In my job, I get the chance to look at websites of companies in the printing and mailing industry. The average print and mail service provider website follows a familiar pattern: service categories, equipment lists, broad claims about quality and service, and a contact form. Your site may present an expanded set of pages and content, but it probably fits that general description. I see this a lot.

The trouble with this well-intentioned approach is that it falls short when your buyers are considering complicated decisions about data, postage, communication channels, compliance, and campaign performance. Every new prospect for your business is doing their research—usually before you even know they are looking. If your website can answer their questions, demonstrate expertise, and inspire confidence, you’ll have a better chance for productive sales conversations with them when they are ready.

Answer the Questions

Buyers of print and mail services that visit your website fall into a few categories. At each stage of the buying process, they are looking for different information.

Early-stage visitors may need help to recognize a problem or an opportunity. They aren’t super-serious yet, and they don’t have an impending deadline that will drive them to make a quick decision. These prospects merely want to get an idea about how you can help them. Short content like blog articles or videos give them all they need to become familiar with your brand and start thinking about questions such as “How can we reduce postage without hurting the customer experience?”, “Is multi-channel marketing worth the added expense?”, or “What should a new statement format accomplish?”

Mid-stage buyers are ready to compare approaches and providers. Your website content should highlight what makes you different from your competitors and show how you produce results for your customers. Use explainer articles, process descriptions, FAQ pages, and case studies to clarify their choices.

Late-stage prospects want proof and confidence. Feature industry or application-specific playbooks, outcome-oriented case studies, checklists, and clear descriptions of your company’s working process.

The good news is that you’ve probably already got much of the raw material you’ll need to create and publish stage-targeted content. Look for existing articles you can repurpose, customer questions fielded by salespeople, customer service inquiries, proposals, presentations, and case studies.

Show Your Expertise

Calculators, checklists, and guides prove your value as a potential business partner. Use tools like these to allow prospects to interact with your company’s knowledge before the first sales call. Some elements that serve this purpose include calculators that estimate postage savings or returned mail costs. Checklists might help prospects analyze their transactional documents for potential CX improvements or regulatory compliance. A direct mail marketing intake worksheet helps buyers organize data, anticipate timing, and understand the elements they should consider when planning their campaigns.

These tools need not generate a final quote. The object is to get prospects thinking about the right questions, expose variables that affect cost or performance, and create a natural reason for them to seek expert guidance from your staff. When you can, tie a tool to a subsequent action like reading a relevant case study or requesting a free consultation.

Multi-Use Content

We’ve focused on website material, but that doesn’t mean the content described here can’t be used by your sales force. Encourage your salespeople to become familiar with the components in your website’s resource center and use them as they nurture leads in the pipeline. Sending an online calculator, article, or checklist relevant to topics discussed in a sales call can have greater impact than a generic follow-up email.

Informational and educational content you produce for your website is also a rich resource for items like email newsletters and social posts. You’ve made the effort to create the content. Now look for ways to stretch exposure through various formats, lengths, and channels.

The resulting impression spans marketing and sales. Prospects come to the first sales call well-informed about your company and the benefits of doing business with you.

Keep Updating

You don’t have to publish new content every day but be cautious about publishing once and then abandoning the resources on your site. In the mailing business, things change all the time. Postage rates and postal promotions are two examples. Advancing technology is changing the industry, so be sure to review existing material regularly. Some of it may need updating or new items may be necessary. Assign someone in your organization to do these reviews.

Use tools you have or can easily install to help track activity and note statistics like visitor time on the site and resource pages, and downloads. Identify resources especially helpful in encouraging activity like proposals or closed business.

A capabilities site as described at the beginning of this article tells people what you can do. An informational resource center helps prospects understand what they need and how your company can help. Turn the knowledge and experience you’ve accumulated into a visible sales asset.

You already solve complicated customer problems every day. Let your website make that expertise accessible. Your website can warm up the prospects before they ever reach out to make contact.

Mike Porter at Print/Mail Consultants and PMC Content Services creates content that helps attract and retain customers for companies in the mailing and document industry, and he assists companies as they integrate new technology. He welcomes questions from Mailing Systems Technology readers. Reach out to him at www.pmccontentservices.com. Follow @PMCmike on X or send him a connection request on LinkedIn.