When I left real estate to start my own B2B software firm, one of my colleagues recommended that I read Donald Miller’s Building a Story Brand book. This was hands down one of the best recommendations that I received. Donald explains in simple terms how to communicate effectively with prospective customers. While both my cofounder and I came from the real estate industry, 71% of our customers came from inbound leads. This means that our customers found us via our website. They knew that we solved the problem they had and contracted with us to help. In other words, the Story Brand method works. Here’s how to build a Story Brand website for a B2B software company.
First, keep your front page simple.
Explain what you do in layman’s terms. If a complete stranger can’t understand the gist of what your firm does within a 3-second (or less) glance at your front page, then you need to redo it. You also need an explicit call to action. That way, if a prospective customer finds your site, recognizes that you solve their problem, they know what to do to get your help.
For example, my startup was a real estate data integration company. We integrated with property management software like Yardi as well as more standard applications like Salesforce. Our customers often complained that they spent too much time pushing and pulling data. They would rather spend that time on more value-add activities for their business. I opted to narrow the communication to exactly what we do and how we solve that pain point. “CREx makes it easy to get data out of Yardi, Salesforce, and more. Stop wasting time. Start generating revenue.” I then immediately gave prospects a call to action, “Start now.”
Show your value proposition.
Make it clear to prospects why what you do is valuable. Before we had customers, I estimated the amount of time savings that we provided. Once we had customers, I translated those time savings to dollars. Once again, I included a clear call to action to “Automate workflows.”
Give prospects a plan.
Tell them exactly what to do to solve their problem. We aren’t the heroes in our customers’ journeys; we are simply their guides. They need us to communicate clearly what they need to do to succeed.
One of the most effective ways to communicate a plan is by breaking it down to 3 simple steps. Here, I told them that after meeting with us, they would get a kickstart on their data journey. Then, I appealed to their self-actualization; they would “get noticed” by their boss or investors by using our software.
Provide authority.
If you have customers, here’s where you should show off your logos. People are “sheeple” after all. And before you say you aren’t, do you really not look up reviews of a restaurant before eating there? Yelp is successful for a reason!
4 simple steps to build a Story Brand website for B2B software
To recap, here are the 4 steps to build a Story Brand website for your B2B software company:
- Keep your front page simple.
- Show your value proposition.
- Give prospects a plan.
- Provide authority.
If you follow these 4 simple steps, then I guarantee that you will succeed in converting web traffic to leads. The Story Brand method worked for my B2B software company, and I’m confident that it will work for you.
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