Emerging Media, User reviews and B-to-B Web sites

If you conduct a search on Web 2.0 elements and B2B web sites, you may think that the only thing B-to-B marketers should be concerned with is SEO; it’s all about search. While this is an important element, I think there are some other important aspects of Web 2.0 and emerging media that B-to-B marketers should consider.

An interesting study cited on many blogs and articles is the B2B Usability Study in 2006 by Jakob Neilson. In this study, 179 websites were reviewed and some interesting results were found:

• Only 58% of users were able to accomplish a desired task
• B-to-B sites often prevent users from getting the information they need, usually due to poor design or excessive registration barriers
• Poor design and navigation keep customers segmented within a site and unable to easily find what they need
• One of the most important piece of information sought by visitors of B-to-B sites, pricing, is rarely made available.

Now I recognize that Mr. Neilson’s study was conducted in 2006, but I think that many sites could use to follow the guidance that this study offers. But what if your site has done a good job with SEO, navigation, pricing, and some of the other usability elements necessary to provide a good user experience? Are there any other emerging media tools a marketer can employ to improve a user’s experience?

I have a couple of recommendations. Some are not new. One is controversial. Let’s start with the safe ones.

As I mentioned in my post on Effective Use of Media on Websites, online demos and customer case studies using streaming media and video can bring any B-to-B site to life. Other elements such as live customer service chat, the ability to sign up for newsletters, blogs, and other tools that facilitate customer communication can provide the necessary tools that enable customers to stay engaged over the longer life cycles that are typical of B-to-B sales.

So those are safe elements, but what about the considering the “third rail” of B-to-B web site marketing: the user review?

User reviews have been considered as a form of crowdsourcing for building content on sites such as ebay, Travelocity, and Trip Advisor. But for some reason, many marketers seem to fear this idea of empowering actual user comments (and even product ratings) on their site. This strikes me odd because we often strive to place customer testimonials and actual quotes as window dressing to our product pages. Are user reviews that different?

Yes, but they are feared because we can’t control the message.

On the B2Blog, Dave J. posted on the same subject, Why not allow user reviews on your B2B website? On his post he and Julie Powers propose why some business web sites are reluctant to place user reviews on their site. Interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of studies that support the practice.

But many B-to-B sites, especially software download sites, offer user ratings of the products they carry. If a possible bad review can end up on those sites, is it any worse if it is on your own? I suppose that some can argue that it would be. However, if one of the purposes of using Web 2.0 tools is to facilitate ways to enhance communications with and among customers, it just seems to make sense that B-to-B companies will someday embrace the practice, just as sites like Download.com, Amazon.com, and other sites do.

I haven’t built this approach into my own web design strategies, but I’m getting close. I just think it is a great way to help customers in a sea of marketing noise.