The COVID-19 pandemic notwithstanding, sales and marketing teams are under increasing pressure to bring it more business.
Every decision they make, every strategy they implement must be carefully considered to ensure it generates positive returns for the business.
Tough, yes, but also a fine time to review existing marketing methods to see how well they fit in today’s environment. To tweak some, employ new ones, and discard those that no longer work.
If you’re looking for actionable digital marketing strategies to drive revenue growth post-covid-19, we have five tactics to share.
1. Understand New Consumer Behavior
According to McKinsey & Company, the online transition is here to stay with most B2B buyers and sellers, preferring self-service and remote engagements.
McKinsey’s survey revealed that just about 20 percent of buyers hope to go back to in-person interactions when Covid-19 related restrictions are relaxed.
B2B customers have turned to video and live chat communication channels to interact with sellers and complete sales.
Post pandemic, sellers need to reimagine the customer journey in line with new customer behavior to minimize friction and accelerate growth.
Here are some questions to consider:
- Are your products/services essential now?
- Has customer engagement with your brand changed? How does this engagement compare pre and post the covid pandemic?
- Have you lost buyers following the pandemic? Which segment of buyers?
- Does your target audience experience the same challenges as they did pre-pandemic?
- What key differentiators best describe your business offerings?
Answering these questions factually allows you to see your present position in the market you serve.
You can then brainstorm economic recovery strategies to help you serve existing customers better, find new customers, and evolve as a business. This will ultimately strengthen your market presence.
2. Video Marketing
Video has received plenty of hype in recent years. It captures viewers’ attention, engages viewers, and gives them a reason to linger on your website.
Video also helps B2B sellers sell otherwise complex products/services in an easier-to-digest way. At least 73 percent of buyers surveyed by Wyzowl showed they preferred watching videos to familiarize themselves with products/services.
Here are some video formats that help drive business results.
- Product/service videos. Create videos for products/services that generate the most income or those you believe have the greatest potential. These videos help qualify audiences well in advance by explaining who your products/services are for, and who may not benefit from them.
- Bio videos. Adding bio videos to your signature to convey who you are professionally and personally helps boost trust among your audiences
- Price videos. Consumers are obsessed with prices, as it helps them quickly determine if the offering is within their price range. If they can’t find this information quickly, it may keep them from engaging your company further.
- Customer journey videos. These videos cover the challenges the customer had, their journey towards finding a solution, including working with your organization and their experience so far. Viewers can relate to the customer in the video and envision how your solutions can solve their problems.
3. Email Marketing
From customer acquisition to retention, email marketing continues to drive business results in B2B circles.
This strategy is ideal for promoting products/services, developing relations with potential, existing, and dormant customers, and keeping your audiences in the loop.
Here are tips to help you boost engagement, conversion, and sales:
- Re-organize your data. As mentioned earlier, many business needs may have changed with the onset of the pandemic. Use marketing intelligence to clean up and revise your data list so that you’re reaching out to brands that may profit from your solutions.
- Identify the decision-maker. We have a tendency to email CEOs believing them to be the decision-makers, which may not always be the case. Find out who handles the procurement process and the decision-makers then construct messages that speak to them all.
- Think profits. Businesses appreciate emails that show them how to increase revenues. Use email to share truthful information on how your solutions may help boost profits.
- Maximize opportunities by automating emails. Sending out dozens of emails daily and responding to queries can be tedious and there’s no telling how many you may miss in the process. With email automation software, you can set up workflows based on certain triggers like sign-ups to ensure you maintain touch with your audience.
4. Cold Calling
Some of the challenges teams contend with when making cold calls include unmotivated prospects and unaddressed phone calls.
Naturally, since companies have cut down spending, choosing to focus on how to increase their own profits without forking out a lot of money.
To increase this strategy’s success, you need to understand your potential customer’s journey and the situation they have found themselves in.
This way, you can compile a tight value proposition that clearly demonstrates how you can help your target customer achieve their goals.
Best practices include:
- Be compassionate. Don’t start pitching the moment you get your prospect on the line. You risk coming across as disconnected and selfish. Find out how the prospect’s business is doing and how the pandemic impacted them.
- Follow up cold leads. Dig up that list of leads you haven’t looked at in months and try your luck. Business goals shifted and a prospect who couldn’t commit before the pandemic may now be ready and willing to do so.
- Capitalize referrals. Ask happy customers to share business referrals that may profit from your offerings and call them up. The mutual connection may help open doors to meetings and conversions.
- Overhaul your script. Avoid using a generic script for all your prospects, rather tweak it to suit the needs, challenges, and expectations of your immediate prospect.
5. Host Webinars
Just like video, webinars have gained traction but unlike the former, webinars are defined by two-way interactions between speakers and attendees.
Through webinars, B2Bs can educate their audience on a topic of their choosing. You can talk about the key features in your offerings, the challenges your solutions solve or share insights into industry trends and developments.
Interested audiences tune in from far and wide, ask questions, and network. Depending on the webinar platform, you can enjoy features like running interactive polls and Q&As, sharing live documents, analytics, and time-zone auto-detection.
Here are tips for hosting webinars:
- Choose the right topic. Audiences are concerned with their needs and how to tackle them. Come up with topics that deal with these needs while offering your solutions as reliable solutions.
- Choose the right equipment. There are multiple webinar platforms on the market to meet every budget and need. Ensure your preferred platform has all the features you would like to use and can host audiences with glitches.
- Consider partnering with others. Industry experts, business partners, and brands in complementary industries can help create holistic experiences for attendees. It’s a perfect opportunity to pool client bases to maximize reach and generate new leads.
- Toot the event. People won’t sign up or attend if they don’t know about the upcoming webinar. Promote the webinar in all the spaces your customers and prospects exist such as social platforms, subscriber lists, and on your website.
