Some of the most important visitors to your website are those who deal with procurement and purchasing. These individuals hold the purse strings for your ideal customers and are frequently researching, analyzing, and comparing options from different providers in your industry. The ability to provide the perfect piece of information or offer to them when they visit your site can make all the difference in the rush to land new business.
So, what can you do to ensure your website is ready to capture the contact information of these individuals when they reach your website? Here are several things you can do to make this process much easier.
The Most Important Information for Purchasing
When speccing a new project and reviewing potential vendors, procurement has several questions that need to be answered. The larger the company, the longer that list of questions and the more information they need from you before they can even consider you.
You’ve likely spent hours on the phone providing this information, following up on requests for certifications and specifications, or clarifying documentation. Your website can do a lot of this heavy lifting for you. Specifically, you should publish as much of the following as you have available:
- Quality Certifications – Almost every procurement manager will need these before he or she can even put you on their list for consideration. Even existing customers will frequently come looking for these to update their records. ISO 9001 is the most important, but so too are any qualifications you hold specific to your industry.
- Equipment and Capabilities – While a procurement manager may be looking for a vendor for a specific size and type of part, they want to know exactly what you are capable of. Can you support the design for manufacturing process, work in different types of materials, or offer completely different services if they opt to expand their business in the future? Knowing these things in advance can help them select you as a vendor now.
- Value Add Services – Similarly, your value-add services — including assembly services, coatings, finishing, deburring, packaging, polishing, or anything else that might otherwise require a second vendor — can be a major value to them.
- Portfolio of Work – After credentials, the next thing they look for are examples of your work. Your website should already be optimized to showcase your work with images of parts, videos where applicable, and more, but you can go further. Provide downloadable case studies they can print out to review and share with other decision makers.
The combination of certification, credentials for qualification, and examples of previous successful jobs can be a huge boon for you in converting procurement managers to new leads. Downloadable content in any form can be gated with a contact form, and you can start the conversations with these individuals sooner and with more information in their hands.
Teaching Procurement to Work with You
There are usually only two instances in which procurement managers will actively look for new vendors on a project – they either lost their existing vendor due to quality or on-time issues, or they have a new part that existing vendors cannot supply.
In the case of the former, the professional, high-quality information you provide up front can help to establish you as someone reliable they can trust. For the latter, you need to do a bit more work, teaching them how to work with you.
This comes in many forms when it comes to content, including:
- eBooks About Cost Considerations – How are costs prepared and evaluated in your industry? If they’ve never sourced a part like the one you will create, what types of questions and concerns should they be thinking about when submitting an RFQ?
- How Much Does Cost Vary – Through case studies, you can show how costs are affected by quality in manufacturing, the design support you offer, or the machinery you employ.
- Showcase Capabilities – Again, it’s vital that your prospects know exactly what you can do for them in detail. They might be on your website after searching for “custom metal stamping”, but how will they know you also offer finishing services and prototyping unless you feature that content on your website?
- Performance Data – How have you performed over time? Showcase your ability to execute on quality, delivery, and performance over the course of your years in business.
There is no such thing as too much information when it comes to supporting the procurement research process. The more you offer, the better informed they will feel, and the more comfortable they are when contacting you to discuss a potential project.
Building a Funnel to Convert Procurement Managers
The best part is that most of the content outlined above already exists. You can scan your quality certifications, write up a short page outlining your performance metrics, dig up an up-to-date list of your equipment, and pull job tickets and sales notes to build case studies.
And in doing all of this, you create a website that answers questions before they are asked, showing your dedication to providing the best possible experience for people when they consider you as a vendor for one of their upcoming projects.
