For any industrial company, your website is an important marketing asset. With engineers conducting the majority of their buying research online before contacting your company, a prospect is sure to visit your website in hopes of discovering information they are looking for.
If engineers find what they need, and if your products and services compare well against the competition, then you’ll likely generate a potential sales opportunity.
If your website falls short, you’ll miss out.
According to the research report, “Smart Marketing for Engineers,” produced by GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing, engineers want access to the basics on your website. They are looking, first and foremost, for technical content.
This audience is not as concerned with website bells and whistles. Items that an industrial marketer may view as a “must have” – pre-filled forms, interactive graphics, online chat, and more are not so special to engineers.
Get Technical, Get Specific
When asked what features of their favorite websites were most important to their experience, engineers overwhelming said in-depth technical information (81 percent) and technical specifications (75 percent).
The next closest were features to help configure products/systems (30 percent). Interestingly, only 11 percent said that a wide range of content was important to their experience.
The takeaway is clear: engineers want technical content specific to their need, and they don’t want other stuff getting in their way.
How to Structure Information
As for web usability, 75 percent of engineers prefer concise information with links to in-depth content, so they can drill down if needed. Forty-three percent want to see imagery/icons related to the content.
This puts the responsibility on you as a marketer to develop a logical taxonomy and clear hierarchy for organizing and presenting information on your website. The drill-down model works because you won’t overwhelm the engineer with too much information at once or confuse them by presenting secondary information before they are ready for it.
This type of information presentation makes sense. It somewhat mirrors the news story, inverted-pyramid approach, where the most important information is presented first, with secondary details to follow. The difference is that on the web, instead of writing a continuous narrative, you segment the content into discrete chunks users can access by clicking on links.
The Coveted Content
The content that engineers find most valuable when researching a product to purchase are datasheets, case studies, product demo videos and white papers.
You should have as much of this content as possible on your website. Whether you offer the content freely or keep it gated behind a form is a choice each company must make. But the majority of engineers are willing to provide work email, first name, company name, last name, job title, and industry in order to access content they deem valuable to them.
Don’t be afraid to put content behind forms—as long as the content is valuable. Engineers will trade their contact information for information that helps them.
Your Website Must Build Trust
Because most engineers are researching your offerings before contacting you, it’s important that your website helps to establish trust between your company and your potential customers.
When engineers were asked what causes them to lose trust in a company or brand after looking at their website, the top two answers were lack of technical information (69 percent) and lack of product information (50 percent), further reinforcing the need to have technical content on your website.
Other trust-eroding factors for engineers include getting no response after contacting a company and having no ability to contact a company for additional information.
You should have a contact link on every page on your website—and of course you should monitor and respond in a timely manner to any prospect that contacts you.
Keep it Simple
That’s the lesson here—your website should be simple. That lesson should also be encouraging to you. If you are struggling with limited resources (time, people, and budget), focus your website efforts on what will deliver the most value to your target audience. In this case, it is detailed, technical content that is easy to access and understand.
For a more in-depth look at engineers’ content, online and website preferences, along with survey results about an engineer’s buying journey, download your complimentary copy of the report “Smart Marketing for Engineers.”
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