround yourself with (and the educational opportunities you’ll get from it) matters. Make it an easy choice for your customers.

2. Tell your customers’ stories. 📚

Want to know the best way to share stories about successful (and happy) customers? Have those customers share their stories on your website—in their own words.

A website with well-crafted, detailed customer stories can allow folks thinking of purchasing your product to put themselves in the shoes of another customer and feel like they’re going to be that customer one day.

It allows them to see that not only do other people have the same problems they do but that your product helped them solve those problems.

 

Now, there are some lessons I want to share about how we approach telling these stories.

First, we add enough variety that potential customers should be able to find a story from the same industry or team size so they can relate to it. There has to be diversity in the stories you tell and an effort to truly represent your customers.

We also don’t leave anything on the table. We try to make them as detailed as possible, break down the problem, how Drift helped the customer overcome it, and the key results after using our product.

Here’s a recent customer story we put together with our customer Informatica 👇

 

The product’s value is front and center, so you can immediately see the ROI Informatica achieved by using Drift.

And after you start scrolling and reading the customer story, the chatbot is waiting on the bottom right corner to share any other stories that may be more relevant. 👇

 

The goal is to make these customer stories as actionable as possible. So if a buyer has a question or shows some interest in learning more, give them a way to act when their intent is the highest.

3. Get creative with conversational experiences. 🗣️

Every person who lands on your website should be given a chance to have a conversation with your team.

Whether that’s with email, a phone call, a video, a text message, or…a chatbot 🤖

If you give the person visiting your website real control over their experience and make it more actionable (remember that two-way street 🚘), it can benefit not only them but you—the seller.

This relies on you using an omnichannel approach to talking to your customers. Don’t rely on just your email marketing. Don’t rely on just your chatbots. Don’t rely on just phone calls.

Get creative.

If a customer lands on your website, checks out a customer story, and then moves over to your pricing page, what should you do?

You should use every tool in your conversational toolkit to get them talking. Here’s what our toolkit looks like 👇

 

Reach out by email. Send them a video on LinkedIn to talk about your product. Send them a text if they’ve provided their number.

Using an omnichannel approach can accelerate the time it takes to connect and ultimately cut down how long it takes to close a deal.

4. Invest in copywriting. ✍️

Copywriting is one channel that can take your brand anywhere.

By nailing down a clear, direct product message on your website, you can then use that same messaging on your landing pages, emails, videos, webinars, blog posts, chat playbooks…do you get where I’m going with this?

The one trap to avoid is sounding like you’re selling something.

If you get rid of the salesy stiffness and remember that your website’s purpose is to have a conversation with your customer, your mission becomes a little clearer.

That’s why it’s essential to invest in your copywriting message. Once you can write authentically, you’ll attract more people.

This is literally how Drift has succeeded as a brand. We also have a Swipe File where our marketing team shares inspiration from other brands. Gong’s approach to copywriting and content marketing comes up a lot. 👇

 

This goes back to being authentic. Buyers can smell a pitch from a mile away. Don’t be afraid to show them who you are. Like Gong’s Udi Ledergor says, you might be surprised with the results.

5. Use value-based marketing. 💰

Finally, look at value-based marketing not just as a transactional sales process, but as a way for your sales process to be more about relationships.

This is especially important when you’re trying to reach enterprise-grade customers.

For any website, you need to show more than just features and functions. You need to highlight the solution itself and show your customers the real value of your product. Clari is SO GOOD at this 👇

 

Instead of using your website as a place to dump your pricing information, reinvent it to show who your product is for. Show your customer’s personas and what problems they had before they found you.

What were their challenges? How was this impacting their business?

Then, bring your customer on a journey. Not just to the checkout, but by piecing together precisely how your product will solve their problems, what features will work best for them, and the results they can expect to achieve👇

 

If you can directly engage with buyers at the exact moment they’re showing purchasing intent and show them you can solve their problem, you can not only make them customers but boost future revenue through upsells and renewals.

Following these five tips to reinvent your website can revolutionize the way you sell. You can educate your customers, start conversations instead of sales pitches, and – most importantly – accelerate revenue, and boost customer happiness in the process.