Chapter 6: The anatomy of a high-converting B2B SaaS website

Jasper de Geif: Welcome to another episode of the uncut podcast, a B2B SaaS marketing series that takes listeners from A to Z in demand generation. In this show we'll teach you how to build, execute and scale a modern demand gen engine from scratch. It's brought to you by myself, Jasper de Geif and my friends in tech, Ted Van de Berg and Jasper Hissink. In today's episode we'll talk about the website. In essence, it's important. How it should be built, what specific choices you can make. And last but not least, also some great versus some awful examples. Welcome gents.

Ted Van de Berg: Welcome. Good afternoon.

Jasper de Geif: Are we ready for another episode?

Jasper Hissink: No, let's do it.

Jasper de Geif: Good. So as usual, starting with the what, um, obviously we all know what a website is. I hope so at least. But perhaps it's good to kind of like deep dive and explain what, what it is supposed to specifically do for your business in a SaaS realm.

Ted Van de Berg: I'll go first. I see Ted like he's looking at me like he has something to add already. I'd say um, maybe very specific, what is a website piece of HTML code and CSS code on the web domain. But no, I guess what a good in this realm of demand, Jen, uh, for B3 SaaS companies, I guess a website is at the core of your GTM strategy. You can see it as basically your 247 sales rep. And in my essence there's three things for which it is there. There's one, to capture the actual demand that is there to educate future buyers. Right. About who you are, your solutions and also to um, sort of make sure to make visible for who you are not there to sort of already tell the people that hey, we are not a good fit and sort of already stop them before they come.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah. As like a means to qualify the audience for you.

Ted Van de Berg: Yes. Qualify who? It's not for to include that in the sense that you also qualify who it is for.

Jasper de Geif: Gotcha. I think. Yeah. In essence it's just. And um, it's probably easier not to overcomplicate it because at the end of the day it should just be a place for people to go when they have the feeling that they could be interested in your product so they can kind of like self scan. Okay, could this be for me, yes or no? Um, because in today's world most of the demand, especially if you're like in the mid market to SaaS space has already been created. So people who come to your website kind of just want to verify, okay, could this truly be something for me? And if they find like answers to the questions they're looking for, then they are eventually going to convert. And I think that's where a lot of websites go wrong. They really built this sort of machine that is supposed to convert all the freaking time. Whereas it's not really about the conversion, it's just about providing value. And if the value is there, people understand what it is for, who it is for, what they can do with it, what it cost and so on. Then the conversion will only be like a logical result of it, uh, because

Jasper Hissink: most people forget that the biggest part of the buying journey happens before any buyer talks to sales. So having that strong uh, website in place, uh, uh, makes the journey a lot easier. Also an easy way to like, an easy way to think about it is like the website is your second most important product and it should be treated with that uh, focus in terms of the way it works, the speed, the positioning messaging that you're using retreat as like a product and not a, not a one off project.

Jasper de Geif: Totally this episode or sorry, this, this, this series is kind of broken down as like uh, a course. And we already covered a great amount of topics such as the icp, market research, customer research, positioning messaging. Are some of these topics or perhaps all of them of interest when building a website?

Jasper Hissink: Yes, it's basically the homework, right? Like in the website, it's where you get tested. You can skip your homework and show up at the test and see if you pass or fail. But if you've done your homework, the process of actually creating that website is going to be a lot um, easier. If you have not done your own work, like you skipped all those previous uh, like all the points that you mentioned, you're going to have a very hard time in launching a website because everybody's going to be at a different page, everybody thinks about the product in a different way, etc.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, I, um, I fully agree and I think you're hitting the nail on the head with the word homework because I've been in a situation in which I was thankfully just involved. I was in the end responsible. But many of these steps that you just mentioned, um, weren't covered before. And yeah, long story short, you'll just find yourself in a situation in which a lot of groundwork still has to be done that kind of keeps you from building a website with ease because if you don't know what your positioning is, so how do you stack up versus your competitor, for instance, then all of these choices have to be made. And let's say you want to Go live because it's a startup and it's SaaS and it's tech and whatnot. In six to eight weeks, you'll soon find out that you need double the amount of time. And if you're then the, the one that is responsible for the project, yeah, you're probably going to, you're in for a tough ride.

Ted Van de Berg: So to make it a bit concrete, with previous episodes, we had, we had an episode about the icp that is basically who you speak to. Right. And about positioning and messaging, where positioning is. How do you lead that? So what are you, what are you coming with on your website? And the messaging is how you say it, right?

Jasper de Geif: Totally.

Ted Van de Berg: I guess that is the homework that you do to build a good website.

Jasper Hissink: And the last layer is the copywriting. So then the actual words you say, the actual word you use to, uh.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah, it's good that you separate that from messaging and it's.

Jasper Hissink: Yeah.

Jasper de Geif: So moving on to uh, the why, um, why is it important to invest a specific amount of time in your website in this specific SaaS realm?

Jasper Hissink: I was looking up some of the stats and one of the stats that I saw was like 97% of the B2B buyers checks out the vendor's website. So you're guaranteed that the person that's buying your tool.

Ted Van de Berg: Ah.

Jasper Hissink: Or your SaaS tool will check your website. And of course, as we know as a marketer, like perception is reality. Like if that doesn't stroke with what you're trying to sell or if you sell a premium product, uh, uh, you need to make sure that this aligns with every experience that a buyer has from you. And then the website is a big, big part of that. And the second one just from earlier is like the buying journey. Like 7. Like this is different numbers, but 50 to 70% of the buying journey happens before sales. So uh, the largest decision or part of decision has already been made even before you're able to talk to them. So being able to influence that through, through a great website is, is key.

Jasper de Geif: And do you think it matters what specific segment you're in? So let's say SMB versus enterprise to kind of have like the two segments that differ the most in terms of

Jasper Hissink: the importance of the having a great website? Yeah, I would say equally important. But different parts of the website are important to where I would say on the enterprise side you want to have all the documentation and you want to build the trust and the social proof. Or maybe on the, if you're sending to a BitMarket or smaller accounts, you Want to make it as easy for people to do more self serve.

Ted Van de Berg: What do you have with the website? Sounds like you, you see a difference between that.

Jasper de Geif: So I think in both instances it's um, it's very important. I think that kind of like your whole marketing motion is just different and if you have like in SMB, a big market to capture and these accounts are a lot smaller and like the money that you charge for your product is a lot lower then probably as a result you'll see a lot of impulse purchases. Meaning that there might not be a whole lot of demand creation. The demand capture channels might be um, much more important. It might be where a lot more of like your marketing budget is allocated so that if people enter your website it should not only be clear but there should also be a very clear path to conversion because it's not that expensive. People will probably also convert because there will be way less people involved in the decision and all of that. Whereas in enterprise there's probably this whole committee that is involved and no one is just going to be like oh this product costs half a million but you know what, I'm just going to sit in a demo and let's see if I'm going to buy. It just doesn't work that way. People do their research for a long, long time, potentially involve other people before they ever click that. But meaning that it's equally important but just the way in which you kind of like go about. Yeah, building the website um, is different. It's more about answering questions rather than a clear path to conversion. Um, our websites given enough importance in

Ted Van de Berg: you guys view enough importance, perhaps even

Jasper de Geif: too much, who knows?

Ted Van de Berg: Um, at first glance I'd say yes, I think it's given the right importance. It's just not really understood well enough what makes a good website or if something is not going right, what is wrong with it. But I do see a lot where companies that don't really understand this well enough do pay 20, 30, 40k for new website when they shouldn't have. So in that sense I don't think it's um, misunderstood in importance wise. That makes sense.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah.

Jasper Hissink: I think those two points that you mentioned is uh, exactly the reasons. Like it is important because for any other role in a company is like a kind of a business card. Like the founder will be uh, proud to share the website. Everybody sees it, it's very visual, uh, part uh, of the brand. But like it goes wrong with those two points that you just mentioned.

Jasper de Geif: It's funny because always when you're Talking to like a VC or private equity company, they're always interested in the deck. So not all give me the deck. What does the deck look like? So not always is the website kind of like the, uh. How, uh, did you call it?

Ted Van de Berg: No, but in my opinion, the website should be sort of a sales enablement material. Right. So if you have a good website, the sales team should be proud to sell it or to share it with their prospects or the CEO.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, it's interesting because I once worked at a company that saw the website as literally like the only or like the most important way to capture a lead. So it was given importance, but the way they went about it is that they essentially just wanted the website to be as vague as possible and scro optimized as possible, resulting into, at least in their view, tons of leads that sales could then qualify and bring further in their journey. So I think is it given enough importance is kind of like a tricky question. It's probably always given importance, but in a lot of cases the, uh, the focus isn't necessarily right.

Ted Van de Berg: Um, you mentioned it twice now about m not making it clear what you do and then only focus on conversions. Um, I've actually had this in the past where the sales team would actually tell me after, like, okay, even if the leads are good. So I don't really see it in conversion rates of leads to whatever pipeline, but that they say I spend a lot of time explaining what it is that we do. Right. So that basically means, okay, we do get leads, but there's friction in the sales process because you have to explain, take a lot of time to explain what it is you do. And I guess maybe also for the listener, if you check in with your sales team and ask, or do you often have to explain a lot what it is you do, then maybe you have a problem on the website.

Jasper de Geif: Absolutely. So let's head over to the work, which I'm sure is the most important part, the most interesting part when it comes to this podcast, because like I said, pretty much everyone knows what a website is and what it functions for and why people care about it. But how do we actually go about creating a great one? Well, here, internally, I think we've done this over 50 times by now, so we have a thing or two to say about it, maybe starting with, you know, which questions are pretty much essential to answer when it comes to the website or the homepage in particular.

Jasper Hissink: Yeah, one I think is the reflection bit, like, should I create a new website or should I change things on the website? So first to make like a, like it's easy to see you walk in. It's like, hey, let's take this website project. We make something very fancy, cool rebrand, put everything in the mix. I think the first mistake there is to change something if it already works or works good enough, um, before getting dragged into like a six to nine months project, changing something that's actually not needed to be.

Jasper de Geif: So, so let's say however, we're like an early stage startup and we're doing this, we're going to build it from the ground up. Then what are kind of like questions that you need answers to in order for you to build a great website that will resonate with your audience? And maybe that's already a giveaway. What is my audience to begin with? Previously we covered okay, what's our icp? I think that's definitely a question that needs answering. So that you call out on the homepage who this is for which category you're active in, et cetera. What sort of other questions are there that need answering if you want to do at least this exercise of building this website?

Ted Van de Berg: Well, and um, if not sure if this is what you're, what you're going at. But it reminds me of this, um, this talk of Tess Bober that she gave at the muted meets is where basically she, she, she gave it in the context of building a landing page. But I think this, you can take it in the context of building a website as well is why you have to treat it as a business case.

Jasper de Geif: Right?

Ted Van de Berg: So people come to your website and ask, okay, what is this and is it for me, um, do you understand my problems? Right? How do you solve them and how do you compare to the alternatives? Um, then the fourth question is, are you credible? So is there social proof? Do you solve these problems for companies and people like me? Um, what do you cost? And the last question is what is the process now? So if I'm interested, where do we go? What happens? Not um, sure if this is already a bit too deep for what you meant, but I'd say these are the questions that you need to ask and shout out to Tess Bober for this uh, for this insight.

Jasper Hissink: It's a really to turn it around to think through. Okay, what does the buyer wants to know about my product and how are you helping supplying that information in a structured way?

Jasper de Geif: Yeah. One question that I perhaps missed is how am I different from the others?

Ted Van de Berg: No, uh, I did aten Great, perfect.

Jasper de Geif: I should pay better attention.

Ted Van de Berg: How do you solve the problems? Is the third Question, but then also explain how you compare to the alternative.

Jasper Hissink: But all these things flow out of the homework that you've done. I like you take all the different episodes, you have those ones on hand. It's now translating that information to uh, uh, how you can present this visually on a website.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah, because these questions that we just mentioned are basically the questions you ask yourself in the positioning and messaging sort of exercise to document that.

Jasper Hissink: Yeah, I think for me, like what you're saying in terms of questions. There's loads of like SaaS, websites, examples, like the ways to break it down, uh, creating a sitemap, um, all these tools that will help you. There's even like automatic sitemap creators. Ah. To structure the information. Um, I would think very deeply about like a V1, V2, V3. It's like what is actual, uh, absolutely crucial to launch uh, the new website and include it in a V1 so you can get started and get things moving and then build things on top versus starting with like a V3 with like 100 different pages that all need copywriting, that all need visuals, that all need a lot of different stuff, uh, from the start. So I would break it down always

Ted Van de Berg: on, always on living.

Jasper Hissink: Uh, yeah, having it as a product, like website is a product that you keep on building on.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah, I like that.

Jasper de Geif: Hold on to that thought because we're going to capitalize on that a little bit later. Um, some other questions that need answering just in case I didn't miss them again, I'll correct you. Um, why do you even exist? So perhaps some sort of point of view and uh, why should I act now? Yeah, and I guess these especially the last one is also part of the business case because a lot of people will probably not act now. They'll kind of like look around, reconsider, come back, talk about it with some people, especially if you're in the enterprise space. But I guess the cost of inaction should always be articulated clearly so that people will feel uh, the urgency to move.

Jasper Hissink: One more thing to add there is the proof bit so that the thing you might not have in your homework, but you have to go outside to get from your customers or from case studies.

Ted Van de Berg: We did have an episode, I believe, about customer research. Right, we did.

Jasper Hissink: Maybe there better use that.

Jasper de Geif: It's not necessarily a given. You'll get some quotes while doing that, but if you're wise, you should definitely get these quotes. Yeah, uh, totally capitalizing on that right now. What is absolutely essential when it comes to proving your view when you're building a V1 that I'll say a couple

Jasper Hissink: of years ago, uh, uh, will be very crucial in terms of building proof is having this amazing logo bar that everybody has and preferably the one that's also moving from left to right showing all the amazing logos that uh, you've captured. Um, that worked a couple of years ago, but not anymore. Um, I think now in terms of proof, the more real it gets, the better. And the more real could be even, uh, more uh, short clips from real calls with people talking about your product and results uh, they've had. I don't trust any website, uh, that has like, I don't know, 20x my revenue or 10x my, um, inbound leads, etc. If it's just written down there, like, if I can connect it to a person that's saying the story, then it's already a lot more reliable. So I would opt for as real as possible. Uh, maybe even like a live LinkedIn wall of uh, of quotes that are verifiable.

Ted Van de Berg: Um, we have that on a muted website, I believe. Or on the old website. Old website.

Jasper Hissink: We had it in the past.

Ted Van de Berg: Now because I say it, we have to build it again. We had this wall of winds, right? We had all these different quotes in like a simple scrollable wall that I think was, was super cool.

Jasper Hissink: Yeah, I think the more real, like now it's not, um, like nobody really believes it anymore. So like, the more real you can make it, the better. Or for one client, we've done it, we've put it in context, which I also really liked. It's like migrated from X to Y so you can show to potential, uh, buyers that, hey, people have moved off from a certain provider, uh, onto the new one. It already gives a little more and more context.

Jasper de Geif: So when you say you're building a V1, do you think you need that logo ball? Do you need five customer case studies? Do you need, um, a specific page full of customer wins or, or should you actually keep it brief and choose for a couple of things that you have at your disposal that allow you to go live and that are believable? What's kind of like your take there?

Jasper Hissink: I would say, like the social proof wall and bar are like crucial part of V1. Maybe not like full 5 fully written out case studies. I think you can do that later on. But I think the social proof is a key element of a V1.

Ted Van de Berg: I'd say yes, indeed, as well. Proof as well. And if you start with a V1, make it a homepage and one or two product or solution pages, some kind of proof element, I think would be needed. And if that's a. If you don't have enough logos for logo parade, don't do it. If you don't have a customer that wants to do a full case study, but try to make sure in the beginning already that you have some kind of quote testimonial. So be proactive about that.

Jasper de Geif: In a way, I agree. But I also very much think it's about speed. And if you don't have a website right now or a website that you're, like, very dissatisfied with, I would actually take a different approach and just make sure that I can get live. Because I also know from experience from working here that if you're looking to get forecasted case studies in and you're kind of like scrambling for happy customers at this point in time, that that's going to be a huge blocker. It will easily take you six months, whereas you've given yourself six weeks to go live with this website.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah. Although that's the other side of the spectrum. Right. So maybe if you can't do a case study, even one or two, sure, don't do it. But try to get a testimonial or quote, call one of your customers, do an NPS survey, whatever, that I definitely still recommend.

Jasper de Geif: And I fully agree with that. I would just, uh. No, no, no. I would just strip it down and work with the things that I already have at my disposal.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah.

Jasper de Geif: Don't make it too big. Right. Like, can we please do a case study this and that. If you're a small company, a lot of these businesses are busy and they're not really down for a whole customer case study. But if you just ask them a question like, hey, how do you enjoy working with us? And they're happy and they're giving you a quote. Okay, go with that quote. Ask them for their approval to use that.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah, that mentioned it. Right. So speed is of essence, and you'll grow towards a great website. We'd see it as a product that grows.

Jasper de Geif: What, uh, material or collateral do we need? Well, I guess this was pretty much already answered. The logos, the benefits, the quotes, et cetera. What are some things speaking of, like, a product that keeps on evolving that we are probably, probably gonna want later on?

Jasper Hissink: You mean like, uh, later on as in a V2? It's like, is this the V1 or later on as V2?

Jasper de Geif: Or perhaps even like a V5? Let's say the business is maturing and you really want to Stand out. Now you want to build that additional trust. I don't know what it is that you exactly have in mind for the company that you're working for, but how do we go from like an MVP to a website that is like, awesome? And what are some materials that you would really want? For instance, I would say an interactive demo.

Ted Van de Berg: If your product allows it.

Jasper de Geif: If your product allows it, indeed. I personally always love kind of like getting my hands on it. And what I love about an interactive demo is that you can essentially kind of like determine yourself what it is that you want to show. Because by now we've Learned that trials 9 out of 10 times don't convert really well. So of course you still see PLG motions, but less and less just because, at least from our data set, it doesn't work as well as a sales LED motion. So how do you make sure that you get that sort of level of trust in that people require in order to convert in a way that allows you to be in charge? Well, I think, uh, an interactive demo is a perfect way to do that.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah, maybe one step before that. Um, it also depends what you need based on the product that you're positioning and the story you try to tell.

Jasper Hissink: Right.

Ted Van de Berg: But some pages that I've seen work well as for instance, how it works page, um, or a why company name question mark page. That really shows okay, your positioning compared to, uh, the alternative. Um, and pages that go deep into use cases. Use case pages. Something to consider.

Jasper Hissink: Oh, makes sense. If we can choose all the bells and whistles, I would have like a nice animation on the header. Just like animation. Some sites, they go all overboard because they think like, hey, this is really cool. We should. Everything should have an animation. But then if you scroll through it, you go completely crazy. But just one nice, simple moving part. If you land somewhere that gives a very premium feel, that will be, uh, my bells and whistles. If you fully build it out. And then too, on the serious note, uh, like having the different snapshots of your website that can function as different entry points. So having, um, like a version of your homepage, but then like for different roles, uh, for different industries, um, for different segments so that you can retailer your story and uh, the messaging towards like that specific segment and you can use it and of course as an endpoint through Google Ads or LinkedIn or ever whatever, you can tailor and really bring it back to like a relevant, uh, irrelevant page. So there would invest nice.

Jasper de Geif: Back to a question that you already started answering. How do we go about building the website. So let's say you're a project manager right now. What is very, very important to take into account?

Jasper Hissink: Make a sitemap, determine which parts you want to have in your V1. Think uh, about which technology you want to use. Like nowadays, like we of course like use webflow for everything for, for all our projects, uh, which I think is an amazing tool. But like have a thought like, what are the needs that you have? How much do you want to make it scalable? Who is going to work on the website? Who is the approver of the project? Who are you going to work with? Do you need a rebrand or you're going to stick with the current brand that you have? Are you guys going to give it a touch up, picking the right partner? If you don't have the skills in house, you want to work with a web agency, a branding agency, both together, uh, freelancers. There's loads of questions actually to go through. You really want to start from uh, from the ground up?

Jasper de Geif: Absolutely. But we're off to a good start. What do you have to add?

Ted Van de Berg: You said so many things that I'm

Jasper de Geif: not sure you weren't paying attention. I'd be honest.

Jasper Hissink: No worries.

Ted Van de Berg: Well, I fell asleep.

Jasper de Geif: I think an important one that you touched upon is working pre agreed versions. And I would probably also say, okay, how many versions then? And what is it based on? It's probably based on the sitemap. If this is kind of like the total website that you want, then what are we going to build in a V1 and a V2 and a V3, et cetera? How much time are we going to take for this one version that we're building now so that it's clear for everyone, okay, this is how much time it's going to cost and then probably also who's responsible for which part and which task? You know, whether we're going to wireframe the whole thing or not, if we're going to work with components or a certain amount of pages, I have my opinion there. But I guess it's kind of like important if you're doing this for the first time that you make a decision there.

Jasper Hissink: What's your thought on the. Do we want to dive in like pages versus components?

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, um, we can do that. Um, kind of depends. Like, okay, is the person that you're working with a marketer? Yes or no? Because there can be some confusion as to what a wireframe is and what a component is.

Jasper Hissink: But do you see this from the perspective as like in your current role or M. As a person buying a website or contacting uh, an agency to

Jasper de Geif: build it, I'm um, seeing it through the lens of our potential listeners. So a head of marketing working with a founder, CEO, does that CEO have a marketing background or does that person have a completely different background? Think finance or whatever it might be. Are they going to be able to answer these questions or is it to them as simple as like, okay, I want to have this website. These are 10 pages that are of vital importance to me. Can you get that live? And when, if that is the case, I would probably just speak of pages and I would make agreements around it with my agency or with the people that are making it in house. For me, if I'm working with a uh, more marketing oriented sort of CEO and we speak the same language, then I'd probably speak about wireframes and components and start with wireframes and essentially decide, okay, how many components do I need in order to fill these wireframes? Based on the work that's been done in the wireframing section, I agree in

Jasper Hissink: terms of communication, depending on the level of knowledge from the CEO or the key stakeholders that you have and how you communicate there. But towards an agency I would now with the experience, I would always advocate for a component based approach, uh, where you always with the agency determine, okay, we're going to get 10 or 20 or 25 components in order to build the full website.

Jasper de Geif: Agreed. And I think it also kind of fits our story because it doesn't always work. But uh, it usually is the case that when you're speaking with a marketing agency they happen to understand marketing and are like aware of what these things mean. So I think that's true. But perhaps for the audience, especially if you just joined marketing, what is a wireframe basically?

Jasper Hissink: Like a blueprint slash, I don't know, an architectural drawing of how your website's going to look like. But without uh, full coloring. There's more like the position of where your copy and visuals live, uh, that you can use to judge on like hey, is this an in? Okay, is this at the end you want to see a wireframe and think through. Does this on an effective way communicate what I want?

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, for me it's a visual representation of a page though. And like the various wireframes make the version of the website that you're going to build.

Ted Van de Berg: It's basically the skeleton of a page. Right. But it's pre designed so it's not really, it's not worth the skin. Yeah, that makes very weird analogy but

Jasper de Geif: No, I uh, mean yeah.

Jasper Hissink: Why would you do it? Like why would you do the wireframe?

Jasper de Geif: It's very simple or at least I like to believe. So you want to get an understanding of okay, what is it more or less going to look like so that you already have an idea of like both copy and design. Obviously it's only going to get better from there but like from a high level point of view you understand what the page is going to look like and what more or less it's going to say because you know it's going to be so proof, you know it's going to be a header, you know it's going to be.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah, uh, I'd say it helps you structure uh, or put an order in information in the message you want to, you want to put out there.

Jasper de Geif: So the next question logically would be what are components then the parts that

Jasper Hissink: make up the page.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah. So sections within each wireframe that you can essentially use and reuse.

Jasper Hissink: Like that's the idea there. Uh, you can uh, nowadays like easily cut and copy, use it in different shapes and formats so you can speed up how fast you can build pages.

Jasper de Geif: Totally moving um, on here and starting about the actual building of the website, obviously you have various tools at your disposal. Um, a couple ones come to mind. There's WordPress, there's Framer, there's HubSpot, CMS, there's even like unbounds, um, Webflow. Not to forget perhaps kind of like an open ended question for now. How do you guys feel about these various tools and what are some of the pros and cons of each?

Jasper Hissink: Yeah, I think they all have pros and cons. I've only worked with the WordPress, HubSpot and Webflow and they all have like ups and downs. But I would build any future website always on webflow. I think the design wise in the end it's one of the most important uh, things of our website like how it looks. And then with HubSpot there was so much like unique code and hard components and very hard to scale in there. And then with WordPress could work but then you need like full time developers to help you out and change uh, change the website.

Ted Van de Berg: To me to really the question also really depends on how is your team structured. I mean I have clients that are on HubSpot CMS because they have barely no marketing team. We weren't involved to build a website yet. They were already doing all of their marketing and sales. They're pretty commercial heavy company. It made sense for them that they use HubSpot CMS. Right. It's also very basic and if you have a team that is a bit more tech savvy, still a smaller marketing team framer is also a good option. If you have an actual bit of an extensive marketing team with also a designer and developer like we have here at Immutit, I think webflow is a very good option.

Jasper de Geif: So just because they happen to be on HubSpot, the CRM, why does choosing HubSpot CMS then make sense to you?

Ted Van de Berg: It's on one hand easier for them to learn. Uh, it's also pretty basic and easy to learn. It's in the same interface as they already use their CRM and stuff. It's. They don't have to leave the tool and work in a different tool. I mean for this customer specifically, it's also the CEO that changes and updates some of the content of the website. It was also part of the sales process. So it's just stuff that they're familiar with.

Jasper de Geif: Right.

Ted Van de Berg: And it's basically no code. Right. Where for webflow you still might need a bit of code experience.

Jasper Hissink: If it's built and like it works then like making edits or updating a blog or changing the copy or adding a form. Like all these things are super easy with like M, a known environment. Whereas if you open up like a webflow, you feel directly like a developer. It's like dart mode, super small letters. It's like loads of different menus. So it's easy to get confused.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah. But then if you have the expertise, which then we in house have, we basically always recommend webflow routes.

Jasper de Geif: I mean it started to sound like HubSpot CMS is actually a great option to go with because it's so easy and you're already in HubSpot, etc. What are some of the downsides then?

Jasper Hissink: Like there's, that's the only advantage from HubSpot, like the HubSpot CMS being in HubSpot, like I built a website through HubSpot, uh, in the CMS and like the reason why I did it was like, hey, this argument of like having everything in one place and like ABM measuring what's happening on your website, all these things like forms, integrated, etc. Uh, I thought back then that's a really strong argument. But then in reality, like the only advantage of HubSpot is that you have this easier user interface that you're already familiar with all the other things like forms or um, uh, who's on your website, abm, all these things you can easily build on top of a webflow or you use, use uh, other platforms for. So it's not so much of a real selling point and having everything in one place that makes you, that makes it really good.

Ted Van de Berg: Yeah. And I'm also not saying that Oxford CMS is a, is a bad cms. I think a very important part of a good website is what is below the surface. So how is the website built, how fast is it, how heavy is it, whatever. And I think in that sense webflow is a bit more um, if you have a developer with the expertise, they can play around a bit more there and make a quality website.

Jasper Hissink: Yeah.

Jasper de Geif: And probably not to underestimate is that your website will also very much look like any other website that is built in HubSpot CMS just because there's relatively few blocks that you can choose from. So it's really nice that your Rev Ops guy or girl is going to be able to build the website, but if it then looks like your five competitors that are all somewhat new, then yeah, the options to differentiate are close to zero. One that we didn't talk much about is uh, Framer. And if you besides a Rev Ops person or you don't even have a rev Ops person, but you do have a good designer that knows how to use Framer, would that be a good option in your case? And if so, yeah. What are kind of like the ups and downs haven't used it.

Ted Van de Berg: I think it's, it's a good option especially in the scenario that you provided just now if you have a bit more uh, if you have a good designer in house or on freelance base and they can work in Framer without being an actual developer like in the middle of the code. Framer is a very good option.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, I tend to agree. I think it's very, very easy to use. I think every designer out there will be able to use it whether junior media or senior. You don't need any sort of coding skills. The only downside is that once you become a bit of a mature company, then you just don't have as many options in the backend as you would have with WordPress, uh, or Webflow. So I think my conclusion would be, let's say I'm starting a company and I don't have a designer at my disposal that knows how to work with um, webflow. I would probably go with Framer, get something off the ground, um, a website perhaps with only five pages, but that looks visually very pleasing and allows you to find the information that you need. In order to buy this at this point in time because it's an early stage startup, probably relatively affordable, uh, product. Okay, get started with Framer, make it easy, make it quick, go live pretty much this week or the week after.

Ted Van de Berg: So you said if you have a designer at your disposal. Yeah, because maybe also to summarize it then HubSpot is very much component based. It's basically HCMS framer you can have a lot of free roam options with. Design wise webflow is a bit of a combination where you have and the design options but also. Well not the components also, but also very much a bit more development heavy.

Jasper Hissink: Right?

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, yeah. Long story short, I would personally never go with HubSpot CMS because I've only seen websites that pretty much look cookie cutter. They all look the exact same. And there's the argument of like okay, you can build it within your CRM, but okay, if you're big enough and you have like this uh, relatively expensive CRM and in various modules of it, you probably also have the money to employ the designer.

Ted Van de Berg: So would you say if you're ahead of marketing, working with a CEO or your CEO that wants to build a new website that rather than staying with HubSpot that is already a CRM, you look for framer designer that can build you in a website as a V1?

Jasper de Geif: Perhaps if I were, if I'm already paying the big bucks for HubSpot, I would probably skip Framer as well and just go with webflow. Just because you don't need to be a developer to use webflow, you need to be a senior designer that has perhaps a uh, bit of front end skills. But I think by now the webflow industry is big enough for you to always be able to find a designer that also knows how to work with webflow. And even if that person doesn't have webflow experience, if you have like a smart person that is a self starter, they'll uh, probably make it their own in like two to four weeks. Speaking of you know, scrappy stuff, how do we, how do we build a homepage? How do we go about that? What are some of the things that are very important and can't miss on a homepage?

Jasper Hissink: Just think that pop into my mind is more like the don'ts for a homepage or like the wrong examples. But uh, in terms of like building up a homepage is like following a structure. I think there's loads of examples from like market one or uh, these guys from blanking on their name that they have it set up as like who you're for, like why you're different, like use cases, proof points. I think just follow one template, like there are multiple good ones and just use it, use that. Like, don't reinvent the wheel. You, um, want to make sure that the homepage is clear and like clarity over being clever. Like a lot of people, they spend like, I don't know, weeks on trying to find the perfect tagline as like the headline. But then at the end, like you're confusing more people than that you're actually helping them.

Ted Van de Berg: I think the structure that listeners could follow is that you have a clear ICP LED hero section. Right? You have um, either below that a problem articulation or an ideal world, uh, articulation, um, followed by the differentiated solution. That's part of your positioning statement. Right? What makes you different, what is the solution? Then you include proof, logo testimonials, case studies, if you have them, if you have access to those. I think a high level how it works should be there as well. Um, maybe zooming in on different use cases if you already have use case pages linked to those and then a strong, very clear cta. Okay, where do we go here?

Jasper de Geif: Love that, love that. Yeah, I think these are very good sections. Personally I kind of like to always break them down into one, kind of like confirm that this is a product that could be for them or that it's just not and then they can bounce and that's good.

Ted Van de Berg: 2.

Jasper de Geif: Excite, 3. Prove and then 4 convert. So the confirm is kind of like the category tag goes into that, for instance, so that people will instantly see, okay, is this the category that I'm active in? If not, I can bounce the buyer mission statement, which is often kind of like the header. Okay, is this indeed what I'm here for? Like can this product do what I'm um, looking to do? Um, some sort of clarity call out. So trusted by X businesses in your industry. So kind of like confirmation of the icp. Is this indeed made for me then in Excite, I would probably say, okay, some sort of benefits section. Okay. Do I indeed benefit from this? The Wyatt. So the differentiation part that you got, um, in your positioning, um, the problem call out. So what did we see and moved us to even start this, AKA perhaps your specific point of view? Well, proof is pretty simple, right? A quote, a stat, a logo component and convert is also pretty straightforward. So just the cta.

Jasper Hissink: Yeah, I like that. The breakdown also the one, the confirmed one is like the five second test. Like if you just show people this Website, they only have five seconds to look at it. Like, do they get what you mean? If you have like a very clever tagline, uh, that doesn't mean anything. They'll be lost. If you have it, just describe, like, as you say very clearly.

Ted Van de Berg: Then, uh, the small sort of thing that our content team often does in the Hero section is these eyebrows. You briefly mentioned eyebrows, maybe. And then above the age, one of your hero sections have a small label of the product category that you're in, that you've chosen in your positioning statement. Um, that really helps us with that. Five second and the confirmed. Awesome.

Jasper de Geif: You mentioned this before.

Jasper Hissink: Restricted by your eyebrows.

Jasper de Geif: You mentioned this before. Uh, it's pretty much never done. You always have to revisit it in order to make it better or make it a better fit for your market at that point in time. How often should it be revisited?

Jasper Hissink: I don't think there's a certain time frame for it.

Jasper de Geif: It should be, but always in your view. Once every five years, Every month, I

Jasper Hissink: think every, uh, your cms, like the living content should be every week, I think your product pages every month, your homepage every three months.

Jasper de Geif: And if we were to break it down into, let's say, little tweaks, which is blogs and new logos that you can add in case studies, that sort of stuff. So, tweaks, One, two, the messaging overhaul, already bigger, and three, a brand upgrade. How often would you say these, these three things are necessary?

Jasper Hissink: It's hard to say when necessary, but definitely doing a reflection slash, deep dive, like, if needed. Uh, like the tweaks, as I said, like weekly. And then the messaging, like, if something like material changes in the product or the company or the strategy, like, then that's a moment uh, to also, like, consider. Like, hey, we're changing the messaging. It also means that the asset of the website needs to be updated. Uh, and for yourself, I would like every three months, like anything in your agenda just to review. It's like, hey, what do we say in the sales calls? What do we have in all the other materials? And does the website actually still make sense? Like it's a story that we tell there still the right one like that? Yeah.

Jasper de Geif: Personally, I think the tweaks are kind of like an ongoing thing. You can literally do that every week, but you should do it at least every quarter. If you don't release a blog every quarter, you probably shouldn't adopt, um, the messaging overhaul. Probably that's like a yearly exercise. But I like what you said. Does it still resonate what we are Saying and do we get kind of like the feedback from the market, whether it does or not, taken from sales calls? Probably. And in a brand upgrade. Yeah. Ah, time it. Everything moves so fast these days. So probably every other year you're due for that. Yeah, that's always a bit of a subjective ah, and personal thing. That was uh, pretty much the end of the episode. Does uh, anyone still have anything to add?

Ted Van de Berg: Maybe some examples of what when it goes right or wrong.

Jasper de Geif: Do you happen to have a good example?

Ted Van de Berg: No, but I thought you.

Jasper de Geif: Yeah, I think we kind of already mentioned it uh, along the way. So that's good. Perhaps to recap kind of like the example with the heavy CEO involvement as to. Okay, what should it do? It should drive leads and then sales can figure out the rest. I think that's kind of like the last thing you want. You want to have a website that tells your story and isn't designed to get leads. Because that might work in the B2C space with just a simple landing page, but definitely not in the high end B2B SaaS space. Yeah, that's pretty much what it comes down to. So in terms of um, the next episode, do you guys have top of mind what the next episode is going to be about? Hint, hint, hint. It's about building the intelligence.

Jasper Hissink: Building the cockpit for your whole go to market team.

Jasper de Geif: Exactly.

Jasper Hissink: So, uh, we're very excited about the next one.

Jasper de Geif: Absolutely. Yes. Apparently ABM Funnel, AKA Account Based Intelligence, um, measuring marketing's early effectiveness through this model that we've been deploying a lot here at Immutid lately with uh, lots of excitement on the customer's end. So uh, we'll take you guys along in the um, how the why and uh, kind of like the setup. So let's go. Let's go. Thanks for listening. Bye.

Ted Van de Berg: Bye.