“Topic Worlds? Sounds like a sales campaign at a department store. What’s that got to do with me, a B2B supplier?”, you might be asking yourself, when such campaigns are best known to do well by focusing on “all your kitchen needs” or something similar.
“What would that achieve in B2B?”, we at LUMITOS were thinking about two years ago. As developers and operators of seven B2B science and industry portals, we’ve gained deep insights into online user behavior. We know what users look for, how they navigate the portals and how sales leads are generated.
One thing we have learned is that users often search for further information within a topic – say, for products on a certain topic AND for webinars or white papers on the same topic.
With this knowledge we set out to offer users a completely new experience when searching for information – an experience that would raise communication between B2B providers and users to a new level with attractive, comprehensive content.
Contents
▶ How do potential buyers search for information?
▶ Why potential buyers have failed to get the information they need
▶ Topic Worlds in B2B: The simpler way to gain customers
▶ How can suppliers benefit from the Topic Worlds?
▶ A good example: Mettler-Toledo in the Spectroscopy Topic World
▶ Conclusion: Proactive companies are more successful in the long term
How do potential buyers search for information?
Before making a purchasing decision, more than 70% of all buyers obtain information on the internet, going through the following steps:
After recognizing a need, they start to look for a solution.
In doing so, they ask themselves 4 questions:
1. What do I need to solve the problem?
2. Which providers offer suitable solutions?
3. What do their solutions look like?
4. How do I get further information without talking to salespeople?
Potential buyers have been navigating the internet for company websites and portals as they used to when they visited department stores: tablecloths were on the 3rd floor, candlesticks on the 4th, and the matching candles on the same level but at the other end.
This meant heading back and forth until they had everything together.
Why potential buyers have failed to get the information they need
Let’s accompany Julia on her way from recognizing a need to gaining comprehensive information on her way to addressing the need.
Julia works in industrial quality assurance. One of the instruments her department uses for testing is over 12 years old, and spare parts are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. “I really need to purchase a new UV-VIS spectrometer for next year,” Julia thinks to herself. “I wonder what’s new on the market in terms of features and capabilities?”
On a Friday after lunch, she sits down at her computer and starts searching Google for “UV-VIS spectrometer”. What she sees is
- Four ads from vendors,
- a scientific article,
- a Wikipedia entry,
- an entry in the chemie.de encyclopedia,
- two entries that are probably aimed at school students,
- an entry from a further supplier, and
- the entry of a distributor.
The unstructured Google search results (German language search) make it difficult to find relevant information
The search results on page 2 are similar. When reading through their short descriptions, Julia mostly doesn’t recognize what they’re about. So she has no choice but to click them, one after the other. She starts with the companies she already knows.
Julia clicks the search hit “UV/VIS Spectrometer | METTLER TOLEDO “ and is directed to an overview page about four instruments. She’s impressed by this page with the technical data and product brochures it offers, but would like to know more. “Does the company have any related webinars and white papers to inform me in greater depth?” Julia wonders. Apparently not – she discovers no references to any.
Now Julia clicks on the second search result, seemingly from a manufacturer: “UV/VIS Spectrophotometer | SHIMADZU DEUTSCHLAND “. She wonders what information she’ll find.
This manufacturer, too, displays four instruments. However, the information is so sketchy that Julia has to go to a detail page to find out more. While there was too little information on the overview page, there is now too much on the detail page.
Julia scrolls ever further down to read more and more. For the next instrument, the information is presented in a completely different way. “Phew, this is exhausting,” Julia thinks to herself, “and the brochures they offer are only available on request, not for download.”
Every company presents its product information differently. This makes comparisons difficult for potential buyers. Mettler-Toledo on the left, Shimadzu on the right.
After this sobering experience, Julia has had enough for the time being. “If the big companies’ product information is so confusing, how will it be when I get to the smaller companies?”
You’ve probably experienced something similar, haven’t you? Potential buyers who want to get an overview have to spend many hours researching first.
And this lets providers like you miss out on business because they’re overlooked in the impenetrable thicket of information.
Topic Worlds in B2B: The simpler way to gain customers
Successful campaign strategies seen in B2C are now also possible in B2B. The Topic Worlds on the LUMITOS portals offer potential customers the up-to-date information on trend topics and applications they’ve been looking for – easy to access, fast and well-arranged.
The Topic Worlds are continuously being expanded and already cover six areas of interest:
- Mass Spectrometry
- Particle Analysis
- Chromatography
- Spectroscopy
- PCR
- Food Analytics
Topic Worlds bring together suppliers and potential customers
Each Topic World focuses on a single field of interest, highlighting different aspects: What new products are there? Which suppliers have news to announce? Where do science and academia stand? Which specialist lectures are worthwhile?
The Topic Worlds are where potential buyers call upon a wide spectrum of relevant information without having to perform Google searches. Their well-structured content includes the categories:
- Suppliers
- Products
- Catalogs and Brochures
- Webinars and White Papers
- Market Overviews
- Background Information
Topic Worlds present the most important information relating to a topic in a structured layout, giving potential buyers a good overview.
This gives potential buyers a quick and easy overview and a convenient way to contact suppliers. Far less effort needs to be spent on research, while suppliers receive qualified sales leads.
How can suppliers benefit from the Topic Worlds?
Every month, more than 500 potential buyers visit the Topic Worlds to find out more about suppliers and their products, download brochures and white papers, and take part in webinars.
As a provider, you need to make what you offer conspicuously visible in a Topic World to attract new sales leads.
A good example: Mettler-Toledo in the Spectroscopy Topic World
Mettler-Toledo GmbH, based in Germany, used the LUMITOS Topic World on spectroscopy to gain fresh sales leads. It booked three advertising formats:
1. An exclusive company presentation not only highlights the strengths of the company and its areas of specific expertise, but also shows the product portfolio and offers contacting options: address, phone number, website address and a GDPR-compliant contact form.
Exclusive company presentation with company profile, product portfolio and contact details
2. A to-the-point product presentation that introduces a UV-VIS spectrometer and its range of applications. Clicking on “Find out more” opens the product information page. Mettler-Toledo gains GDPR-compliant sales leads in two different ways:
- Potential buyers download the product brochure after entering their contact details.
- Potential buyers fill out the contact form and ask Mettler-Toledo questions about the product or request a quote.
Eye-catching product presentation within the spectroscopy Topic World
3. A white paper presentation that describes how easy and uncomplicated it is to temperature-control UV-VIS analyses when using Mettler-Toledo instruments.
A further benefit: Mettler-Toledo gets 100% GDPR-compliant sales leads when potential buyers download the white paper through this route.
White paper presentation. Potential buyers can download the white paper directly after entering their contact details.
These three building blocks ensure that potential customers quickly find Mettler-Toledo’s products and can get into contact with the company.
Conclusion: Proactive companies are more successful in the long term
In B2B, the supposedly so powerful Google search engine often turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing: the many but unstructured search results it yields make it difficult for potential buyers to find suitable products and suppliers.
At the same time, suppliers and their products risk being drowned out if they don’t appear on page 1 of the search results.
The new Topic Worlds on the LUMITOS science and industry portals are different. All information is presented in a well-structured way. This saves potential buyers time-consuming research.
With just a few clicks they can get a good overview and receive further information in the form of brochures, white papers or webinars after filling out a GDPR-compliant contact form.
Suppliers with a company and product presentation, white papers and webinars are clearly perceived as attractive, which gains them a competitive edge. This gets them high-quality sales leads without additional effort.
That’s how the Topic Worlds bring suppliers and customers together.
If you would like to know more about how high-reach specialist portals help you gain customers in the chemical, life science, laboratory, pharmaceutical, analytics and food & beverage B2B markets, please contact our online advertising support:
