Winning and Losing with ROI calculators…and a Video Showing Some Great Ones

It is vital to communicate value to your prospects in a concise way. Why is this so important?  According to Gartner’s March 13, 2020 paper, the second most valuable content to B2B buyers is Value Assessment tools. These tools offer a very effective way to showcase your value.

Knowing this, it’s important to be thoughtful when deploying a customer-facing application.  These tools and calculators come in a variety of shapes, flavors, and sizes.  We created a video showcasing our top 5 examples, click here to view the on-demand video!

Before deploying one of these tools, you must determine exactly what you are trying to achieve with the tool.

There are three main objectives to consider:

1. Lead generation
2. Brand building through thought leadership
3. Customer qualification

There are multiple decisions to make tactically when building your ROI calculator.

1. Which content to gate, and which content not to gate?
2. How many fields to collect at the gate?
3. How should the tool be pre-populated with data to maximize the chance it is completed?
4. How complex or simple should the calculator be?

If your goal is lead generation, then we would suggest the following:

1. Create a compelling landing page, with engaging images and/or videos, as well as a picture of the downloadable report that the user will receive upon completion of the tool
2. Require from 1-4 fields for mandatory input, such as an email address, first, and last name
3. Show less dynamic content on the landing page, and more dynamic content after the contact information has been provided
4. A simple, one-page tool is appropriate for this case.

Suggested read: Ultimate guide to customer value management

If your goal is brand building through thought leadership, try this:

1. Refer to an industry expert or research, on your landing page, and describe thoughtfully the types of problems that your customers tend to experience.
2. Include dynamic content (sliders, moving charts) on the landing page, indicating to the user that your primary purpose is to engage and educate
3. Entice your customer to provide their contact information to receive a personalized report that blends industry data and research with information they provided about their business
4. A more complex, multi-page tool is appropriate in this case

If your goal is to qualify customers, then try this:

1. Ask 1-3 quantitative questions on page 1, indicating that the customer will learn what their “total cost of [what they are doing today] is.”
2. The responses to these questions should help determine how closely this user matches your Ideal Client Profile
3. If the customer qualifies for your Ideal Client Profile, entice them to provide basic contact information in order to receive something of value, such as a personalized report that describes options for how to reduce the cost of [what they are doing today].

ValueCore specializes in ROI (return on investment) and TCO (total cost of ownership) calculators, maturity assessment tools, and pricing and margin calculators. We highlight some of our favorite customers’ ROI calculators and describe why we like them in our latest on-demand video.